Tag Archives: review

2010, albums, music, reviews

Album review: Wonder Wheel – "Brave New World"

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Los Angeles’ Wonder Wheel is back with their trademarked brand of pulsating rock music that stands somewhere between a dream-like haze, drugged out reality and a hallucination. The music shimmers with retro keyboard sounds amongst the swirl of delayed guitars and vocals.

On this latest release the vocals are not quite as buried in the mix, or as washed out in delay as previously heard on Paul A Rosales’ album “Wonder Wheel I”, which was released as a solo album, but in actuality a collection of previous work by Wonder Wheel. All in all this album shows a band that is in a constant state of evolution, with this album showing them at their best yet. There is some truly catchy material here in the choruses. The songwriting has become much more direct, and the songs themselves are structured in a more traditional manner. This familiarity helps make their unique sound a bit more accessible than before.

There is an honesty in Rosales’ vocal delivery. Sometimes it is double tracked, harmonizing with himself, sometimes his voice stands out in the open, solitary. It is more confident and pitch perfect here with the feeling of the lyrics coming across loud and clear. The album speaks mostly of a longing to not feel so alone. The sound captures the sadness and confusion of being in an unfamiliar place with nobody around to share your feelings. Truly something that each of us can relate to. There is a real connection to human emotion with these songs. The songs speak about that human connection that we all want to have. It is frightening to be out in the world alone, it’s like wandering through a fog in an unfamiliar city. Just hearing a song like “A Million Miles Away” with the lyric, “I’m alone, I’m sick and I’m alone” and later, “I need you, I want you” one can immediately grab onto that feeling of desperation in trying to make a connection. This feeling is unmistakably clear throughout.

The band captures a sound that I can only think to describe as “caught in between”. We hear something between a dream and reality with aspects of minimalist repetition with dreamy waves of sound from the delayed effects swirling around reminiscent of shoegaze. But, the familiarity also comes from a sound similar to the much lauded “chillwave” sound that seems to have popped up out of nowhere this past summer through bands like Neon Indian and Nite Jewel. Wonder Wheel does share a similarity in sound to these bands through their analog, DIY recording techniques and the heavily effected instruments and production.

Wonder Wheel - "Brave New World"

Even with these comparisons to other artists and classifying them into this genre Wonder Wheel has a very unique sound that is all their own and therefore very recognizable. The album begins with a very short synth crescendo before the throbbing pulsations of the full band kicks in. I detect a pronounced influence of The Cure on songs like “After Dark”, especially when the lead guitar line enters. “Wednesday” bounces jubilantly with its Bo Diddley groove, sounding like early Interpol in it’s brooding mood.

“IMHO” is an uptempo gem that is quite catchy and would really work well as a single with a spacious verse and rapid fire lyrics in the chorus. The rhythm change up at the end finds the band sliding into a half-time feel much like in the track “I Know (It’s All Good)”. These rhythmic shifts really add a new dimension of intensity to the songs by seemingly taking all of the energy of the song to that point and suddenly putting the brakes on. All of the forward motion generated by the song up to that point is being held back, just trying to break through the surface.

Wonder Wheel has something that few bands possess, and that is consistent and prolific output. They are constantly creating new material. This release is their 36th self-recorded album since June of 2003. Instead of working one EP or album into the ground until the songs get old and tired, they are continuing to work, writing songs, releasing material and touring. This album was recorded between May 4 and July 27, 2010 and is available for purchase on cassette right now over at Sixteen Tambourines.

Definitely worth a listen. Their unique sound, catchy hooks and emotional lyrics combined with an evolved sound, tighter songwriting and contagious energy is sure to make a connection.

Check out Wonder Wheel around the interweb:

http://mywonderwheel.blogspot.com/

http://www.myspace.com/thenogoego

And check out these tracks from “Brave New World”

“IMHO“

Below is the video for “After Dark”

WONDER WHEEL – After Dark from Moduli TV on Vimeo.

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, live, music, reviews

Shows in Brief: The Bottom Lounge, Chicago (July 16, 2010)

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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.

Chicago band Follows
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.

Liars Liars Liars
Liars
2010, live, music, reviews

Pitchfork Music Festival, Day 1 (Friday, July 16, 2010)

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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.

Photo by Kirstie Shanley (All rights reserved)
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.

2010, albums, groovemine, music, reviews

Tokyo Police Club – "Champ"

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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.

Watch the entire concert at Baeblemusic.com.

2009, albums, music, reviews

Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

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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.
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.

