I see this show as a conclusion to the just about 2 weeks of insanity that I put myself through that started with Titus Andronicus in Buffalo on the 13th and continued through Pitchfork in Chicago. What a way to end a series of concerts!
Opening band, Fang Island, played a fairly lengthy set of tunes that are clearly influenced by the arena rock and prog. rock of bands like Yes and Boston. Their sound was crystal clear with guitars swirling all around, bouncing off of each other throughout extended, yet tightly controlled and segmented jams. It is kind of refreshing to see a band that consists of kids that clearly were not around for the arena rock thing at its peak, dishing out guitar solos. Fang Island doesn’t really focus on the vocals, which I see as playing to their strength. Why cloud everything up with words if what you are trying to say is completely contained within the music? They even used a MOOG for a few of the songs, which really helped to solidify that Rush prog. rock arena kind of sound. The prog elements were definitely there in the music, but the changes weren’t so lurching and pretentious. It’s not like they were up on stage playing songs that they wrote just to prove how smart they are. Think of a slightly less aggressive sounding Iron Maiden. Or better yet, Iron Maiden crossed with Explosions in the Sky.
Wayne Coyne came out onto the stage before the show started to inform us that he was a bit skeptical about coming out in the ball. The way that the space is designed there are seats all the way up to the stage and I think he was nervous about depending on so few people to hold him up. It ended up being worry for nothing because after the band emerged from the vagina of a woman dancing on the screen behind the stage he stepped into the ball and walked nearly all the way to the back of the indoor seats. Sadly I was at the front of the lawn, and there is no way that he could have made it back there.
Of course, as everyone online probably knows The Flaming Lips really know how to open a show. Within moments there was confetti everywhere, hundreds of balloons floating and bouncing over the audience, streamers, bright flashing lights and pulsating psychedelic trance rock booming from the PA. No matter how many times you experience that you can never get over the absolutely uplifting feeling of all that excitement all at once. They pull out all the stops at every single show.
Flaming Lips at the Lewiston Artpark on July 22, 2010
The set was full of new material from “Embryonic”, which is really a return to a bit more of the abrasive side of the Lips that they seem to have been moving away from on Yoshimi and At War with the Mystics. The songs all come off great, and they really know how to fill a space. They were energetic, focused, spot on and loud. They really do have a unique sound that is sort of designed for even larger venues.
But they aren’t afraid to pull it back either. Their set list is very carefully designed it seems. Most songs have quiet introductions or quiet codas that help to bring some shape to all of the non stop excitement. The entire experience is pretty well paced. The last time I saw them was at a festival setting and I came away wanting more. It is only now that I realized that they really don’t benefit from a short time limit. The show needs time to develop, they take time to connect with the crowd, they really don’t work well if they are just cramming in song after song after song like Japandroids or Lightning Bolt. Going to a Lips show is a journey.
Great show all around. It’s good to have the boys so close to where they record their albums. Dave Fridmann was spotted at the side of the stage by one of my friends, and I believe it since he is so important to their sound. If and when the Lips come to your town, do whatever you can to go. It is an experience that you will not soon forget.
Since listening to Tokyo Police Club’s latest album “Champ” and reviewing it here I have only grown to love the album more. For a few days I had to listen to it first thing in the morning and then just before I went to bed. The closing track “Frankenstein” is one of my favorite tracks of the year so far, no question.
Since writing my review of the album that I posted not only to this site but to Groovemine I discovered that my blog was linked to by the people over at BaebleMusic.com. If you haven’t been to that site, please do yourself a favor and go there now. There is a TON of content over there, including many many exclusive full concerts and interviews and pictures. There is really just a ton of great content on that site and it’s worth bookmarking. So I just wanted to take this time to not only thank the people at Baeblemusic.com for linking to my blog and talk of my growing love for “Champ”, but to send any people that I can over to their site.
Follow this link for Tokyo Police Club’s entire concert performed exclusively for BaebleMusic. Scroll to the bottom of the page for bio, pics and Youtube videos.
