2013, miscellaneous, music, news, songs

Stream/Download: Twin Peaks – “Flavor b/w Come Bother Me”

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Twin Peaks - "Flavor b/w Come Bother Me"
Twin Peaks – “Flavor b/w Come Bother Me”


As I continue to play through all of my favorite releases of the year, trying to put together some sort of end of year compilation, the release that I come back to almost every day is Twin Peaks’ debut LP “Sunken.” I think that I’m going to have to say definitively that that is my favorite release of the year. My one complaint about “Sunken,” though, is that it’s way too short, but I guess that this tiny little single can tide me over until 2014 with its expansive 4 minutes and 17 seconds of material. I’m just going to consider these two songs as “Sunken” bonus tracks.

Both “Flavor” and “Come Bother Me” are considerably more poppy, and considerably less washy/reverbed out. You can take a quick listen to both the tracks above, and then you can head over to the bandcamp page to drop $1 on a download, or send it as a last minute gift.

According to the bandcamp site the single was released on cassette via Tripp Tapes this past Friday, December 20th with a 7″ via Jeffery Drag Records coming soon.

You can buy “Sunken” over here on CD, vinyl, or as a digital download. Check out the video for “Stand In the Sand” off of that album below.

 

2013, music, reviews

Stream/Download: MURDEREDMAN – “Love in Danger”

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MURDEREDMAN - "Love in Danger"
MURDEREDMAN – “Love in Danger”


Murderedman is another band that can slide between experimental rock to metal quite easily without changing anything about their sound. Just by focusing on an element and bringing it out, highlighting it slightly they can completely change the context that their music may be heard in. Referential sound, and by that I mean that they are using their own style and keeping everything within that sound to make allusions to a genre that runs parallel to their own. But, at the same time, this makes Murderedman a band without a genre.

Their sound already comes pretty close to metal, which can be heard in the track “Shadow Survived” especially well. The band describes themselves on their bandcamp page as “a mixture of gothic love songs and hard rock death songs that are sure to leave you breathless.” But, when I think of gothic I usually think of The Cure, or a band that tends toward the equally moody. Murderedman is nothing like The Cure, though the gothic tag is apt in the overall dark and foreboding sound of the vocals that reverberate somewhere in the background, under the sharp sound of the guitars.

MURDEREDMAN

Murderedman’s “Love in Danger” release (is it an EP? Is it an LP? Does that even matter anymore?) starts out with the aforementioned dark and foreboding atmosphere in the track “Sleight of Hand,” with spastic energy and crazed vocals. Sudden guitar blasts punctuate the vocals before everything loses its footing and collapses under its own weight into a noisy pile of rubble. “Sleight of Hand” is the perfect opener, as it pretty much sums up their entire sound, setting up the template off which those delicate shifts can allow for genre jumping.

“Halve the Mind” is another demonic, dark song with distant vocals and a minimal, cyclic guitar line. The sound in general is reminiscent of The Wipers, while the extreme leaps of range in the guitar remind me of another band that I wrote about just recently, Bbigpigg. When blastbeats are added to the mix, such as in “In Love While Sober,” an element that you don’t even realize is missing until it happens, manages to catch you completely by surprise one second and then making total sense within the overall aesthetic the next.

Short bursts of odd time signature off-kilterness as in “My Catastrophe” complement some of the more fleshed out tracks. Though, in my opinion sometimes the shorter tracks seem as though they work better than the 3+ minute tunes. The shorter tracks showcase one idea and don’t include any development where they really don’t need any. Sometimes, though, the sound of the band, because it is so singular and characteristically original, it begins to come off as a bit redundant. That’s why the shading of the sound is such an important aspect, it allows them to experiment within their structures, to find a sound, to try out a bunch of different things.

I always enjoy hearing albums such as this that show a band that is exciting and willing to try new things while being able to present these exploratory albums. You can head over the their bandcamp to hear the whole thing, or check it out above. And according to the band’s website though they are on a break for the Winter, they will be back in the Spring with some new tracks. You can also head over there for some other downloads.

