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2011, albums, groovemine, music, reviews

Album review: White Fence – "Is Growing Faith"

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For the past few years the retro-60’s sound has been featured very prominently in several albums that have made a lot of music fans stand up and take notice. Take for example Best Coast, Caribou, Deerhunter, MGMT and the list goes on. Well, all of that can stop now because White Fence has given us the peak of perfection when it comes to that retro sound.

Specifically stated White Fence’s album, “Is Growing Faith” is, at first glance, freak folk. The freakiest of freak folk. I would even dare to say that at some points this album borders upon sounding like outsider music a la Jandek, or Daniel Johnston in its strange, almost uninviting sound. The fact that their sound is reminiscent of Buffalo Springfield, early Dylan and The Left Banke while at the same time sounding as if it was all recorded on the shoddiest of equipment in a bedroom somewhere truly places this album in a category of its own. To say that it didn’t initially kind of frighten me would be a lie. There are, however, really catchy tracks on this album and its like no other album I have heard, or at least it doesn’t sound like anything I’ve heard done recently.

The lo-fi to the extreme approach in some of the songs is, admittedly, something that needs to be listened-through at first. There is a bit of a learning curve, or “accessibility curve” to this album. Like I said, it’s not outwardly inviting, but if you stick with it and really surrender to the world in which the music exists then there really are some hidden gems to be found. “A Pearl is not a Diamond” has an early psychedelic folk-rock feel to it with ethereal vocals and overdriven guitar that pans wildly from one side to the other while “Tumble, Lies and Honesty” strips everything back to just acoustic guitar, an early sounding vintage synth with its monotone buzz vibrating in the background throughout and tongue clucks used for percussion. Some of the songs sound as if at any minute they are going to fall apart completely, for example “Lillian (Won’t You Play Drums?)” with its off kilter drum machine and synth from the song it follows sounding off an atonal line that is buried beneath everything.

Imagine The Beatles discovering LSD while they were working on their first albums. What would “Love Me Do” sound like if John was taking acid? I suppose one could say that is what early Pink Floyd sort of sounded like with Syd Barrett at the helm. There is a taste of the west-coast surf rock vibe added to the mix via a good amount of the requisite reverb on everything, adding yet another dimension to the music. The guitars are rarely distorted, instead a clean and twangy tone is used throughout. The singing style of Tim Presley, the mastermind behind White Fence, even sounds like something from British Invasion era rock and roll.

Tim Presley of White Fence

The DIY element seems evident at the beginning and ending of nearly every song where snippets of other songs appear and are abruptly cut off. The tape stretches and warbles throughout, throwing the tempo askew and generally having a disorienting effect. The tempo shifts from the varying tape speed are not the only disorienting part of the album. It is quite an interesting experience listening to this work because my mind is telling me the whole time that there is now way that this was not created in the 60’s. I start to make up reasons as to why it is only being released now: Perhaps this is some lost or forgotten tape. But then a song like “Body Cold”, that is a little harder driving, begins and I’m torn by its farfeesa organ sound combined with a sinewy hard rock guitar. Then there are other moments like in the song “When There is No Crowd” when the lyrics speak of “[the] Summer of 2000, six years past the date and I wondered if I would come back…” which takes me completely out of focus for a few seconds each time I hear it. Up until that point in the album I find that I am completely immersed to the point where I have actually convinced myself that I am listening to an album from the 60’s. There is also “The Mexican Twins” which sounds to me to be directly influenced by The Mothers of Invention’s 1968 album “We’re Only in it for the Money”.

“Your Last Friend Alive” runs directly into “Enthusiasm”, the latter song actually starting before the prior song finishes. The tape then fades out and back in again as if it was a  last minute decision to leave the song in, or as if it is Presley improvising on the chord progression and later coming up with a use for it. Things like this give the album the feeling of it being produced as a home tape, distributed to friends. The track “Enthusiasm” really captures that surf-rock sound, though with a lot of background noise added to the mix and wild, erratic drumming while the country swagger of “Stranger Things Have Happened (To You)” is one of the most immediately inviting songs, complete with a catchy hook and bridge.

