Róisín Murphy’s last album Ruby Blue was a masterfully crafted piece of found-sound pop. We obviously have Matthew Herbert and his P.C.C.O.M. manifesto to thank for its musical charm, but Murphy’s silky jazz vocals made up a large part of the albums success. But this time around, the Ramalama Bang Bang has been smoothed over into a steady, sensuous boom. “Overpowered” is a dizzying night club anthem, complete with squiggly acid synths and house atmospherics. It sounds like a step backwards at first when compared to the sonic experimentation of Ruby Blue, but it’s more like a lateral leap within the same genre. “Overpowered” is dance music in its purest form; simple in structure, but effective in its purpose. I’ll probably always be more attached to Ruby Blue, but that doesn’t mean Murphy’s Sophomore will be any less of an album.
I hope I’m not the only one that prefers the messy garage rock from Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Fever To Tell as opposed to the orderly-by-comparison Show Your Bones. If not, rejoice with me fellow fans of old. YYY’s are set to release the Is Is EP, a batch of songs recorded back in ’04. It’s a good reminder of why I loved this band in the first place; heavy, ferocious guitar licks, killer drumming, and Karen O’s hungry growl. They also had a great balance of sweetness and sweat, as “Down Boy” displays so well. The song could easily be the sound of the two albums combined, effectively balancing the raunchy rock with well-measured constraint. If the YYY’s decide to re-embrace the sound of their first full length, it would probably be the first time I couldn’t fault a band for doing the same thing twice.
Singer/Songwriters make you sick don’t they? They always seem to boo-hoo all over your parade when you’re trying to have a party. You probably shudder at the sound of an open-chord strum. While there have been plenty half-assed artist that give any acoustic six-stringer a bad name, we sometimes overlook those that actually put feeling into their music. Some may wear their heart on their sleeve for fashions sake, but Jake Newton’s seems to know no other place to be. The music drips with honesty and emotion sung in the language of personal experience-- a language that is very hard to fake. “Just Showing Off” accuses and accepts blame in the same breathe. Lines like “Here’s where it meets in the tangling of sheets/Where the histories been repeated over and over again” admit the guilty act of dual-consent. It may sound like sappy stuff, especially if you’ve built a defense mechanism against anything remotely emotional or sincere, but you may also discover how nice it can be when you let your heart live outside your chest every now and then.
Is this really a revolution? There’s no space. There’s no air. Everything is packed from end to end into a claustrophobic mess. It’s loud and filthy sounding. There are no slow builds. It hits hard, and then, later in the song, hits harder. The synths aren’t subtle, they scream. The beats don’t vary much from the steady boom-tap combination. Every track is a raging party. Will Justice liberate the idle feet of children everywhere? Is this really a revolution? Et justice pour tous?
Forgive me for the drastic exaggerations, but it’s been a long time since I’ve been genuinely excited about an electronic album. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a sucker for minimalist, maximalist, micro, and whatever else you can preface before –house. As many times as I’ve played Gui Borrato’s Chromophobia and The Field’s From Here We Go Sublime, and as much I love both those albums, I’ve never had a reason to get physically excited. Most of these records seem to exists to be intellectualized more than anything. But † is like a visceral punch in the face. The message here: dance or be damned. No one wants to be damned, and so we can’t help but dance.
And if I may be so daring as to inspire a collective gasp amongst the electronic elite, I like † better than anything Daft Punk has ever put out, past or present. If that sounds blasphemous to you, you can rest assured that this is only one man’s opinion. It may seem even more ridiculous since Daft Punk are more like the blueprint to Justice’s model, but I can’t help but feel like Justice actually deliver harder, better, faster, and stronger than any of their contemporaries. But lets be honest, this is dance rock folks, nothing more or less. It’s quite possible that any existential musings on how Justice will change the face of electronic music or music in general are baseless.
That being said, if we were to evaluate † on sheer listenability, it still comes out on top. From the opening timpani of “Genesis,” you know exactly what to expect; super compress sci-fi sweetness. “Let There Be Light” lets loose some harsh, search-and-destroy synths and their signature fuzzy funk-bass with an array of hi-hats slamming into each other at full-speed. There’s a moment of cool-down around the 3:30 mark before radio noise introduces “D.A.N.C.E.”, which has to be your favorite song….ever.
There isn’t one weak track throughout the entire album. Besides the less than desirable raps from label mate Uffie on “The Party”, it still gets repeat love. Plus, you gotta love a couple French dudes that sample Three-Six Mafia. “DVNO” is the real party track anyway using the duo’s signature formula to maximum effect. One of the most insane highlights of the album, “Stress” uses hyper-tense strings for an effective exercise in tension and release. “Waters Of Nazareth,” a repeat from the EP of the same name, is the nastiest thing here. High on distortion and heavy on the tom drum and hi-hats, it would make a killing on the dancefloor.
So yes, it’s a noisy, reckless, sweaty mess, and it’s fantastic. It’s the best time you can have when you’re alone in your car. It’s the most fun you’re going to have without drinking. Oh yeah, it will probably sound great in a club too. Forget what we told you before, this really is the best dance party ever.
The man formerly know as Manitoba (before being sued by Handsome Dick(head) Manitoba himself) is back with Andorra, his first offering for Merge records. The album brings a much welcomed shift back to the psychedelic sampling that made Up In Flames and underground classic. The opening track “Melody Day” abandons the thin simplicity of his previous album The Milk Of Human Kindness and builds on endless layers of “is it real or is it sampled?” instrumentation. There’s definitely more of a live band sound to this record, but it’s still the work of a large vinyl collection (it’s like analogue heaven for the audiophile). With so much stuff crammed into a four minute slot, it’s easy to get lost in the mélange of guitar licks, drum kits, and melodic found-sound. But once you find your way around, there’s nothing left other than a beautiful song to start the summer.