2013, 2014, albums, miscellaneous, music, personal, thoughts

The Year in Music Ahead (hopefully)

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It’s safe to say that 2013, as far as music is concerned, is over. For the better part of a month every music blog has been writing about their favorite albums of the year, producing list after list after list of best song, best album, as well as separate lists for every genre under the sun. I’ve done my best to avoid it, choosing instead to do full album reviews of albums that I feel are worth talking about and that I had missed during the year. I thought that a better thing to do might be to write about some of the albums that I am hoping to see in the year ahead. There are a lot of artists that were silent in 2013, some of which haven’t produced in album in several years, which could be surprising depending on the artists. Here’s what I hope to hear in 2014:

Spoon

When “Transference” came out in 2010 Spoon had felt like that reliable band that churned out album after album, with solid results. It’s not that they were predictable, per se, as much as they were completely dependable. Going back as far as “Girls Can Tell,” not just a classic Spoon album, but a classic album in general, Brit Daniel and Jim Eno have been turning out unshakably poppy, tuneful albums. From what I remember “Transference” seemed to take a step back from all that, not reaching to the heights of their previous, fantastic, ridiculously named, “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga.” Though I think that “Transference” is a fine album, it’s not necessarily my go-to when I pull a Spoon album off the shelf. Brit went off and did an album with a newly formed band, The Divine Fits, which was actually really good catchy retro-synth pop (can we consider music that is reminiscent of the 80’s retro now?). Here’s to hoping that Spoon returns to the fold in 2014 and that their nearly 4 years away from the studio allowed them to rest up and re-group to record some great new tracks.

Titus Andronicus

Speaking of indie-rock stalwarts, Patrick Stickles’ New Jersey based punk rock band has three absolutely perfect albums under their belt. “The Airing of Grievances” is about as good as a debut album can get, and then they put out “The Monitor,” one of the best albums that I have ever heard. “Local Business” stripped back some of the high concept of those first two albums and delivered some straight ahead riff-based rock that shows the band easily churning out a full album’s worth or singles. Seeing the band this past September and accosting Stickles at the merch table (ok accost is a strong word, but I did talk to him when he clearly did not want to talk) he said that they would have a new album “ready to go in 14 months.” I remember this specifically because that was a strange number. Anyway, I hope that’s true, and I look forward to a new Titus album in November 2014.

Shellac

I’m a huge Shellac fan. I’ve written about Albini’s casual mention earlier this year of a new album being ready to go (and then I went on to write about something completely different, but trust me it’s in there somewhere). Who knows what the hell will happen though. It’s not like the band needs the money, or is even in it for that reason. Whenever they put it out they’ll put it out and then probably tour a little bit behind it and then lock themselves in the studio again to work. I know that this is probably an unpopular opinion, as their fans are pretty fanatical and unmutable in their view of the band, but I really didn’t like their last album “Excellent Italian Greyhound,” so I’m especially looking forward to the next one. Here’s to hoping that it is closer in sound to “At Action Park,” or whatever.

Japandroids

If you’re going to release albums that are barely a half hour long, I’m going to want more than one every few years. I know that they have said repeatedly that they hate being in the studio, but unfortunately it’s a part of life. Both of their releases have been stellar so far, and I’m sure that whatever they come up with next will not be disappointing, so I hope that they get on it.

Twin Peaks

My favorite album of 2013. But I have the same complaint as with Japandroids. I mean, the album was EP length at best. I hope that this group of young kids has another great album in them because “Sunken” was an enviable debut and if they can pull off another album that good I think their status will be solidified as a force in the music world, whereas right now they are just hopefuls.

of Montreal

Of course I’m going to say of Montreal. I’ve loved everything that they’ve done, and sure “Lousy With Sylvianbriar” just came out barely a few months ago, but Kevin Barnes has been on a good run, releasing a lot of music year after year and constantly taking his writing to new and exciting places. With every twist and turn I’ve been on board, so let’s see how much farther he can take it.