White Fence has outdone everyone with their retro stylings. Though, like Zappa, there may be “no commercial potential” for this album it is most certainly a statement being made about returning to core songwriting elements. The songs fit together like a run on sentence, or more like a stream of consciousness. The lo-fi, DIY sound, though initially offputting, actually grows to make the album to feel more like an intimate, homemade and tape-traded affair. If you spend some time with this album you will be rewarded.

[audio:http://quartertonality.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/16-You-Cant-Put-Your-Arms-Around-a-Memory.mp3|titles=You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory] [audio:http://quartertonality.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/06-A-Pearl-Is-Not-a-Diamond.mp3|titles=A Pearl Is Not a Diamond]
2010, albums, groovemine, music

Album review: X-Ray Press "Uvb – 76"

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Prog-rock has been around for quite a long time now. Though its roots can be traced back to jazz fusion many bands eschew those undertones in search of a new sound that still retains the complexities in the music but not so much the jazzer attitude that can come off as overly pretentious. Nobody wants to end up sounding like Yes, or (it pains me to type this…) Emerson, Lake & Palmer after all. X-Ray Press has created one of the more complex albums that holds a firm footing in the prog world, but is still so much more.

From the opening of the first track, “Everybody, This Is Everyone (And Nobody Cares)”, the guitar tone reminds me of Shellac. The aggressiveness of the music also matches Shellac’s own ethos in some ways, and though they can both be considered to be creating “math-rock” (a genre that side-steps the aforementioned jazz influences found in progressive rock but still holds to the same “complexity for complexity’s sake” constantly shifting time signatures) Shellac would never consider creating an album with songs that are linked thematically forming a deeply woven story about living in the modern age. X-Ray Press’s angle is more similar to that of The Dillinger Escape Plan, with more than just a nod to their metal leanings, but with not as much of the dialed up anger as Dillinger, and cleaned up a bit. Though there is not an overt jazz sound there are glimpses of its interesting harmonies and song structure that can sound reminiscent of “Starless and Bible Black” era King Crimson as in tracks like “Chord and Mumble” and “Holy Ghost, USA“. But then again, doesn’t every prog band have some element or other that points back to King Crimson in some way? There are also strains that sound like Pink Mountain’s avant–garde improvisations in “Bad Beard (God Under Oath).

Hopefully this will give you an idea of the truly rich palette these guys are working from. Of course, it’s little bits here and there, nothing overtly derivative or “ripped-off” from anyone. Strongly influenced yes, but X-Ray Press really does seem to be doing something different. With “Uvb-76” they have taken a rather complex structured album and, where most bands would leave the tracks at 20+ minutes in length, X-Ray Press is carving out little gems that are much more easily grasped because of their forgiving song length of 2 to 5 minutes. This makes for a prog album that is in your face and quite possibly “radio-friendly”. A significant amount of punch is packed into the 2 minutes of “Cubicle Racist” and “Thin Mint, FSA“.

X-Ray Press - "Uvb -76"

The concept of the album is primarily one of anger and frustration directed toward the world at large which eventually arrives at acceptance through discovering some way in which one can transcend, on ones own, the problems that are continually faced through creative action of some sort. In short: making lemonade from the lemons that life seems to perpetually dish out. From being just another automaton to making something out of ones life and moving on. The album is divided into 2 acts of sorts: I. Thought and II. Action. The first of these is divided up into 2 “scenes” while the 2nd is divided into 3. These “acts” are broken up by haunting, short piano interludes that appear between scenes. It sounds to me like a prepared piano (a concept first invented and developed by the American 20th Century avant-garde composer John Cage) where the strings are somehow stopped or otherwise prevented from resonating.

I told you it was a heady concept…

As mentioned before, their math/prog leanings means that the time signatures do not sit still for a second, switching all over the place before one can even begin to sort out where the downbeat is. As for the substance of the songs though, and there is a lot of substance that goes far beyond complex time signature changes and polymeter, the band has a way of working elements into each song that find them interlocking into a groove for a short time before pulling themselves apart again to go their own separate ways. The inclusion of a Rhodes piano to the ensemble adds to the hint of jazz influence as well as melding well with the guitar tone. It has the ability to sound like the guitar feeding back, but also adds to the bright high end of the guitar, often doubling it though you wouldn’t know until they choose to go their separate ways.