Here’s a little taste:
If you haven’t already, run out and buy the new Tokyo Police Club album. It’s really great. I’m going to think about posting about the Flaming Lips show that I saw last week. Until then….
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"
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.
Saturday was the first full day of the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago. All three stages are dedicated to music, all day. In case you are unfamiliar here is a very brief overview: Main stages (A and C stages) alternate with hour long sets. As one band plays on the A stage another is setting up on the C stage, so all one has to do is walk, or simply turn 90º and see continuous music on the main stages. The B stage, however, runs more or less independently and is across the park. If you want to hang out at the B stage all day you have to wait through set-ups and tear downs, and the set times overlap with those of the main stages. So, basically, you are able to see continuous music all day long no matter what you do. The park is large enough where there isn’t too much sound interfering from mainstages to B stage, and small enough where you can walk from one end to the other in a matter of minutes.
The first band I caught, Free Energy seemed quite excited to be playing to such a large crowd. The park was crowded right from the get-go on Saturday, which is good to see. Their music reminded me more than a little of J. Geils Band from the 70’s. Not necessarily saying that that is a bad thing, but it isn’t really the kind of thing that I would go out of my way to see. Their classic rock influences are proudly worn on their sleeves with their rockstar posturing, big arena rock sound and gratuitous guitar solos (some taken right at the front of the stage, guitar pointed towards the sky as if offering up alms to the ever present God of Rock ‘n Roll). Their music has some hints of decency, but it also seems like they ran out of ideas pretty quickly.
Real Estate was one of the bands that I was really looking forward to hearing at the festival. It was great to hear them play new tunes (I counted 3), one of which featured the other guitarist as vocalist. What was also promising is that the songs that they played from the record had extended sections worked out a bit more, some noticeable tempo changes and some parts added. The fact that the band is not content to just leave the songs as they are bodes well. They have taken the time to evaluate their work and are changing things, bringing the songs through a process of evolution. They are making the old (even though it really isn’t that old at all) new again. Their mix was good, everything came through and the band is very balanced in general. The new songs sound a bit more focused and less jammy than the tunes on the first album. They were an early highlight of the day. Their songs work well in a large outdoor setting, especially with the bright early afternoon sun blazing down on us. Their music is so relaxed and uplifting in a way that the setting just made them all the better. Meanwhile over at the B stage Kurt Vilewas getting ready to bring his psychedelic garage rock to life. I have heard a lot about him before seeing him at this festival, but have never actually heard any of his music. That being said, this was one of the acts that I was ready to have impress me. Every year I try to catch as many bands as possible that I know absolutely nothing about. This year was a little bit leaning in the other direction because I
Kurt Vile photo by Kirstie Shanley
am so familiar with so many of the bands that there were only a few that I would be able to catch for the very first time. His band featured a harpist on stage left, in lieu of a bassist. Her sound brought a certain depth to the music. The percussive attack from the harp would percolate through the flanged, delayed layer of guitars that were washing over the vocals. At times the harp seemed to act as a piano, other times it would break through with intricate little lead lines that really brought some focus to some of the noise all around. All in all his set was pretty good, and I’m glad I caught it.
Now for the real action. Titus Andronicus. Holy shit. They brought it, and they brought it hard. Right up front I’m going to say that this was quite easily the highlight of the day for me. Their performance was spectacular, and this was the 3rd time that I have seen them. The first time was at the Pitchfork Music Festival in 2008, where they opened up Saturday, in the rain and I don’t think very many people were familiar with them at all. I certainly was not. The 2nd time I saw them was only 3 days before this most recent performance, but in a small room in Buffalo. That gig in Buffalo familiarized me with their songs a bit more, and they have recently released a new album. When they took to the main stage the crowd was so large that I couldn’t force my way any closer than the sound booth, about halfway back. It was good to see them from there though because I could see the crowd bouncing with the music, shouting along, pumping their fists and making the whole set like a huge celebration. The band was running around giving it all they got. Patrick, the leader of the group, jumped into the crowd while continuing to sing his powerfully emotional and heartfelt songs to an audience that was supporting him in every sense of the word.
