Zs - Music of the Modern White

Zs
Music of the Modern White
(2009, Social Registry)
RIYL = Extra Life, Aufgehoben, Kingdom Shore

Zs is one of those bands that I’ve always heard about being whispered about as musical revolutionaries. Along with this idea was a semi-obscure mythology that I’m not so sure that I didn’t fabricate myself. Either way, the New York underground’s experimental music scene has to culminate with reference to this insatiably glorious troupe of free jazz noise pranksters. My first introduction to the crew was last year’s The Hard EP. With a single track clocking in at past fifteen minutes, Zs provided a schizophrenic/OCD composition that was the epitome of its name sake. It was simply a difficult listen. On Music of the Modern White I'm not even going to begin to pretend that Zs has somehow turned the corner toward accessibility, but for my dollar this is what educated free jazz/noise is all about. First off, Zs has cut their tracks into pop sized lengths for easier digestion. Secondly, well, the guys just kill it on every track. I don’t know what it is and if it is totally justified, but there is something about Zs’s approach to composing mind bending sound experiments that sounds classically informed. I can’t really put my finger on it, but Music of the Modern White feels like adept musicians creating beautiful ugliness at will rather than amateurish teenagers attempting to make a scary sounds tape for Halloween with whatever is lying around the house. Perhaps a part of this is the instrumentation. With (at various points) heavy handed, well recorded drums, brass (I’m thinking a saxophone) bleating and what sounds like soaring violins, Zs sound like a group of orchestral jazz expatriates. However, don’t let this provoke any thoughts of elitism in your little heads. With screeching electric guitars and handclaps, Zs bring everything full circle. There is legitimate punk rock n’ roll buried in the aesthetic of theses pieces. There are only six tracks on the album leaving things relatively short, but not without giving you full satisfaction at the completion. I think if there was much more audio destruction lingering in these tracks people might begin to suffer slight amounts of brain damage. However, just for the record, I wouldn’t mind. Super freakin' awesome!

-Thistle

Zs on MySpace

Gang Gang Dance - Saint Dymphna

Gang Gang Dance
Saint Dymphna
(10.2008, The Social Registry)
Verdict = Gang Gang Dance finally take their rightful place

About this time of year my top ten list is starting to get pretty packed seeing as how the number of bands I have stated were top ten material are far more than ten. Well, even with that being the case I am more than comfortable pushing one more worthy artist out of a top slot to make room for Saint Dymphna. It is a requirement really. There are almost no other albums on the landscape of 2008 that can even marginally eff with what Gang Gang Dance has created here. This is good, because I was getting pretty worried there for a bit. Not that he would remember me, but the last time GGDD came rolling through Salt Lake I spoke with drummer Tim Dewitt and he seemed somewhat discouraged about the recording process. At the time, the band was planning on releasing the follow up to God’s Money in the fall of 2007. I waited, and after two fair EP length releases and no full length I began to get nervous. I thought, maybe it wasn’t possible to successfully follow up something as good as God’s Money. I was wrong. With Saint Dymphna, Gang Gang Dance has upped their game considerably. The band has finally solidified their place along side contemporary heavy weights like Animal Collective, Black Dice and Excepter as one of the foremost innovators in the art rock. That said, GGD has always been the most hip hop of these groups. Saint Dymphna reveals this in spades, filling every inch of the album with majestic, head-bobbing poly rhythms. The hip-hopness is most obvious on “Princes,” which employs the help of grime emcee, Tinchy Stryder. I have actually seen a couple reviews that have slammed this track and the other most notable single on the album, “House Jam.” Seems to me to be some type of ridiculous, “I-am-hipper-than-you-because-I-don’t-like-the-more-assecible-tracks” nonsense because GGD absolutely kill it on both tracks. Seriously, I have no idea how anyone could hate on those tracks, and no, they don’t feel out of place on the album. Anyway, absolutely sick album with dozens of memorable, melodic shifts within each and every track. It’s been worth the wait.

-Mr. Thistle

Gang Gang Dance on Myspace

Blood On The Wall - Liferz

Blood On The Wall
Liferz
(01.2008, Social Registry)
Verdict = Muscular Indie Rock

For some time now I have had a yearning for the straight forward grit and grunge produced by late eighties and early nineties indie rock. Something about how its united blown out urgency and drifting slackery was just the cat’s meow. Everything now-a-days seems to be just outside of this broken perfection. It’s either much too produced or overtly under produced. The absent middle ground has seemed to be a part of the largely missing fun in modern indie music. It is for this reason that Blood On The Wall is such a wonderfully welcome breath of old air. Reverting back to the days of incredible indie rock songwriting that wasn’t worried about the hipster sub-genre that it reached, the Brooklyn band embodies everything that is wonderful and pure in rock music. On Liferz, the follow up to their sweltering kaleidoscope of a debut, the band has cut the filler and tightened up their attack to produce a perfect hallmark to the days of yore. Without missing a step in their pro/regression, the bands heavy handed drums churning guitar squalor and alternating male and female vocals continually appease. Everything about the release is chiseled, grinding and, ultimately, a complete blast to listen to. It kind of depends on the mood though. I don’t know how to properly explain this except to say that about 8 times out of 10 I love this record, but occasionally it just comes off as tired. You should probably discard that, but I felt like telling you anyway. Feeling completely unruly (with the assistance of the brilliant “Sorry Sorry Sarah”), I am going to skip naming all the dissonant indie staples that should probably find themselves in this review and go ahead and randomly give a nod to Sebadoh. Whoa…sorry, this album just has me in such a wonderfully unwieldy mindset that I just lost myself there in ancient indie nostalgia. The real beauty of what Blood On The Wall have created is that it’s an album that you don’t have to think about to like. Void of pretense, Liferz is an instant classic from start to finish.

-Mr. Thistle

Blood On The Wall - "Junkee... Julieee..."

Gang Gang Dance- Rawwar EP

Gang Gang Dance
Rawwar EP
(09.2007, Social Registry)
6.5/10.0

Rawwar is a diversionary tactic. Anyone as impressed as I was by Gang Gang Dance's 2005 release God's Money has been eagerly awaiting the purported full length follow up that was supposed to drop this year. And now this, Rawwar, a three song ep that just breaks twenty minute mark for length. The first track, "Nicoman," revisits the glory of God's Money but is followed by a ho-hum instrumental track and an extendedly boring mix of ambience and samples that harkens, most closely, this year’s earlier GGD diversion: Retina Riddim. I can't help but get anxious at what is going on. While the wait between album releases can give the necessary time to digest previous material and prepare for more, Gang Gang Dance is pushing the limits to forgetability. I actually spoke with Gang Gang’s drummer earlier this year about their forthcoming album when they played the Urban Lounge and he sounded pretty frustrated with their current process. Struggling with the funds necessary to record the album they wanted, they find themselves currently standing in the monetary shadows of good friends Animal Collective and Black Dice. I personally hate this stance because their production is lacking in no degree when filtered through my speakers. While Rawwar isn’t the death of Gang Gang Dance it is a serious speed bump and at $10, it is a pretty pricy fundraiser for a full length album that seems to be fading further into the horizon.

-Mr. Thistle

Gang Gang Dance - "The Earthquake That Frees Prisoners"