There is a lot to this album, but knowing the kind of fanaticism and dedication to detail that fans of this type of music are I’m sure that very little of it will be lost. If this is a sign of music to come in 2011 then we’d all better hold on because it is going to be an intense ride.

And check it out! You can stream the entire album at the band’s own bandcamp site!

Or, if you are in a hurry, I have uploaded two tracks below.

[audio:http://quartertonality.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/XRayPress-07_Cubicle_Racist.mp3|titles=XRayPress-Cubicle Racist] [audio:http://quartertonality.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/XRayPress-12_Holy_Ghost_USA.mp3|titles=XRayPress-Holy Ghost USA]
2010, albums, groovemine, music, reviews

Album review: Pepper Rabbit – "Beauregard"

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Pepper Rabbit, with their most recent release, “Beauregard”, have produced a stripped down, folky version of ethereal dreampop with a bit of honky-tonk barstool blues added to the mix. The music has a familiar sound that is quite inviting, like music that friends would make some evening while sitting in front of a fire. The traditional “rock band” sound has been expanded to include clarinet, trumpet, ukulele, and mandolin, all of which assist in providing the songs with the aforementioned “folk” sound. The creative instrumentation doesn’t seem to bog down the process though. Each instrument is given proper consideration and space and most importantly never seem to not be exactly what the song calls for. Pepper Rabbit seem to be going against the “army of people on stage” ethos of Broken Social Scene and the like. Less is more in terms of orchestration. Finding just the right sound is much more preferred to figuring out parts for everything all the time. I think that the best way to get across an accurate description of Pepper Rabbit’s sound would be to compare them to a less guitar driven, less crowded sounding Arcade Fire. Pepper Rabbit can be quiet and introspective in much the same manner as Grizzly Bear, and they hit all the right emotional spots.

Pepper Rabbit photo by Brittney Bush Bollay (http://www.threegigs.com)

The songs are hopeful, catchy, sentimental, reminiscent and perhaps a bit remote and sorrowful, yet Pepper Rabbit singer and multi-instrumentalist Xander Singh, bassist Shay Spence, and drummer Luc Laurent are able to turn that sorrow into a celebratory remembrance of the past. Their sound is at once haunting and beautiful, to sum it up as succinctly as possible. Feelings are described perfectly with honest lyrics that are set effectively. Take for example the lyric, “That’s when you find there’s nothing there. Drink when you see that no one cares. You said I’ll see you soon, and back there’s the Harvest Moon” from “Harvest Moon”. The trumpet in that track echoes with a little help from the pulsation of a distant organ while the rhythm chugs along through a sea of voices.

With “In the Spirit of Beauregard” the normal pop-tune structure, which the band doesn’t deviate too far from through most of the album, is challenged. The songs goes through several changes with honky-tonk piano, followed by jovial klezmer band clarinets, followed by an upbeat quickstep and back again to the ethereal dreampop in an extended outro. These changes would probably never even occur to most bands, but Pepper Rabbit makes sense of it all in the spirit of pop experimentation.

Pepper Rabbit - "Beauregard"

The warmth of the songs, with layers of instruments with a recognized and welcomed style of thoughtful, introspective lyricism truly helps the music to achieve maximum accessibility. The band seems to also have a unique willingness to stand nearly unadorned and sing touching songs that have the ability to grab the listener’s attention based on the lyric’s emotional content alone. Alternately they can make really big statements with lush orchestrations of those same simple ideas. Take the song “Older Brother”, one of the more stripped down tracks consisting mostly of simple ukulele and voice. Incidentally I feel that “Older Brother” stands out as the song that could be the biggest “hit” with a rather upbeat and catchy chorus. They even tread pretty closely to pure ambience on “Song for a Pump Organ” with drones of sound, waves of voices and a glockenspiel ringing clearly through the cloud of sound.  Anything to help bring a song to life. Nothing seems to be off limits here.

This is certainly one of the more carefully crafted albums to be released recently. It’s great to hear an album where songwriting stands front and center resulting in a moving album with subtlety and style.