His lyrics really spoke to me, and I think to the whole audience. They came off as pieces of advice from the trenches that he was translating to us because he has been there. “You will always be a loser” in his hands is not a defeatist saying. Instead it is a rallying cry. “Your life is over” is said as if not speaking directly to us but through him to others that have given up fighting. He is warning through experience. My personal favorite though is, “But when they see the person that you really are, you won’t be laughing so hard.” It’s not all toughness and struggle though, there are also feelings of vulnerability and honest desperation when he repeats “Please don’t ever leave”. This is hardcore music with truly no fear at all. It must be frightening to bring that kind of honesty and strength to the stage every day. It is all well worth it though, because the connection that was made with the 10 – 12,000 people that were there will not soon go away. Helping the band out through a few songs were members from Boston’s Hallelujah the Hills bringing a trumpet, cello and extra set of hands for keyboards and guitars which really helped their set truly reach new heights. Local Chicago band of extraordinarily young kids, Smith Westerns played the B stage. They have some really good tunes. Basically what you have here is really young kids playing well crafted rock tunes that sound like they are influenced by old 60’s albums and a touch of garage rock. They were catchy enough, though I feel as though the singer really needs time to develop his voice a bit, but he is still young, so it isn’t truly a concern. He is relying too much on his falsetto and that kind of wears on one after a while. Uniqueness bonus for the lead singer playing a left-handed guitar right-handed, perhaps a backwards nod to Hendrix?
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Gritty. Loud. Raw. Epic voice. This is what Jack White wants to be when he grows up. It was good to see a truly veteran performer up on the stage. His confidence showed through his ability to jam on a song for 10 or more minutes of bluesed up abandon. He never lets his guitar prowess put too much of a shine on the dirtiness of the sound. Great balance of raw improv and solid structure.
Back on the B stage WHY? gave us their interesting mix of eclectic influences ranging from prog rock shiftiness to straight up old school rap. The singer’s nasal vocal style is reminiscent of John Linnell of They Might Be Giants. This was the first act of the festival that is truly hard to define in simple terms. Artful arrangements with xylophone, sometimes sparse drums, sometimes aggressive guitar and a declamatory vocal delivery with a fine tuned focus on rhythm with deeply personal lyrics. Really good sound, and interesting. I’d file this under “need to investigate further”. Another surprising discovery for myself at the festival.
Wolf Parade‘s nervous and jittery set of energetic tunes were already blaring from the main stage as we arrived. The crowd had swelled considerably. My best guess is that people were jockeying for position for Panda Bear, who was closing out one of the main stages. The lead singer has quite a recognizable voice. The songs were mostly straight ahead and rocking and ranging from guitar driven to synth-centric, though some did wander in the territory of what I would consider “angular”, bringing attention to their quirkiness.
Panda Bear. Everyone was excited for Panda Bear. After his set everyone seemed to be wondering, “Why was I excited for Panda Bear?”. Yes, of course, he is a member of Animal Collective. That in and of itself doesn’t mean that his set is going to be good. His set got off to a slow start and once it did there were no breaks. If you are into standing in a large crowd to watch a guy stand at a keyboard with a guitar play excruciatingly long and drawn out songs that are mostly developmental headphone music then maybe you would have enjoyed this set. I don’t feel that this kind of music works for this venue. There is really nothing to latch onto. The energy, whatever energy there is, doesn’t really translate very well. There was no chance for the audience to really digest the songs or to even figure out what was happening. Total dud of a performance.
The headliner of the night was LCD Soundsystem who really has a way of making songs that are over 10 minutes long that simply repeat the same groove over and over again into
a constantly growing mammoth tune in spite of itself. As opposed to Panda Bear, this music was EXACTLY the kind of music that plays well at this type of venue. LCD Soundsytem turned the entire Pitchfork crowd into one huge dance party. A conga line was formed that snaked through the crowd. Glo-sticks flew through the air, people sang along and everyone danced. They danced with strangers, they danced by themselves, they smiled, they moved. Everything was great for that 45 minutes. It was a great way to end a night. This was the one night that we didn’t catch a show after the festival.
