Rantings, reviews and lists from a person who structures half his life around obsessing over music.

Friday, March 28, 2008

M83 - Saturdays = Youth (2008)

4.0 ★/8.0 - 8.9

I didn't live through the 1980's, and until now, I didn't regret it. Despite uncovering many strong points and varying styles (The Cure, Tom Waits and various underground punk for example), I still consider the majority of the 80's one of the weakest decades of music for the past 60 years. But from the moment I heard the opening kaleidoscopic chords and swirling radiance of M83's new lead single, "Graveyard Girl", I felt an uncontrollable nostalgia for that time. The bulk of Saturdays = Youth is no different. It inspires a giddy and uncontrollable glee for the oft-misunderstood era, celebrating The Breakfast Club, big hair styles and unashamed abuse of synths. But the reason why this succeeds as much more than a dated period piece is because M83 is still an Electronica project at heart. All sorts of production quirks and brief spoken word sections make Saturdays = Youth much more than a simple tribute to an era. It's a reinterpertation, integrated with the contemplative and paranoid-driven insight of the 2000's; kind of like an album version of Donnie Darko, except celebrating the things we might've missed from the decade, rather than causticly satirizing it. Piano-led tracks like "Too Late" and "You, Appearing" do away with the cheesiness that tended to ruin so many songs from the 80's and heightens the genuine sentimentality with walls of rich, dramatic sound. "Highway of Endless Dreams" builds and expands like a modern techno song and instills the generation with a grandeurous driving force. The extended bridges and soaring hooks on tracks like "Kim & Jessie" and "We Own The Sky" overflow with the romantic innocence and bright-eyed curiosity that was so common among youth of the 80's. And closer, "Midnight Souls Still Remain" is nearly 12 minutes of thoughtful and uplifting Ambiance, seeming to bookend the collection with one last triumphant defense for the daydreaming demeanor lost to the hard-hitting 90's. Admittedly, M83 has had a hard time throwing off the shackles of living in My Bloody Valentine's shadow and because of the reverb and shrieking distortion effects in Saturdays = Youth, the similarities probably won't stop being noted. But M83's third album is so refreshing that it lessens the implications of inferiority in that comparison. By making the connections between the 80's and Loveless more apparent, Saturdays = Youth defends its credibility, while mastering a joyous middle-point sound of its own. Read more...

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Xiu Xiu - Women As Lovers (2008)

4.0 ★/8.0 - 8.9

There's something to be said for an artist like Jamie Stewart, who, with his twisted Ian Curtis-meets-Conor Oberst constitution, has so boldly extracted the essence of manic depression for 5 albums of cacophony and disturbing avant-pop, without ever bothering to make it more accessible for his listeners. But the reason Women As Lovers succeeds more than any other Xiu Xiu album, is because of it's willingness to open up. Whereas their last two albums focused on distancing it's emotions from the listener through avant touches, Women As Lovers delivers upon the approachable form that the seamlessly consolidated Fabulous Muscles promised. Don't get me wrong, the content itself is still roughly disturbing - just look at the album artwork, which appears to be a naked child-form roughly bound by rope and tourniquet wire. And then there's the heart breaking center of the album, "Black Keyboard" and "Master of the Bump" - two of Stewart's signature acoustic treks into his dark and troubled psyche, enhanced by weary and unflinching lines like "why would mother say such things, why add tongue to her kiss goodnight" and "a child is nothing without hate". But for music that's so blatantly driven by intensity and trauma, the band sounds they're having a ton of fun. The "doo doo doo" yelps in the background of lead single, "I Do What I Want When I Want" make what's already a shambling recording feel even more like a children's recess project. "No Friend Oh!", the album's most immediately catchy song, sounds positively triumphant with the chorus' blaring horn section. And even though you'd expect the end result of Jamie Stewart handling any song with intentions as melodramatic as Queen's "Under Pressure" to be a total depress-fest, what's amazing is how loosely the band plays with it, delightfully reassembling it with a revitalized madhouse arrangement that puts to shame the more predictable versions that have popped up lately (My Chemical Romance and The Used, I'm looking at you). Jamie Stewart's barely controllable melodramatic shouts, Caralee McElroy's gentle whispers and Michael Gira's powerful sing-speaking all take turns, powered by free-jazz dissonance, and a wall of pretty guitars.

What Women As Lovers ultimately does for Xiu Xiu is shed the off-the-walls variety of all their other albums in exchange for a single, tangible, down-to-earth face. Throughout the album there's a consistent sound: a steadily tense, post-punk influenced, rhythmic section, rollicking bass and startlingly violent percussion clashing savagely with Stewart's unstable whimpers, random electro-noise and acoustic meanderings. This new found focus, looseness and attention to jamming (no matter how off-key it may be) all add up to make Xiu Xiu finally sound like a coherent and widely listenable band, rather than a left-of-field recording project. For that, it's undoubtedly one of their best albums to date. Read more...