Listen: Pepper Rabbit – “Harvest Moon”

[audio:http://quartertonality.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/02-Harvest-Moon.mp3|titles=Harvest Moon]
2010, albums, groovemine, music, reviews

Album review: Motorifik – "Secret Things"

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Motorifik seem to be wasting no time with their debut album, “Secret Things”. Normally one would expect it to take a band at least a few albums to develop a unique and well formed sound. This is not the case with Motorifik, though that may be because its two members are already busy musicians. Phil Kay writes songs for and produces Working for a Nuclear Free City and Idrisse Khelifi is an accomplished French songwriter. Their talents work well together on this album which features a direct songwriting approach and lush production that gives them a mature and distinctive sound right out of the gate. They seem to be going for a huge, spacious sound that is a mixture of shoegaze and perhaps a dash of arena rock, with layers of sound weaving in and out of each other, creating enveloping cascades of sound. Though one could easily draw similarities between this album and those of Working for a Nuclear Free City there are clearly more than a few differences.

Motorifik
Motorifik

The production values that bind this album together are similar to those of Working for a Nuclear free city, but combining that with this direct songwriting approach puts them a bit closer to Phoenix than Kay’s other band. The songs are just as catchy and laden with as many worthy hooks, but the melodies are a bit less angular with several more layers of instruments in the mix. The main focus of this album is the overall sound. The vocals just happen to be adding one more melodic line over top of a mass of guitars, synths and percussion. This isn’t to say that they don’t change their focus from track to track. Motorifik does take care to ensure not to push the production to the maximum threshold for more than a few songs in a row. Elements of shoegaze permeate throughout all the cascades of ever growing sound. The drums sound more like explosions than anything else, with the cymbals adding a hazy layer of resonance most notably in album opening “Secret Things” and “Flames on the Ocean”.

“Nostalgie” dials it back a few notches with sparse guitar and vocals. This more subdued track allows silence to creep in a bit creating a gentler, more subtle and intimate song. This contrasts with “Strange Weather” which serves to be the most brash of the tunes on “Secret Things”. The song begins with some feedback whose growls and squeaks grow increasingly loud before bursting forward with garage rock guitar grinding away for the duration of the song. This album is showcasing the songwriting duo’s desire to experiment with different textures. From song to song there are different approaches to the sound, though a certain thread is woven through the entire album that holds everything together.

Motorifik - "Secret Things"

Speaking of only the production values of the recording and discounting the songs would be a huge mistake though. Like I stated previously the songs are filled with catchy melodies and memorable hooks. For example “Sleep Forever” could easily become an anthem for college students and insomniacs alike with the line “I wish I could sleep, I wish I could sleep, I wish I could sleep forever” that instantly begs to be sung along. “Nameless Color” is similar to “Nostalgie” in that it is one of the subdued and stripped down tracks. The bare acoustic guitar is left untouched by effects here and we get only some delicate echoes from the distance during the chorus. There is a depth and complexity to the songwriting here. Motorifik doesn’t seem to find themselves beholden to any one specific style in particular, much in the same vain as Working for a Nuclear Free City. They are able to create quite a unique and easily recognizable sound with every song.

“Secret Things” is quite a strong debut album. It is one of those records where one can hear how much care and time went into the creation of it from top to bottom. My main concern is how well an album like this will translate in a live setting, because as good as the songs are quite a lot is owed to studio wizardry and production values. Sometimes atmospherics, like the ones so present on these songs, are difficult to pull off in front of an audience. Then again, perhaps allowing the songs to shine through on their own will uncover a new side to them. As far as the album goes though, this is perhaps one of the standouts of this year so far.

Flames on the Ocean:

[audio:http://quartertonality.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/10-FLAMES-ON-THE-OCEAN.mp3|titles=Motorifik – Flames on the Ocean]

Sleep Forever:

[audio:http://quartertonality.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/06-SLEEP-FOREVER.mp3|titles=Motorifik – “Sleep Forever”]
2010, albums, groovemine, music, news, reviews

Braid re-releases on Polyvinyl

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Braid was a band from Champaign-Urbana, Illinois that can be categorized with other early 90’s acts with a guitar driven, aggressive sound. They have the energy and abrasive timbre of Snapcase, the edgy stop-start math rock leaning of Polvo and sometimes the catchy hooks of Husker Du. Their sounds also exploits the kind of jumbled mess of guitars and screams that are each freely exploring all the possibilities of a chosen melodic and harmonic line. Somewhere between near all out improv and solid structure the band seems to be most comfortable constantly pulling themselves off in all different directions.