That just about sums up what I am hoping for in the coming year. Of course I’m also looking forward to the unexpected, the bands that haven’t released anything yet and therefore aren’t on the radar. That is always the most exciting part of writing a blog, the getting new stuff dropped into the mailbox, or linked to on soundcloud. So here’s to another year of new sounds by bands new and old, the expected and the unexpected.

 

2013, albums, miscellaneous, music, personal, thoughts

In Memoriam Sonic Youth Part VIII: “Experimental, Jet Set, Trash and No Star”

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Sonic Youth - "Experimental, Jet Set, Trash and No Star"
Sonic Youth – “Experimental, Jet Set, Trash and No Star”

“Experimental, Jet Set, Trash & No Star” was the first new album that Sonic Youth released since I had started listening to them a few years before, or maybe it was just the year before. Anyway, for that reason I still think of it as a “new” album of theirs even though it isn’t really a new album at all. It came out in 1994, which means almost 20 years ago. Great, if I wasn’t feeling old already, now I definitely am.

More importantly I think of this album, still, as their “acoustic” album. I know that this isn’t true by any stretch of the imagination, but I think that I got this idea stuck in my head based entirely on the first track “Winner’s Blues,” which did feature heavily acoustic guitars, bright sounding, clear, acoustic guitars, with Thurston singing through one of those bullet mics that are usually used by blues singers. It just had this whole different sound to it than I was used to from what I had heard from them up to that point.

I feel like to a certain degree that album is a bit of a lost relic or something. And, now that I think about it, I feel like maybe “Dirty” is too, though “Goo” manages to hold on to some status as an iconic album, if for nothing else because of the album art and the fact that it was the band making the leap from indie status to a major label. But this “lost relic” idea is something that I experience myself foisting onto the album. I don’t often think of listening to this one, and when I do – because it is usually a long time between listens for me – I always get this overwhelming feeling of hearing these songs for the first time all over again.

Again, when I had this album I had it on tape, and I remember the “run-out groove” sound bite that comes in at the end of the album always (and still does) caught me by surprise and scared the shit out of me (it still does that too). If you aren’t familiar with it, go and listen to the last song on the album and then just sit back and wait and tell me that that doesn’t make you panic for at least a few seconds.

This album is a little bit less balanced than anything they had previously done. First of all, throwing off the balance completely, is that this is the first album to not have any tracks by Lee Ranaldo. There are some straight ahead rockers like “Waist” and “Starfield Road” as well as the blues based “Screaming Skull” and the surprising radio “hit” “Bull in the Heather.” If any band was going to take extended guitar technique and turn it into a pop hook, what better band to do it than these guys?

The point is,  basically, that there is a division here. It’s a point of departure. Sure there were noisy parts on the album, but overall the production is crystal clear. Songs are starting to get stripped down a bit, the band is getting more comfortable working in slower songs and letting the silences speak for themselves. This is an element that will come into even more play when they release “Washing Machine” another couple years down the road.

I guess that today I am really writing this post for myself because I need to remind myself that this is an album that is worth going back to and spending more time with. This album is worth knowing better than I currently know it. I’m attaching the video to “Bull in the Heather” below for a few reasons: first reason is that it is very painfully of the time. Kathleen Hanna dancing around and clawing at Thurston, jumping all over the band, the fashion, the attitude, all very 1990s. I also remember seeing this video quite a lot on regular MTV rotation, and of course on 120 minutes, not to mention the number of spins that it got on local independent radio station 90.5 WBER. Take a listen, and then go back and relisten to the entire album. It’s amazing how much a band can change their sound and keep things consistent.