After a full day of festival-ing at Pitchfork we walked down the street a few block to the Bottom Lounge to catch a show by Liars (who had already played an awesome set earlier in the day). Opening was Chicago based dark-prog-metal band Follows and sound artist John Wiese.
When we walked in Follows was already on the stage. If you are familiar at all with the work of “Enter” era Russian Circles you can begin to understand the heaviness of Follows as the bassist is formerly of the Chicago post-metal band. They are almost devastatingly heavy, made all the more so by their extended compositions that seem to build continually louder and become more imposing as the minutes tick by. The songs feature quiet, understated vocals by their female lead singer/guitarist that exist over the top of a roaring crescendo of bass, guitars and drums. Many of the songs featured asymmetrical meter and odd phrase lengths, hence my “prog” designation. Check out their songs on myspace.
Follows
John Wiese took a little longer to set up than I feel they were planning on. Alone on stage with just a laptop and some assorted electronics he performed, or possibly composed on the spot, music that was consisting mostly of manipulated sounds. I guess the best description I could come up with is “sound sculpture”. An interesting juxtaposition coming from a band like Follows and preceding a band like Liars. His set consisted of a non-stop ebb and flow of sounds for about 25 minutes. Take a listen here.
John Wiese
Liars took to the stage shortly thereafter in much the same way they did for their set at Pitchfork earlier in the day, with everyone in the band except for Angus coming out and beginning a song. This makes them seem like even more of a “rock band” than they really are. Their set consisted of the same material from earlier in the day plus a few other songs. They still tended towards the more guitar driven tunes but during their encore they did play as the classic trio. Though I do miss the days of Angus Andrew flailing around with a guitar around his neck and him seeming to struggle to break free, their band is really tight now. The noise is much more like a controlled burn rather than the out of control forest fire that used to be their live show.
They really seemed more energetic, oddly, at this point in the night. Their set was loud, wild and felt far too short. The addition of a bassist really makes a big difference in their overall sound, especially considering that he would spend most of songs strumming the bass as if it was a rhythm guitar. There was a low end rumble that was noisy, but still providing the foundation that one would expect from a bass guitar. I would have been happy to stand there all night.
Friday, July 16, 2010 was the first day of the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago. The festival is growing year after year from it’s 2 full day beginnings in 2006, to their collaboration with All Tomorrow’s Parties in 2007-2008 that saw bands invited to play their classic albums in their entirety (including Sonic Youth, my personal favorite, playing all of Daydream Nation for the first time on American soil).
Now the festival has grown to 2 and 3/4 days of music, and for some reason comedy (a failure that hopefully won’t happen again), and art. I always try to see as many bands as possible and this year I actually brought a notebook so that I don’t have to attempt to do it from memory. This was my friday:
Sharon Van Etten- The very first musician of the festival. She came out with only a guitar, which I think is a very daring thing to do, but she was fantastic. No effects on her guitar, just a clean tone. Her songs have these really honest and heartfelt lyrics that don’t hold anything back, and don’t hide anything. Heartbreak, loneliness and trying to pick up and start again after failed relationships seems to be the main themes.
During her set, towards the end, she broke a string on her guitar and after managing to make it through one more song she was joined on stage by a roadie that handed her a new guitar to finish her set, to which she excitedly announced to the crowd, “Modest Mouse just let me borrow their guitar!”. It was a beautiful black Gibson hollowbody with gold trim. That was the end of her set. Unfortunately the first two sets of the afternoon are only a half an hour long. I would have gladly listened to Sharon Van Etten’s music all night.