Braid
Braid

The band’s debut full-length album “Frankie Welfare Boy Age Five” is packed with short bursts of energy that are contained within a rush of loud, boisterous songs fueled by an urgency of fast, distorted guitars careening through 2 minutes of screamed vocals. The tracks are broken up by the constant turning of a radio dial that is sometimes interrupted by short ideas that are faded up, but quickly turning to new songs. Braid cuts through the noise of the radio dial with a noise of their own.

Through “Frankie Welfare Boy Age 5” there are many straight forward aggressive punk tracks like “Summer Salt” which is 2 and a half minutes of hardcore punk. “X Marks the Hope Box” leans a bit more towards math-rock with its running guitar line dashing across the fretboard frenetically that is doubled by the drums in stop-start fashion that is continued with the track “Brass Knuckle Sandwich”.

Braid live
Braid live

There is a lot of content on the album, showing the band in a steady trajectory. They are stretching out within songs but remaining true to their hard core sound, standing on the very edge of math rock and early emo-core. At the Drive-In would later tread a very similar path with their work.

With “Movie Music Vol. 1” their work becomes a bit more polished. Songs are lengthier, more developed and structured into parts that fit neatly together, dovetailing with catchy hooks that are begging to be screamed en masse. The guitars on this album seem to stay out of the way of each other. More room is made for the bass, and dynamically the band is more in control. On this album they make use of a broader sonic pallet and embrace more of a loud/quiet/loud characteristic that is added to the stop-start urgency of their songwriting which makes everything that much more powerful. They make room for each other, take their time and even show a much more reserved and quiet side with the track “Radish White Icicle” with its gently strummed guitar and light brass arrangement in the background. All of this growth of songwriting results in a more solidified sound that is thicker and more reinforced instead of wandering. Despite this their sound in general remains completely intact and easily recognizable.

Braid - "Frankie Welfare Boy Age 5"

Through all of this noise of guitars and punk rock attitude there is an honesty and sincerity added to the music through vocals that are untouched by effects, standing completely out in the open, totally vulnerable. The recordings have that lo-fi, home-recorded sound to them that is lacking in today’s uber-commercial and overproduced “emo” music. Braid’s music was not of gimmicks and trend, it was music of honesty and emotion before those elements became a musical commodity.

The fact that Polyvinyl has seen it fit to re-release each of Braid’s albums speaks to the importance of their output. They come from an era of music just before it was easy for word to spread through the internet. Their success was purely word of mouth built upon a reputation of touring and recording, yet their influence on other bands can still be heard today.

Braid - "Movie Music Vol. 1"

For more information on Braid, and to hear tracks, but most importantly to purchase their re-releases (which are nearly 50% sold out!) head over to Polyvinyl right now.

2010, albums, groovemine, music, reviews

Album review: Women – "Public Strain"

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Women’s latest release, “Public Strain”, is artier and more experimental than much of what is out  there right now. The album leans towards an early Sonic Youth aesthetic with its use of ambiance, noise, feedback drones and aggressive guitar attacks with through-composed song structures, but also throws in a few tricks from the prog. side of things with angular rhythms and odd time signatures. The album also juxtaposes ultra-lofi sounds with clear production and apathetic vocals that are paired with confident instrumental work through out.

There are many exciting contrasts on “Public Strain”. Songs that hide melody beneath layers and layers of ambiance and noise are placed next to more easily digestible material that features a catchy hook, or infectious guitar riff. The track “Bells” is simply a feedback drone that seems to come directly out of the bleak soundscape of “Penal Colony” which features, in spite of itself,  a sweet sounding vocal melody and is followed by “China Steps” with its minimalist groove and chugging, atonal guitar. There is certainly a lot of ground covered here songwriting wise. The band shows that they are not completely averse to the idea of writing a catchy hook in a recognizable form, though those catchy tunes are by no means “boring” or “ordinary”. Women put their own spin on their idea of what a song can and should be.