2013, albums, music, reviews, video

The year in review: Small Black – “Limits of Desire”

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Small Black - "Limits of Desire"
Small Black – “Limits of Desire”

It makes me happy to know that the band with the ironic name that I thought was only going to have one good EP, a s/t 2010 release on Jagjaguwar, that I would listen to until I got sick of it (like that ever happens) managed to get a full length album out this year. It makes me even happier that “Limits of Desire” is an album that is definitely worth writing about, and finds the band exploring their sound and different musical directions within that sound.

Though initially lumped in with other chillwave (thanks, Hipster Runoff, for giving us that genre label before falling into complete irrelevance, bro) artists like Washed Out and Neon Indian, they are moving closer to electronic music similar in style to Starfucker. From the opening synth of “Free at Dawn,” to when the vocals enter on that track, it becomes clear that this is going to be a cleaner album, bereft of the grit that permeated large swaths of their previous EP. So call them synthpop, or call them chillwave, or forget the label altogether and just listen.

What comes through, beyond all the labeling, are songs that reach for status as electronic anthems replete with drum machine beats that are mixed clear and clean, right up front. And there is a fine line between chillwave and soft-rock, however, and some of the album is a bit fuzzy on which side of the line it is on. Without the grit and graininess of the EP some of the edge is lost. This is most notable on “Canoe,” its layer upon layer of galactic synth sounds taking over the entire track. Thankfully these moments of soft-rock-bordering are balanced with some buzzier synths.

Before we make a hasty decision to file “Limits of Desire” alongside Destroyer’s smooth-jazz-tastic “Kaputt” it should be noted that the melodies within these songs are something worth remembering. Small Black doesn’t stop at texture and timbre without delivering on a whole lot more.

You can check out their video for “No Stranger” below, and head over to their official site for more. “Limits of Desire” was released May 14th and is available from Jagjaguwar.

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2013, live, miscellaneous, music, news, songs

New music from Basic Cable, Thee Oh Sees and The Delay in the Universal Loop

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I have a few different things that I’m working on right now that are going to take some more time to write than I have right now, but luckily I have an inbox full of music that I am trying to get through. I figure that now, toward the end of the year where new releases are getting fewer and farther between that I would do some housecleaning and share with you some of the very worthwhile stuff that I have been checking out.

First up is some heavy garage rock coming from our friends at Permanent Records in Chicago and L.A. The band is Basic Cable and the release is titled “I’m Good to Drive.” Officially released just two days ago “I’m good to drive” is the 39th release on Permanent Records’ own label. The track is a lot cleaner in production than other garagey offerings coming our way from the P-rex crew, but still delivers all the noise and reckless abandon that anyone could hope for. Take a listen to the track “Blonde Ambition” below.


Next up: what kind of a week would it be if Thee Oh Sees didn’t release something. The stream of non-stop ass-kickers continues with “What You Need (The Porch Boogie Thing),” reminding us that the band has released their 3rd singles collection, available now from Castle Face, there are still a few copies of the Pepto Pink vinyl left, as well as CDs. Listen to the track below, it’s exactly what you’d expect from Thee Oh Sees, and they are never ones to disappoint. Oh, and while you are over there at Castle Face, why not pick up a copy of the new White Fence Live in San Francisco recording, and I should add that I picked up the Fuzz EP live from the San Francisco Eagle, and that record (recorded direct to tape) sounds amazing. Guitar crunch and gut punching bass for days.

Thee Oh Sees – What You Need (The Porch Boogie Thing)

And now for something completely different. The Delay in the Universal Loop is from Benevento, Italy and they just released an album this past week entitled “Disarmonia.” The track below is “Spasmodica,” a song which starts off delicately enough, but takes a few twists and turns in the course of 4 minutes. The 17 year old Dylan Luliano is responsible for every aspect of the album, playing all the instruments, singing and writing all of the songs. More information and tons of links can be found here. “Disarmonia” is available worldwide right now. And you should maybe act fast because apparently there are an extremely (30?!) limited number of physical copies available. Head to the bandcamp page to check it out. 
 