Below is the track 1901:

2009, albums, music, news, reviews

Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca

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Dirty Projectors probably have the most easily identifiable and unique sound in Indie Rock today. Dave Longstreth is the man behind the band, which now includes Angel Deradoorian, Amber Coffman and Brian McComber as principal members. Stylistically they are glitchy, jittery, cut-up and put back together rhythmically with very intricately ornamented vocal lines (as well as guitar lines, I suppose). The vocal harmonies are very tight, and I would imagine quite challenging to sing. Often it seems as though notes are picked out of nowhere. That glitchy, jittery rhythm also seems as though it is speeding up and slowing down with so much use of borrowed meter and complex tuplet structures, which is a trait rarely used at all by other bands (I actually can’t think of any that have ever done anything similar) but Dirty Projectors put to use in each of their recordings. It is almost as if Longstreth is stopping and starting time at will. There are very complex and lengthy patterns at work in his songs.

When I was in college I was part of a group for new music called Ethos. As president of the group I was responsible for scheduling guest composers and lectures to come to campus. In 2008 we had as a guest a fantastic composer named Missy Mazzoli. While driving her down to our campus in the middle of nowhere we got to talking about music. She asked me if I had ever heard of Dirty Projectors, to which I responded with something like “I have heard of them, but I don’t know any of their stuff”. This was true, and is also my stock answer when I don’t want to admit that I am completely ignorant of something. She mentioned that she is friends with the lead singer/songwriter, that they had met while studying at Yale. She said that I may like them but warned me that they were “really strange, but beautiful”. She didn’t have to say anything more. I already knew that I wanted to get to know them and be a fan.

I had the opportunity to catch them a few months later at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago (July 2008) and I was so impressed by their performance that I ran to the record tent to see what I could find and immediately bought “Rise Above” which is a “re-imagining” of the Black Flag album “Damaged” but given the Dirty Projectors treatment and apparently done from memory (Longstreth hadn’t heard the album in a long time, but managed to remember almost all the lyrics. The album is fantastic). I made a note to remember them and try to check out all of their stuff. They were the highlight of the Festial last year for me.

NPR began streaming their latest album “Bitte Orca” this week and I immediately sat down to check it out. All of the characteristic sounds of the band are in place, the jittery rhythms, frantic guitar playing and close harmonies. There is, also, the extra added bonus of catchy hooks (which I have been a fan of lately). I think the use of catchy hooks works even more for bands as unique as Dirty Projectors because it is something that is almost unexpected and they are made all the more beautiful by the unconventional structures that happen around them.

Dirty Projectors
Dirty Projectors

Starting off the album “Cannibal Resource” with its ethereal sounding guitar and bass interruptions the energy slowly kicks in throughout the first verse but we aren’t really off the ground until the chorus kicks in. The vocal arrangement of the opening guitar riff is a great touch and the clean guitar that comes in between the verses evokes the spectre of Frank Zappa. There is a transcendent emotion conveyed throughout this album, more so than on their previous efforts. The opening guitar line that comes back throughout is quite effective in moving the listening along. This characteristic is not just of the first track, it continues throughout the album. I think that this is what sets it apart from their earlier work. This album seems more cohesive in its construction of songs and song forms. Each track builds upon the previous. “Temecula Sunrise” will get stuck in your head and it will stay there.  The wandering, overlapping guitar lines with the wavering backbeat that all comes together at exactly the right time. It’s absolutely perfect. This is as close to pop perfection as Dirty Projectors will ever be. They are still at quite a safe distance, remaining distinctive but familiar. There are even guitar “solos” on a few tracks.

“The Bride” definitely reminds me of Led Zeppelin’s “III” with the octave portamento (which really drives the song home) on what I believe sounds like a guitar in some tuning with a lot of open 5ths in it. From there the album moves right along to “Stillness is the Move” which is quite the shift in gears. The tune has the most straightforward beat and guitar parts (which sound as though they may be looped) placed behind R & B type vocal acrobatics courtesy of the female singers, with a laid back bridge that divides the song right in two. Layering comes in later in the song. Strings enter over top to sort of smear the painting as it were. Also note the bassline in this one. Punchy, pointed and downright funky.

The remainder of the album plays out much in the same way that it began. Great acoustic guitar work, string arrangements, memorable lines, a ballad? (“Two Doves”), and the constant juxtaposition of strange and expected. “Useful Chamber” fits well as a counterpart to “Stillness is the Move” with it’s looped drums (probably a drum machine) and synth sounds. At over 6 minutes though the song has many places that it can go, and before it ends we are hit with the crush of distortion and frenetics upon Longstreth’s repeated utterings of the album title.

Without belaboring it for too much longer I will conclude by saying that this album has a great shape to it. The album is put together very well as a whole, and each of the songs are interesting little pieces of the puzzle. Closing track “Fluorescent Half-Dome” is an absolutely beautiful track, and a perfect album closer.

Dirty Projectors have made a great contribution here to what is turning out to be a solid year for new music.

(Check their Myspace for more, and don’t forget about NPR streaming it for free this week)

Bitte Orca is set for official release on June 9, 2009.