The sound, in general, on the album is described fairly well by the album cover. A yellowed picture with some small figures that are near completely obscured by the wash of white scratches across the surface (or perhaps it is a driving snow). The grit and graininess of that photo is the perfect analogy to describe their abrasive harmonies, harsh guitar tones, angular rhythms and the echoed and reverbed vocals that sound like Phil Spector got his murderous little hands all over them. There is something really sinister about the vocal delivery on this album. It is haunting, slightly creepy and truly unsettling, and it works perfectly with the music. The unsettling nature of the sound of the album is made more unsettling by the fact that none of these songs really have a chorus. The energy contained within each of the songs can not be hidden behind these aspect of sound though and something truly remarkable begins to happen when listening to the album repeatedly, (which is highly suggested as this album is definitely a “grower”) one begins to pick through all of the “sound” and find some truly intriguing and catchy parts. One can hold onto these parts and become absorbed in a trance of sorts, for example during the uncharacteristically “up” sounding final 2 minutes of the closing track “Eyesore”. Also, speaking to the lo-fi sound are “Heat Distraction” and “China Steps” that both open with bass and drums recorded from what sounds like a room mic replete with the noisy squeak of the kick drum pedal and “Untogether”, which begins by sounding as if someone started the tape after the band had already begun to play.

Women - "Public Strain"

The opening track seems to function as an anacrusis to the proper opening of the album. “Can’t You See” is a slow burning, contemplative and nearly ambient track while “Heat Distraction”, which follows, is a driving and disorienting song that is catchy, bright and radio-friendly(er) despite it being somewhat more cerebral from a compositional standpoint. “Can’t You See” shares with “Bells” a foundation in ambiance, though the veiled ambiance of the opening track is abandoned in the latter track for total unabashed guitar feedback hum and growl with organ-like overtones ringing out through a cloud of sound.

The most abrasive, in your face, and Sonic Youth-y track is the turbulent “Drag Open”. The vocals are nearly covered by the barrage of buzzing guitars, whereas “Locust Valley”, with its meandering arpeggios, sounds like the kind of 2 guitar counterpoint that Radiohead favors on their song “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi”. “Venice Lockjaw” is the closest that the band gets to writing a ballad as it is another slow burning track that continues to build, while closing track “Eyesore” is another candidate for heavy college radio rotation.

Women sound like a modern band with old school production values. The reverb and sound in general is straight out of the 60’s much in the same way that Best Coast tries to capture the Phil Spector  girl group “wall of sound”. But Women isn’t nearly the same as Best Coast. There is something intriguing and sinister in their sound, something slightly creepy and disturbing about the vocals, something unsettling about the structure of the songs and all of these things are done to perfection so as to have the listener coming back for more.

2010, albums, groovemine, music, reviews

Working for a Nuclear Free City – "Jojo Burger Tempest"

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Every once in a while an album comes along that can only be described as “massive”. Working for a Nuclear Free City’s double-disc “Jojo Burger Tempest” is one of those albums. Eighteen tracks that clock in at nearly an hour and a half but never feels cumbersome. Each track showcases an endless stream of ideas that have been carefully stitched together to complete a much larger idea. This is certainly an album about large ideas, with many of the tracks being continuations of previous tracks and a final track that is over a solid half an hour of idea after idea after idea pasted together into one gigantic medley. That final track is “The Jojo Burger Tempest”, the namesake track that is a summation of what the entire album is about.

The sheer originality and outright ingenuity present are something to be marveled at. There is just so much content to grab onto, yet the band doesn’t seem to be looking to change things up too drastically from track to track. The ideas are not wildly bounding from one thing to the next. They manage to come up with variations that fit within the parameters set forth in the song and they don’t leave, they only make things more and more interesting. There is always a new element added that seems to fit perfectly, that seems to be exactly what the song was missing up to that point and can propel the song to new heights without ever becoming too much.

I couldn’t see classifying this album as anything but prog-something. It’s not necessarily straight up prog-rock, I think that I would be more comfortable considering it as prog-electro/rock/shoegaze. There are elements of dreamy shoegaze that are ever present while at the same time merged with synth heavy dance pop. But there are also songs like “Low” that display the influence of mid-90s era Brit-pop as well as the hypnotic “Inokashira Park” that will leave listeners transfixed with its slow build of layered minimalism. Meanwhile “Buildings”, a stripped down mid-tempo acoustic gem with flighty vocals that speaks from a reverb drenched cathedral, is about as close as one can get to an acoustic guitar driven ballad. This isn’t to say that they are trying to cram as many genres together as possible for the sake of doing so, but rather their sound is so all encompassing that to ignore the effect of these influences on their music would be foolish.