An orchestra set to slightly deeper blue, a title that suits North Carolina’s folk rockers, Sweater Weather. A multi-member, instrument collective, that takes cues from The Shins, Sufjan Stevens and Damien Rice. Their latest track, “The Pains of Relocation,” recounts a tale of childhood through the eyes of singer and songwriter Casey Trela. Trela scores a soundtrack that captures the tone and emotion of a Wes Anderson film. The band makes great use of multiple instruments, which includes guitars, cellos, drums, accordions and even a glockenspiel to create a deep, slightly depressing resonance. When Trela’s bitter sweet lyrics are thrown into the mix, fans of Conor Oberst might ask him to lighten-up a bit. Sweater Weather reminds me a lot of another gloomy singer/ songwriter, Nick Drake. Whose dark and disheartening tunes set the pace for artists like Trela and Oberst. Much like Drake, Sweater Weather’s music brings to mind that even on the most sobering, dismal days, there still lays beauty underneath it all.
Newsflash: Scottish born Calvin Harris joins the never-ending lineage of techno-funk producers. Using an archaic Amiga computer and other ancient equipment, nearly every song on Harris’ debut album I Created Disco (due 6/18 in the U.K.) was created with the dancefloor in mind. Whatever you do, pay no attention to Harris’ lyrics. I would also tell you to pay no attention to the album title, but it’s actually fairly accurate. No, he didn’t create disco, but the title immediately becomes attractive to those attracted to dance music. Basically, it’s smart marketing. And although Harris didn’t create disco, he did create “Disco Heat,” and that’s good enough for me. Don’t let the hipster guitar riffs in the intro fool you, on the other side awaits an electro-house dance party. Calvin keeps it light on the lyrics and lean on the production, using a classic super-fat bassline and echoing synth stabs. “Acceptable In The 80’s” was practically engineered to be the next Reagan-baby anthem (or whoever was the ruling party in Scotland at the time). But whatever it is that was acceptable in the 80's remains a mystery. So yeah, it’s basically another one of those “Don’t think, just dance” type albums. Fair enough.
I was having a bad day. I was angry to say the least. I wanted shout and throw things. I wanted flip the entire room on its head, creating as much chaos as possible. It would have been easy to embrace this anger, put on some Rage Against The Machine and start kicking shit around in a furious tantrum. But I didn’t. Instead, I went for the opposite. I put on And Their Refinement Of The Decline and laid down instead. I opened up and let the soothing washes of sound flood through me. By the time I had got to “Even If You're Never Awake (Deuxieme)” on the first disc I felt like a different person. While a majority of the songs prior seemed to bleed into one large beautiful orchestration, this tracks seemed to stick out. Mixing lush strings, radio noise, and other instruments that sound as if they were played live and re-sampled, the song is a three-phase exercise in patience and appreciation. With patience, as it is with most ambient drone music, one can appreciate the innate beauty of the genre. But Stars Of The Lid seem to have a better, if not more human grasp. From the obvious details (the sounds of empty, lonely piano chords. Distant angelic voices.) to the subtle shifts in the general mood of the music, And Their Refinement has a lot to offer for the attentive listener. It’s also the cheapest prescription for anger management.
Shipwrecked. Pirates. Barnacles. These are a few things that come to mind when listening to “In Our Talons” from The Bowerbirds album Hymns For A Dark Horse. There’s nothing wrong with any of these things either-- the imagery is more than welcome. The album is full of beautiful, dusky barroom folk which ranges from tender acoustic ditties to brothel-blues numbers. “In Our Talons” rides a current of booming percussion and accordion. A chorus of voices proclaim “You’re not alone, you’re in our talons now.” Only here does the percussion rest, and the gentle acoustic finger-picking can be heard over the accordions drawn out melody. You can’t help but imagine being surrounded by the torrential sea, resting only in the comfort of some guardian bird’s talons (a Bowerbird, perhaps?). Hymns For A Dark Horse is definitely a unique listen. The band will probably be compared to The Decemberists for lack of a better parallel. But where the Decemberists spin elaborate tales pointing towards the past, The Bowerbirds seem to make ancient music rooted in the here and now. For them, this is the weary sound of reality; the sounds of the ghost of the present day.
With the endless number of Brian Wilson wannabes and harmony obsessed indie poppers, I’m surprised I haven’t sworn off every Pet Sounds carbon copy I’ve come across. But for some reason, they keep coming, and I keep eating them up. The latest being Montreal’s The Miracle Fortress, and their debut album Five Roses. With a combination of Beach Boys charm, innocence and earnest, Graham Van Pelt (the man behind the moniker) churns out fuzz-pop fueled by an endless amount of sunshine and summertime memories. “Have You Seen In Your Dreams” uses all these elements to maximum effect, adding some ‘dreamy’ textures to make good on its name. “Little Trees” greets us with a pitch-warbling synth and clean acoustic plucking. The song turns blissfully happy-go-lucky, layering in psychedelic effects with the expected harmonies. While the whole album doesn’t cash in on this masterful formula, it definitely has its fair share of sun-drenched gems. No matter how much you try to avoid it, it’s bound to earn a few smiles.