 

Enjoy those, and follow the links to some of the other stuff available from the Factum Est and Permanent Records soundcloud pages. Lots of worth stuff there.

2013, albums, music, reviews

New Release: Exotic Club – “No Dance”

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Exotic Club - "No Dance"
Exotic Club – “No Dance”

 

 
Exotic Club’s dark dance music is an intoxicating mix of seemingly mismatched elements. “Alienation,” clearly visible against a dark night-time sky as backdrop. The album art is a perfect description the music contained within.

Well, it’s dance music for sure, while at the same time the effect of disassociation can not be overlooked. Exotic club uses the clean drum machine sounds and buzzing synths of a dance club, adding dark sounding, low and cavernously echoing vocals. When combined with the dancier elements the vocals seem to eschew the very aesthetic against which they are placed. The poppy, upbeat dance beats are not just countered, but downright denied. This is, as the title of the album states, no dance album. It’s dance music that is brooding and dark rather than the light, vapid instrumentals of the music that typifies a dance club. It’s dance music that’s run through an Interpol “Turn on the Bright Lights” filter.

I know that as I started to dig into this tape I found myself overcome with a sense of, maybe not anxiety, but more of a cautious and contemplative paranoia. Exotic Club has really found a direct line to some strange emotive places seldom explored. The desperately pleading vocals that come out of this dark texture, with lyrics such as “it’s Friday night, it’s Friday night, on the dance floor,” on “Lost in Music” that seem on the surface, reading them right there, like they are inviting and celebratory, but the delivery thwarts that interpretation in its droned repetition. The surface of the music, the danceable beats, drum machine hand claps, and buzzing synths paint a picture of a carefree night, while the lyrics and their delivery seem to simultaneously mock it. Ok, mock is a strong word, but listening to the track I think that the lyrics would be better translated as “it’s Friday night and you are supposed to be having a good time on the dance floor, so go have a good time because that is what it is that you are supposed to be doing.” Obviously, their lyric is better.

The robotic exactitude of the arrangement aids in the disassociation, by stripping away any human element, giving a deeper meaning to the coerced good time that the song is suggesting. Taking it out of the club is the track “American Zombies.” It uses the mechanical instrumental arrangement and dark atmosphere to comment on American consumer culture. “Runnin’ around in circles at the Walgreens, toothless smiles…,” listing off the automaton gestures that dominate the vast majority of American’s lives, and repeating each of these things line by line in a trancelike mantra, urging against deviation. Must consume. Must obey. “Forever, forever….forever….” as it is heard echoing into infinity at the conclusion of the track.

Melodies swirl and beats pulse, but don’t for one second take the music on Exotic Club’s “No Dance” as a given.

The tape, featuring a B-side full of remixes, is out now on Crash Symbols. Head over to their bandcamp to pick up a copy (only 100 made), or to download it if you aren’t into the whole physical media thing.

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2013, albums, miscellaneous, personal, thoughts

In Memoriam Sonic Youth Part VII: “Dirty”

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Sonic Youth - "Dirty"
Sonic Youth – “Dirty”

This is how it all started for me. When I bought my first Sonic Youth CDs from a friend at middle school that had way better taste in music than me and for some reason (I still have no idea why anyone would want to do this) but he didn’t want his Sonic Youth CDs anymore, or “Goo” and “Dirty” anyway. And even though I got both of those recordings at the same time I decided on listening to Dirty first,maybe because it was the most recent? Or maybe because I just liked the opening of “100%” the best. Not sure. Can’t remember. Not important. What is important is that I dubbed that thing to a side of a Maxell and played it incessantly.