Marie-Claire (left), of Speck Mountain and Sharon Van Etten (right) Photo by Kirstie Shanley
We decided to skip out on The Tallest Man on Earth to check out the Flatstock Poster Convention. It’s a great showing of many artists that design show posters. Every year I make it a point to stop at the Bird Machine tent because Jay Ryan always does the official Pitchfork Music Festival poster.
From what I did catch of the Tallest Man on Earth set I gathered that it was another singer songwriter, solo, on acoustic guitar. I don’t really feel like I caught enough of the set to make a good judgment on what his music is really like though.
Next up was El-P. I can’t say enough bad things about this performance. The first thing that I have written down in my notebook is “fucking bullshit garbage rap”. This isn’t to say that I hate all rap. That is not the case. I really hate when Pitchfork puts really shitty rap on their festivals, it ruins the whole flow of the festival. GZA did well a few years back, Public Enemy blew the roof of the place a few years after that, but this was just awful. It was mostly pre-recorded. There was no melody, no harmony, seemingly no focus on song structure. It seems that their entire set was spent just trying to get us to “put [our] motherfuckin’ hand in the air”. Why is it that this act gets an hour when Sharon Van Etten only got half that?
After that, which was too loud to avoid, it was time for Liars. Last time I saw Liars they had just finished “Drum’s Not Dead”, album oriented psychedelic (in a sense) concept post-rock. Their set was focused more on long form tunes that seemed improvised to a great degree. This time around they are a roaring tight aggressive and polished band playing more “traditional” (it’s funny to even say that in reference to Liars) rock. They have added 2 members to their touring band, up to 5 from the trio that they previously toured with, adding a guitarist and bassist.
The sun was blinding me during their set. It was good to hear new arrangements of old songs from previous albums due to their new touring lineup. There was more of a guitar focus than the tribal, perpetual drumming of their performance at the same festival in 2006. The set was mostly up-tempo noisy rockers, and the band touched upon each release in their output so far. It was definitely great to hear songs from “They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top”. Highlights also included “No Barrier Fun” and “Scissor” as well lead singer Angus Andrew’s stage antics including reminding festival goers to stay hydrated by visiting the water stations, including the one located “in [his] pants, so feel free to hop up on stage and have a go.” Their set was the most energetic of the day (and we went to see them after the festival later that night, down the street at the Bottom Lounge)
Broken Social Scene played a set of new songs from their current album “Forgiveness Rock Record” and classics from their catalog on stage with several musicians from Chicago, including string players and the drummer from Tortoise. I suppose they just aren’t comfortable on stage unless there are at least 15 of them up there. The songs were ok, the new ones came off well, but it just seems to me like there are too many cooks in the kitchen. How can you make that music sonic space for that many people up on stage? They seem to want to make this epic statement every time they take the stage. I think that they really need to allow the songs to speak for themselves. If the songs don’t hold up live then the best thing to do would be to change the songs, not continually add more layers on top of things.
I was happy that they played “7/4 (Shoreline)” which is one of my favorites, as well as “Windsurfing Nation”, but the singer that they brought with them had a very breathy voice with no projection and even less stage presence. I just didn’t connect with the set as much as I was hoping to.
The final set of the night was brought to us by the biggest (commercially speaking) act of the festival Modest Mouse. They also had a fairly large band with them, with a few extra members, one of them a multi-instrumentalist. They also played a wide swath of material from old favorites to new tunes, but noticeably avoided playing “Float On”, which I actually feel good about, even though I kind of wanted to hear it. I like when bands seem to know what their “big hit” is, but avoid it. In essence they are saying “we have many many other songs that are equally as good, or maybe better. Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with them, right now. If you want to hear Float On, go home and throw it on the turntable”.
Lead singer, and all around lead-dude Isaac Brock came off simultaneously insane and focused and in control. He had a crazed look in his eye for most of the set and played the guitar and banjo like he was attacking them or punishing them for something. At one point between songs a glo-stick made its way onto the stage. Brock thought it would be a good idea to bite into it and make his mouth glow. It was not a good idea. He told us immediately that he discovered this was a bad idea, but when he spit it out his spit glowed.