Friday, March 14, 2008

The Ruby Suns - Sea Lion (2008)

4.0 ★/8.0 - 8.9

While the shifting swirl of voices in the first half of "Morning Sun" or the hissing, half-asleep swayer, "Blue Penguin" suggests more lo-fi origins, this exterior conceals the hi-fi mentality abound in Sea Lion. "There Are Birds", for example, sets itself up to be a simple buzzing pop tune, but then makes a right turn into a multi-layered funhouse carnival section. The percussion that opens "Tane Mahuta" sounds like it's all silverware and tin cans, but then the song reveals a musical sophistication that would make Brian Wilson blush, it's main melody becoming supplemented by all manners of Pacific Islander, African, and Hawaiin originated instruments. And "Kenya Dig It?" is the kind of Pet Sounds-worthy flawless creation that you'd expect to only be attempted in a high-end studio; it's structure brilliantly ebbs from a downpour of phaser mist draping a heavenly harmony into an elaborate shifting of styles and back to the beginning, before side-stepping into a gorgeous shoegazer outro. As a matter of fact, the weakest parts of the album are sections that become too fractured or bogged down in lo-fi textures (particularly on tracks like the Microphones-esque "It's Mwangi In Front Of Me" or the lifeless "Ole Rinka"). Try as they might to jump on the rugged, garage pop bandwagon, The Ruby Suns work best when they sound exactly how everyone would expect a New Zealand band to sound like: as if they've risen out of an underwater city with Sebastian and the entire Atlantica orchestra behind them. Read more...

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Atlas Sound @ Bottom of The Hill, San Francisco, CA, 03/08/08


For an artist whose last album was an intimate bedroom recording project, Bradford Cox showed an excessive amount of energy on stage. It was of course, immediately apparent, from his swaying and practically incoherent rambling, that this was due to the alcohol he had consumed prior and continued to consume (and spill) throughout the show. According to the bassist, it was only one drink. If that's true, it's confounding that such a tall person could be such a lightweight because he was so drunk that the show must've gone on almost 2 hours longer than it should have, to fit in all of his in-between song ranting, crowd interaction, and aimless jamming. And even after the show was over, he stayed on stage, sat on a monitor and just continued to talk to the crowd about music, modern art and people he had met that night. Failed attempts at covers followed (although one effort was successful: Velvet Underground's "I'll Be Your Mirror") and after ten minutes of requests, Bradford finally dragged himself off stage.

As infinitely entertaining as it was to witness Bradford Cox spiral into unpredictable silliness (especially to his core fans who, eventually began to encourage him with conversation), it's a shame that his antics had to kill the atmosphere of the excellent songs, because when he did stick to the set, what went down was a force to be reckoned with. Composed of members from openers, Valet, and the impressive ambient sound manipulator, White Rainbow, Bradford's backing group tackled all of the more structured and full-band oriented songs from Let The Blind Lead... with impressive vitality and concentration. The sound mixing was perfect, and was able to fit all the electronic noodling and noisy guitar texturing on stage into a listenable form (Bottom Of The Hill has always, in my opinion, contained one of the best and clearest sound systems in the entire city). But the overall feeling of the show can best be characterized by it's last 5 minutes. The set ended in a total stage breakdown, each of the five musicians on-stage escaping their otherwise consistent pensive raptness to completely consume the audience with an off-the-rails performance of fierce noise making and impassioned form. It was truly captivating...up until the moment Bradford Cox clumsily dropped a mic on his friend/bassist's face, giving her a fat lip. Here's hoping their other shows on the tour stay a little more focused.

Read more...

Saturday, March 8, 2008

Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes (2008)

4.0 ★/8.0 - 8.9

A band that my parents and I can both enjoy comes around about once every other blue moon. My record shelf and their collection of washed up southern traditionalists have virtually not a single overlap, and whenever they threaten to cover the same ground, I tend to find myself disowning the artist in question. This explains my resistance to giving anything from the "alternative-country" movement a chance. I know there are elements of those artists that could ease me into the style, and I'm arguably already on it's outskirts, with Wilco and Calexico. But I'd rather not have to go through the devastation of having to bury my passion for a piece of music because it conflicts with my subconscious conditioning to be disgusted by anything that my parents can view as wholesome all-American entertainment, to go with their Grammy Awards and American Idol. Still, I've given into Fleet Foxes and feel very much torn. Something tells me that in the end, I'm gonna have to work extra hard to keep this a secret from my parents, because I simply can't stop listening to it and don't think I'd be able to if I tried. The splendidly gorgeous "Meadowlark", at the very least, is infinitely replay-able; the kind of song that, after hearing once, I couldn't stand not hearing at least once a day every day for the rest of my life. No matter how much I stare apathetically at their shudder inducing favorite artists (Crosby, Stills & Nash for example) and how much they embrace genres that I've never been too fond of, from gospel to southern rock, I can't ignore that Fleet Foxes have instilled these influences with enough originality and inventiveness to have delivered yet another nomination for this year's best debut album.

Like recent psych-folk misfits, Grizzly Bear, the key to Fleet Foxes' success is the way their organically flowing arrangements so masterfully maintain a balance between American backwoods influence and blue-eyed Psychadellia. Right from the start, album opener, "Red Squirrel" couldn't be more blatant about it's American grass roots intentions, yet the connected "Sun Rises" eventually reforms it's banjo-toting harmonies into a flurry of mind bending riffs. Check out the way the otherwise typical adult-alternative anthem, "Quiet Woods" bursts into an organ-led circus square dance for it's interludes. Or marvel at how effortlessly "He Doesn't Know Why" veers between a "my dear clementine"-esque ditty and a dramatic beach boys style build up. The best way to explain how good Fleet Foxes is, however, is to simply look at the way it's convinced me to open up. I saw O Brother Where Art Thou earlier today and for once, the Soggy Bottom Boys song that the film revolves around got my toe tapping. The other day I stole a listen to a Fleetwood Mac album from my mom's collection. And who knows, I may even let her listen to Fleet Foxes. After all, good music should make you want to share it, despite generational or cultural differences. Read more...
"How many times must a man look up
before he can see the sky?"