I remember just being outside listening to the album on my walkman. I can’t remember exactly what I was doing, all I remember is that I was standing there. Just standing there in our backyard listening to “Dirty” on headphones. I listened to it walking to school, mowing the lawn, riding my bike aimlessly around our housing tract. At some point, knowing nothing about the band I remember thinking that they really could just do anything that they wanted. They didn’t sound like anything I had ever heard, and there was so many “mistakes” all over the place, there was so much displaced noise and feedback and just all these parts where I couldn’t tell what the hell was going on at all. Instead of dismissing it immediately, there was something about the sound of the album overall that kept me hooked. In my mind, from this point on, they could do no wrong (and how was I supposed to know that they were eventually going to release “New York City Ghosts and Flowers” or “A Thousand Leaves”?), they were the leaders, they knew better than anyone else. I didn’t know why I thought that (and I still don’t know what led me to think that) but I believed it.

100%

The noisy opening of “100%” still sounds anthemic to me. It’s a really great way to open an album. The sound just explodes into existence like nothing else that they had ever done. Just think all the way back to “Confusion is Next” and “Bad Moon Rising” all the way up to “Goo,” none of their album openers were this immediate and attention getting. None of their album openers were, quite plainly, this loud. Of course, I didn’t know that at the time, but this may be, now that I think about it, the only album of theirs that opens so noisily.

And “Swimsuit Issue” and “Drunk Butterfly” featuring Kim Gordon’s jagged, forced vocals, might have been one of the first times that I had ever come to know a band that had more than one person taking on vocal duties. It would be several months at least before I realized that, in addition to Thurston, Lee actually sang some of the songs too. Not long after those realizations was noticing the different styles of each of their songs. Sure, “Teen Age Riot” is a different song entirely from “Hey Joni,” just like “100%” and “Wish Fulfillment” were completely different here.

Sugar Kane

Then there is the song “Nic Fit.” At the time that was my favorite. Of course, I couldn’t rewind the tape over and over to listen to the song. Not only was that a pain in the ass (not to mention I was impatient) but it would drain the battery when I could listen to the album a few more times instead. I would just have to wait for it to come around again. It still doesn’t sound like the same band to me. It’s clear to me now that part of the reason that that song sounds so different is that it was recorded live, and/or direct to tape. Something about that recording is just gritty, it sounds like it might have been done on a hand-held recorder. At the time I didn’t really think about those considerations as much as I just wanted to hear it because it was fast, sloppy and noisy. Listening to “Nic Fit” made me feel like I was listening to honest, old-school punk. The ending of that song, where it all collapses into slack-stringed destruction with Thurston intoning “tell nothing but the truth,” well that pretty much was just it for me.

Chapel Hill

I still think of “Dirty” fondly, though come to think of it I don’t really listen to it that much anymore. Lately (this week) I’ve been gravitating more toward the later stuff, particularly the SYR albums. But that is a discussion for another time. Looking back on “Dirty” I guess that I am glad that I came to know the band while they still had some youthful energy left in them. A few more great albums were ahead of them.

2013, albums, music

New Release: Julie’s Haircut – “Ashram Equinox”

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Julie's Haircut - "Ashram Equinox"
Julie’s Haircut – “Ashram Equinox”

Julie’s Haircut is an Italian pysch band, though I’m really trying to think of a point of reference to clue you into the essence of their sound. There are elements of Stereolab in the synth work, but those are criss-crossed with more complex atmospherics, akin to Air’s output.

And that might be a good jumping off point. Julie’s Haircut is creating atmospheric, meditative psych-prog with songs that would fit nicely onto “Moon Safari” or some of the more kraut-rock inspired, motoric Stereolab tracks. I don’t think that those two things need to be mutually exclusive, and the pieces on “Ashram Equinox” explore the sound possibilities of mixing these two worlds to varying degrees. Where “Johin” is more of a driving force, with a persistent rhythmic backbone and droning harmony, “Taarna” is more melody driven, with buzzing and echoed synths casting long lines over top, finishing out with textless vocals, adding a rich complexity to the texture as the piece draws to a close.

I hear the album not only as an exploration of the atmospheric and the motoric, but also as an overall arch form where middle track, fittingly named “Equinox,” is nothing but mood, color and drones. But added to that mix is an unmistakable Eastern influence, imitating tabla and the tense sounds of an Oud, managing to evoke an entire landscape with only a few plucked notes.