I felt as though the set was pretty polished with a few rough edges. It wasn’t absolutely pristine, which is a good thing. They did a 2 song encore after sort of abruptly leaving the stage the first time.
After that we headed down the street to the Bottom Lounge to catch Liars. That review will be coming soon. It will also be a much shorter review. Next up, the 2 full days of the Festival.
Updated July 28, 2010 with exclusive content from BaebleMusic.com. Scroll to bottom!
June 8, 2010 saw the release of the 2nd full-length album by Toronto area band Tokyo Police Club. “Champ” is a big step forward in terms of songwriting and dynamics. The album showcases a band that is able to increase the complexity of their compositions while still holding on to the energy and excitement that one would expect from a first release.
Right from the opening track a theme of growing up and reminiscing takes shape, being set up with the lyric “…because you know it’s sweet gettin’ old”. The theme is not one of longing for the past and hoping for its return, but of looking back on good times and knowing that things aren’t going to be the same, but that doesn’t mean that they are over. This is taken further with the song “Gone”, the lyrics of which explore areas of uncertainty: “I don’t know what I want/I don’t know what to think before the curtain’s drawn/I don’t know about you/Tell me something that I’m supposed to do.” This is an album by a band that is aware of their growth and is simultaneously excited and worried about it. That thread serves them well, creating a cohesion among the songs represented lyrically and musically.
Tokyo Police Club
The band truly shows their ability to stretch out, sonically, all the while making room for each other. There are contrapuntal elements at work in many of the songs, where 3 or 4 different layers are weaving in and out without covering up the original idea. It is clear that they are working with complex ideas, but the great thing is that they manage to make it sound loose and free. The songs never fall into the mechanical lock-step that is typical of so many bands with a similar approach. The structures are tight throughout and there was obviously a lot of thought put into the way the album works as a whole with respect to song sequence. This is most evident with the one-two punch that is “Breakneck Speed” followed by “Wait Up (Boots of Danger)”, which comes across sounding like a coda, in the same key but sped-up. The most subdued track, “Hands Reversed”, appearing a little more than halfway through the album, serves as a reset point. The song features clean, delicately plucked guitar and an unobtrusive bass with a wash of cymbals in the back. One can really sense the push and pull at work in this song. They know exactly where to back off and where to really ramp it up a few notches without it ever becoming overbearing or predictable. The album continues to build with the tune “Gone”, a fun and upbeat track that is only missing some steel drums to complete the beach scene that it would fit into perfectly.
Tokyo Police Club's latest, "Champ"
The varied nature of the songs does not take away from the cohesion of the album. Urgent rockers like “Wait Up” and the jangly, angular “Favourite Colour” are contrasted by the glitchy synth-pop of “Bambi” and the bouncy “Gone”. The straight forward drive of “Big Difference” and album closer “Frankenstein” are balanced by the shuffle time “Not Sick” and the guitar-up-front classic rock influenced “End of a Spark”, a track that has single written all over it. There is great potential for any of these songs to encourage loud singing along at concerts.
The band seems to want to fill stadiums with their sound, playing with balance throughout. Rarely is the entire band playing “full-on”. They sidestep overdoing it with careful arrangements that make the songs quite dynamic. There needs to be room to have a song build and grow in order for it to achieve any sort of lasting excitement. This always ends up as more rewarding to the listener, and less tiring for the band. Guitarist Josh Hook’s atmospherics have a great way of lifting the songs up, while keyboardist Graham Wright lays a steady foundation with bassist and singer Dave Monks. The soaring vocals and emotional lyrics really have the listener taking a ride throughout many of the songs. The end of “Frankenstein” builds layer upon layer of distorted, slap-back delayed guitar and synth while Monks proclaims “it’s good to be back, it’s good to be back” and one can truly appreciate the time and thought put into the production of this album and the growth that took place in order to make it possible.