As I said, I want to shy away from labeling this album as pure “prog” because usually what one expects from a “prog” band or a “prog” album are very segmented songs that are non-developmental, the kind of songs that display the musicians as all brain and no heart and this is certainly not the case with this album. Tracks like “B.A.R.R.Y.”, with its lush string arrangement and delay-drenched guitar, sound ethereal and surround the listener in their warm sound. The songs are firmly planted, for the most part, in standard forms. There are verses and choruses and hooks galore throughout. Each song has at least one memorable bit that, personally, had me coming back for more.

Jojo Burger Tempest
Working for a Nuclear Free City - Jojo Burger Tempest

There is a common thread of crystal clear production and virtuosic musicality present throughout “Jojo Burger Tempest”. This could be considered as one of the binding elements from track to track along with the thumping bass, clean guitar and a plethora of synth sounds that range from adding crunch to the low end to lifting the songs up with bright arpeggios and lead lines that cut through everything else. The vocals are clearly taking a backseat to all of the instrumental and electronic wizardry that is present though we do get a bit of vocal harmony reminiscent of Caribou’s “Andorra”, Klaxons and The Birds on the lead single “Silent Times”. The fact that whenever vocals are present they are pushed far back and made nearly unintelligible by effects shows that they are a group that is truly focused on the music more so than the words.

The organization as far as track order and song styles really benefits the work as a whole. This really is album oriented music and a lot more can be taken away from experiencing the whole sequence of songs in a sitting. The final track stands out as nearly an album in itself with its seamless melding of tons and tons of musical ideas and elaborations carefully worked into a song that is far beyond pastiche, it actually ends up making complete sense and is the most enjoyable 30+ minute track that I have come across in a long time. One goes through quite a journey in the process of listening to that song, just as one goes through quite a journey listening to this album. This is a great piece of work that is very worthy of your attention.

Click below to hear/download “Silent Times”.

Working for a Nuclear Free City – “Silent Times”

2010, albums, groovemine, music

Album Review: Grand Lake – "Blood Sea Dream"

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Oakland’s Grand Lake have presented a debut full-length that is fully formed in its sound, with variance from song to song but without taking huge leaps in genre in an attempt to please everybody. This clearly developed sound is obviously a result of the band having worked together for 15 years and touring with several different acts. They have a unique approach that is both inviting and catchy with clear arrangements and interesting sonic experiments that places them in the company of more established acts like Spoon.

Songs like “Carporforo” and “Oedipus Hex (Highway 1 North)” chart bluesy territory with lead guitar lines weaving through the vocals evoking the sound of early Dire Straits tunes like “Down to the Waterline” or “Sultans of Swing”. The guitar echos as it fades away from melodic lines that never take up too much space, and this is an album that is concerned with the proper use of space. The bass picks up the role of a rhythm guitarist in its ever-present, sometimes distortion drenched thickness while drummer John Pomeroy changes things up in the background. Their sonic palette does not simply consist of lead electric guitar, bass and drums, though. Grand Lake employs the sound of a string quartet in several tracks, acoustic guitar as harmonic backdrop when necessary and glockenspiel in places. These new sounds never take over, and are never too much, they serve the songs well with vocals and clean guitar work always front and center.

Grand Lake's - "Blood Sea Dream"

Most notable is “Our Divorce”, sounding like something taken directly from the Jeff Buckley songbook. The string quartet serves as accompaniment to this mid-tempo waltz with a gently swaying guitar melody that blissfully careens through the chorus, ducking from major to minor with ease. Contrast this with “Spark”, which is a bit more aggressive, which grows to a loud climax that is simultaneously shouted and pounded out on the drums. The contrast is welcomed but we never stray too far from home, even with the almost ambient drone of “Threnody for F.A. Mesmer”, a respite placed just after the middle of the album.