The latter half of the album continues the trajectory of the first, the balancing act, with more moody instrumentals and driving rhythms. “Taotie” is the most active track on the album, perhaps calling to mind Kraftwerk’s “Tour De France,” while album closer “Han” uses silence effectively to create more space in the texture with a beautiful simplicity that seems to me to the best way to close an album. The relative silence and calm of “Han” focuses on one short repeated keyboard phrase, cycling around in minimalist contemplation.

“Ashram Equinox” was released on Crash Symbols on October 11th, and as such is currently available from their bandcamp page. The cassette is limited to 100 and are still available. Personally, the artwork goes so well with the album it is definitely worth the few dollars to get a physical copy of the album. In my opinion, it’s always nice to have something tangible anyway. Check out the album above and visit Julie’s Haircut’s site for more info and downloads. And be sure to check out the videos below that work as companion pieces to the album.

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2013, albums, music, reviews

Year in Review: Beach Fossils – “Clash the Truth”

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Beach Fossils - "Clash the Truth"
Beach Fossils – “Clash the Truth”

In 2010 Beach Fossils put out, in my opinion, one of the best albums of that year. That self-titled release paired well with Real Estate’s debut, combining to form a genre of breezy, sun-showered, effortless tunes. Actually, those albums came out at about the same time that Hipster Runoff coined the term “chillwave,” and at some point I thought these were the bands the new genre was created for. I think it would work either way.

“Clash the Truth” brings back the sound of the debut while adding a few nice touches. Thankfully the ringing, delayed guitar is back – obviously a key component to what it is that makes them Beach Fossils. Thankfully though it’s a little more under control this time around. I remember “Lazy Day,” on the 2010 release, where the guitar strings were made to ring so much that an overtone could be heard sounding over top of the rest of the mix, in an additive sound that was borderline ear piercing.

On this most recent release the guitars are cleaned up, and overall everything is fine-tuned. The addition of an acoustic guitar on “Sleep Apnea” adds something that we haven’t heard yet. Immediately following is “Careless,” taking a bit more of an energetic approach, pushing their sound to the edge of perhaps something bordering on new-wave nostalgia.

Careless

Speaking of which, so often I find myself coming back to that word with its relation to music: nostalgia. It seems like that is one of the most effective ways to create meaningful, emotionally relevant music. If a sound can tune into some sort of sense of familiarity then it’s already halfway to making a deeper connection. Boards of Canada accomplishes this through the vintage instruments, so does Neon Indian, Beach Fossils, to me, is a little bit more mysterious in how they are creating their familiarity. Maybe it’s the echo and reverb that drenches everything, or the breathy, extended legato melodic lines over top of jittering guitars and motoric drums. Imagine Joy Division, and now imagine that they were actually enjoyable to listen to and not dark and depressing, I think that is what “Clash the Truth” is.

Caustic Cross

There are a few devices that the band continually returns to, a few guitar fills that come back song after song, and even the melody line of the voice grows a little tired after a while, seeming to trace and re-trace the same path. It’s the explorations into new timbres that makes the album interesting. The distorted bass over top of brightly strummed steel string acoustic guitar, all while the bouncing delayed electric guitar continues to cast its light onto the entire texture of “Birthday” is what makes that song stand out. The same goes for the guest vocal appearance of Kazu Makino adding another layer of breathy whispers to “In Vertigo.”

It’s great that Beach Fossils was able to follow up their debut with just as solid an album as “Clash the Truth” is. Their really molding their sound, finding different ways to develop and explore their sound, changing just enough to make it noticeable, while not so much where it is a shocking departure. Now if they could just stop their habit of ending some of their songs on scale degree 2….

The album is available on vinyl or CD from Captured Tracks, and you can check out their soundcloud here.

 

Better than Pitchfork.