How much control does an artist have then is another question. The painter can fill up the canvas and decide how the work is going to be framed. How much control does an artist have over how the work is displayed? Would there be a problem with hanging a certain painting in proximity to the work of another artist? How much can we expect the audience to cast off as “not the work of the artist”.
There was a sculpture of sorts on display in one room of the new Modern building at the Art Institute of Chicago. The sculpture involved a pile of white rocks piled up on a conical figuration with tiny rocks on the outskirts and larger rocks towards the center and peak. Intersecting the rocks were mirrors in the shape of an asterisk. As I looked at this exhibit I wondered aloud to my brother, “do you think the artist comes to the museum that this work is displayed in to set it up or do you think that it is shipped with very specific instructions as to how it needs to be exactly?” We left it up in the air.
This is to say, how much of a degree of aleatory is there in all the arts? I know that Cage was convinced (and has convinced many others, including myself) that there is a certain degree of aleatory in all music. The variables being performers, performance space, conductor, instruments, tempo, audience…the list is infinite.
While in Chicago we also visited the Museum of Contemporary Art. There was a simple sculpture made of found items that were hung from a wire frame and meant to form a smiling face. Though it was enclosed in a plastic box and therefore unable to be touched, the string from which most of the sculpture was hanging had twisted somehow and it made the eyes, nose and mouth of the face appear perpendicular to the outer wire frame forming some sort of cubist idea of a face. This, I can say with almost complete certainty, was not the original intention of the artist. Should I, however, take it as I saw it? Or should I correct what I feel is “wrong” and remember the sculpture as being that of a right and true “face”? How far can one take this idea? I don’t think that many artists would appreciate the idea of their audience “perfecting” their art.
With a piece of music, how much is the audience expected to “correct”? There are going to be slight mistakes made, there are going to be choices made by the conductor that make some parts seem more important than others, and there are going to be cues missed and measures accidentally excluded perhaps by a particularly nervous percussionist that hasn’t played for 42 bars and lost count or was not cued. How much of the music, then, actually is what the composer wrote? I realize that this does overlap with thoughts about degrees of aleatory in music, but I would like to examine it one step further from an audience perspective. Is an audience experiencing music and taking it for granted that the performance was perfect? This begs the question about artist control. Exactly how much control does the composer have once the score leaves their hands?
Time to bake in the Chicago sun for the annual Pitchfork Music Festival! I have been attending the festival since 2006. During that time I have seen several amazing bands, met many people and always had a great time. It was during this festival in 2006 that I realized that seeing live music was very important to me and it is a great experience to discover new music in a live setting. When I first went to the festival it was a scant 2 days long, now it has expanded with the help of All Tomorrow’s Parties to 3 days (though the first day is about a quarter as long as the other 2).
It was during this festival in the past few years that I came to love the music of The Futureheads, Spoon, Liars, Yo La Tengo, Dirty Projectors, and of Montreal. I also will never forget amazing performances by Girl Talk, Spiritualized, Sonic Youth, Os Mutantes, Silver Jews, Caribou, Dan Deacon, Stephen Malkmus and countless others.
It is so much more than just a music festival too. There is the flatstock poster convention too, which features gig posters by many different artists that are there to talk to and purchase posters from. I make it a habit of getting Jay Ryan’s Pitchfork poster every year. I really love his work. It is highly recognizable and he is also based out of Chicago, so he is more or less a hometown hero as well. I’m still upset that I didn’t begin this tradition until 2007, and I can’t find a 2006 poster anywhere, but such is life. Perhaps someday it will show up on ebay.