Opening track “It Takes a Horse to Light a House” sounds like the best candidate for a radio-friendly single in an album that is chock full of catchy hooks and tight songwriting. The memorable melody in the verse, set against a spacious arrangement of electronics and delicate guitar work would fare well on any college radio station, but it certainly doesn’t define the album in its entirety. The album revels in its contrasts, but the band manages to keep a singular sound throughout. They have the ability to go from dark musical territory in “Concrete Blonde on Blonde (880 South)” to “Riderless Horse” which is spare and spacious, opening up and showing that they are not afraid to let the vocals stand out almost completely unaccompanied.

Grand Lake’s focus on tight songwriting and musicality with special attention paid to clear arrangements pays off. “Blood Sea Dream” is a solid way to bring a full length debut into the world.

You can preview the album in its entirety at their bandcamp site here.

2010, albums, groovemine, music, reviews

Album Review: Paul A. Rosales – "Wonder Wheel I"

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With his debut solo album Paul A. Rosales creates a complex sound world that completely envelopes the listener from first track to last. With an understated guitar pushed to the background behind ever present vintage sounding synths and vocals treated through an array of varying echoes and delays that sometimes change as the songs develop, this is an album that demands the full attention of the listener. True headphone music.

The opening track, “Crimes”, introduces us at once to all of the elements that are present throughout the album: a driving, urgently attacked guitar that is made to sound less threatening by being set way back in the mix. The tone of the guitar is clean, but rounded out a bit with the help of a phaser. Synths are layered over top, taking precedence in the mix, even over the vocals. The synth tone covers everything in a wash of color similar to the retro sound of Neon Indian. It is the aural equivalent of a grainy VHS tape playing old home movies. The bass pops up between the synth and the guitar with a persistent line that wants to encourage you to dance, but the trippy vocals and disorienting drums will probably find you too out of sorts to try.

Most captivating in this wash of visceral noise are the vocals. They are made cryptic, shouting out from the back of the room, trying to reach above the din. Some of the words break through, but they are layered over each other with a good dose of delay. It is clear that Rosales is interested more in creating sounds and then manipulating them than he is in creating catchy pop hooks. The closest thing that we do get to a catchy pop tune is “She Tells Me” that is guitar driven and precariously close to having qualities that would make the listener want to sing along to the stand out line, “I fucked up, she tells me” that is repeated several times.

Paul A Rosales "Wonder Wheel I"
Paul A. Rosales - "Wonder Wheel I"

In “Bastard of a Man” it is startling to hear the vocals so up front and out in the open. Most of the instruments are stripped away to make room for the lyrics “Don’t give up baby/Don’t worry baby” made all the more disconcerting through a vocal approach that doesn’t settle into pitch until after the words have already been delivered. The delay on his voice in this track bounces along with the drums. He’s really in complete control of every element of the sound on this album and even more so by taking the entire sound as a whole and casting a bit of distortion and fuzz on to it as if the recording was a little too hot. Especially on “Bastard of a Man” the grittyness is amped up a little bit more than on any of the other tracks.

“Clarity Dissolve” adds some dimension to the sound with drums that were recorded to sound like they are a mile away, and the vocals are once again pushed to the back of the mix and this time sung in falsetto. The guitar is more up front, taking the role formerly held by the synths, by creating an amorphous cloud of overdriven sound. The synth line is only able to be heard in tiny bursts as if it were trying to take quick breaths.

Altering sound elements is not the only way that Rosales builds his songs. On many of the tracks the beat has a fluidity to it that creates another level of motion against the shifting color palette. Sometimes the vocal delivery is a bit relaxed and behind the beat, creating a push and pull from where one would expect a new measure to start. This is the fluid element to the song writing. That is not the only way that it is done, for example in the song “Change Faster” he swings from a steady eighth note pulse that alternates with a few bars of a metric modulation that speeds things up slightly, giving an off-kilter motion to the song.

Overall this album is a study in sound manipulation more than it is an exercise in writing standard, radio friendly songs. This album is pretty far from being radio friendly with its truly lo-fi production and all around grittyness. This is an album of experimental sound sculpture disguised as songs. There are some very interesting things going on throughout, and I would suggest giving this album the due time that it deserves to sink in and truly begin to enjoy all of what it has to offer.