I will be twittering (www.twitter.com/quartertonality) throughout the weekend, that is certain. In addition to this I will be trying to see as many bands as humanly possible. I would estimate that I will catch somewhere between 20 to 25 sets over the weekend. My only hope is that the weather is great. Rain would really put a serious damper on the fun. Other things I’m looking forward to:
-after-shows at Schubas or the Empty Bottle or something (I was actually so tired last year, or was it the year before?, that I fell asleep at a Twilight Sad concert at Schubas)
-record shopping at permanent records, which is located conveniently around the corner from my brother’s place, where I am staying
-vinyl shopping at the festival (all the labels have booths set up and it was a completely random purchase at the Sub-Pop booth in 2006 that introduced me to the awesomeness that is the Constantines….I really need to buy more of their stuff come to think of it)
So much more. I will be posting pictures and videos here as well as to my youtube and flickr pages. If I have time and am not too exhausted I will post them immediately, but I may wait until the weekend is over. Sorry, I am not a slave to the immediacy of the internet. Please stay tuned.
I know what you are thinking, “This album has been out for almost 2 weeks, we already know how good it is”. This is all true, but I’m trying to catch up with all the things that I want to write about and I have been addicted to the new Dirty Projectors album. Maybe this is because I only started regularly updating my blog within the past week and I have had the new Phoenix album for over a month. Perhaps the excitement about it is gone. Actually, come to think of it, that is exactly what is so right about this album. After listening to it regularly for over a month the magic is not gone.
This happened with my first introduction to Phoenix not too long after “It’s Never Been Like That” came out. I believe that was during the summer too. Maybe it wasn’t a summer, but Phoenix has carved a nice little niche for themselves in writing really upbeat, summer-sounding tunes that benefit from fantastic production that is not heard too often on albums. There is something warm and convivial about their songwriting style. It’s easy going. It’s carefree but extraordinarily articulate and perfectly crafted. It’s, in a word, French.
Thankfully the days of “Funky Squaredance” are gone. The albums just keep getting better and more finely tuned, no more needlessly long and unforgiving songs that wander here, there and everywhere. I think that is the criticism that I have of the album “United” as a whole. It wanders. One song is a dancy jam, the next is an over-produced ballad that sounds like it is straight out of the year 1987. Maybe the sound recording technology in Paris is slightly behind ours, but I doubt it. These guys have money, they can do what they want. Though maybe they didn’t have that much money back then, but they should now. But I digress. The point is that they have found their voice on this album.
Finally, as I have said before, 2009 is going to be a great year for music. It is already shaping up to be one. Albums like this don’t exactly come around every year.
Phoenix is not afraid to make music that is recognizable, because it is reminiscent of another era. They have captured our attention because of their ability to make songs that sound like they are from our childhood, or sound like they could be. When listening to “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix” there is an overwhelming feeling of “oooh where have I heard this before?” or, if not, for me at least, the songs are already connected to memories.
Wolgang Amadeus Phoenix, the new album by Phoenix is out now.
A little less guitar-driven than “It’s Never Been Like That” it is not accurate to say that this album is synth-driven, but there is definitely more of a balance. Phoenix sounds more lush, bigger, more forceful. The production is tastefully done and everything is really clean sounding and pitch perfect. The world would be a much better place if everyone took as much care in creating their albums in post as Phoenix.
As would be expected this album is full of catchy hooks, and the obligatory instrumental track, though this time “Love Like a Sunset” is a song with an instrumental building up to it. I think this works a little bit better than previous attempts like “North”. It must be important to them that they show that they aren’t just some ultra efficient pop-song writing machine, and they want to show that they are fantastic instrumentalists as well. They can definitely craft a longer composition, and rarely does it come off overblown or long-winded. Seeing them perform on Saturday Night Live a while back (it seems like forever ago now) made me feel the same as when Spoon played last season. It feels like this is the little band that could, even though they have been around for a while with a steadily growing audience. The performance there was great, so great in fact there were rumblings that they were playing along to a pre-recorded track (they absolutely were not).
I have heard the music of Phoenix described as sounding like a sunrise. I think that metaphor is quite apt, especially for this album.
![Paul A Rosales "Wonder Wheel I"](http://c4.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/148/l_ba76fbb032f54fc389a96eea5ac4b917.jpg "Paul A Rosales "Wonder Wheel I"")
![](http://quartertonality.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/TPC-Champ.jpg "Tokyo Police Club - "Champ"")
