High Wolf Ascension (2010, Not Not Fun)
RIYL = Stag Hare, Niagara Falls, Mountains
That old Indian drum. The dangling dream catcher. The hollow breeze drifting. It’s not an unfamiliar song at this point in the game. The fact that it can be revitalized is something of a miracle though. I mean how many blazed-to-high-heaven hippy jamdrones does one need in their personal collection? It’s a bit played I think. Still, High Wolf, being that almighty champion of the form, their silken musk pulsing, have conjured a Lamanite dreamspace of resonance and distinction. Things float dusty through to “Diego,” where the soil-gravity-lift is scissored through with electronics, beams of green and blue projected into the thick air. This is when I think to myself: yes, yes, I can handle another album extracted from the blood of this land, from its original inhabitants and their horse’s skulls. As the album progresses, the level of play is consistently elevated. In five pieces High Wolf manages the straight-forward mission statement embedded in his album title and proves himself complicit with the objects of ascension. I feel like, in listening to the album, my body is weighted down into a cross-legged slump beneath a headdress of a thousand feathers crushing me into a higher plane.
Sore Eros Second Chants (2009, ShdwPly Records) RIYL = Benoit Pioulard, The Microphones, Sparklehorse
Second Chants by Sore Eros is bedroom folk/pop at its best. Slightly muted and filled with layers of instrumentation and lo-fi studio trickery (the same kind that made The Microphones so essential), Second Chants is swirling with dusty strumming, plodding percussion and millions of spider webbed nooks and crannies within each enchanting track. Sore Eros has created something really great here. I initially wanted to write a full review of this album, but found myself too entranced when it was on to formulate any type of critical thought. Simply put, Second Chants is a super solid album of blissfully imaginative folk pop that deserves much more attention than it is presently receiving.
Sharon Van Etten Because I Was In Love (2009, Language of Stone) RIYL = Marissa Nadler, Hem, Woelv
From the first note of Sharon Van Etten’s Because I Was In Love, Van Etten’s voice hits you like a cold mountain stream. Her pristine, angelic, somber vocals are absolutely gorgeous and totally refreshing. And that is pretty much the draw here. The majority of the album is propped up only by Van Etten’s perfect voice and her laconic guitar strums. Because I Was In Love is filled with beautiful, drowsy folk to cleanse your palette and transport you into the reflective solitude that surely inspired these gorgeous tracks.
Wet Hair Dream (2009, Not Not Fun) RIYL = Raccoo-oo-oon, Teeth Mountain, Excepter
Thank goodness Shawn Reed and Ryan Garbes are still killin’ it. After the bloated but still pretty freakin’ awesome swan song that was Raccoo-oo-oon’s final album last year, I figured that it was the end of a golden era. In a sense, that still holds true, Wet Hair is not Raccoo-oo-oon. However, Wet Hair does carry a good chunk of the Raccoo-oo-oon formula (this goes hand in hand with having former members of the band) along with a few additional twists, all of which equates to some fine tuned, space punk spelunking. Dream is the duo’s best release to date.
I’ve been meaning to get around to a Hexlove release for some time now. Hexlove is the artistic guise of Mr. Zac Nelson and after listening to his work as the drummer of Who’s Your Favorite Son God, I was sure that anything else this guy put to tape, whatever it was, would be a awesome. My introduction through Pija Z Bogiem proved my assumptions to be true – pure awesomeness. Pure madness. Purely ridiculous madness and awesomeness to the fifth dimension. Impure mad prog-awesome radiculousness to the fifth, sixth and seventh dimensions. I should have known by the fact that this was a double discer that Pija Z Bogiem (what?) would be more than overflowing with ideas. Nelson is simply bursting at the seams here with the bizarro creativity of a mad genius from some alternate reality of proggy freak folk wonderment. Where to even begin? Maybe no where at all. It’s just goodness – lengthy tribal jam sessions that twist and expand, expatriate pop songs sunk into a blender and reconfigured with Scotch tape, swine flu hallucinations (trust me on this one) – too much to distill into a single idea. Love.
Dolphins Into the Future …On Sea-Faring Isolation (2009, Not Not Fun) RIYL = Ducktails, Peaking Lights, Oneohtrix Point Never
I’m pathetic. I’ve been scanning through the reviews that I’ve posted recently and near everyone claims to be one of the very favourite records of the year and while I’ve enjoyed everyone of them, they can’t all be my favourite, right? Well, while …On Sea-Faring Isolation isn’t my favourite record of the year, but I do enjoy it quite a bit and on a more trivial note, Dolphins Into the Future is definitely my new favourite band name. I used to favor Birchville Cat Motel in this category, but since Campbell Kneale decided to retire that pseudonym Dolphins Into the Future has stolen the spotlight. I’m glad they did to, because that is pretty much the only reason I started listening to this LP. Jump aboard ‘cuz these spacey, slippery ,droney dolphin tunes that are just perfect for relaxing on a beach chair with a tropical drink of your choice. Delish.
Lotus Plaza The Floodlight Collective (2009, Kranky) RIYL = Deerhunter, Atlas Sound
You should already know about this album by now. Lotus Plaza is Lockett Pundt, who is apparently alternate creative strain of Deerhunter to Mr. Bradford Cox. The Floodlight Collective is shimmery, hazy pop of the finest quality. Think Deerhunter if everything were smeared and blissed out just a little bit more. Really, just a lovely pop record with heavy ambient strings ala My Bloody Valentine with a little bit more sun. Again, you should already know about Lotus Plaza and The Floodlight Collective by now and love it profusely.
Raccoo-oo-oon Raccoo-oo-oon (11.2008, Night People/Not Not Fun) Verdict = Earning their oo’s with an expansive swan song
2008 has been miraculous as any year of music in regards to exciting new tunes from fresh new faces and inventive musical genius from old torch bearers alike. However, despite all the standard pomp, there has been some casualties along the way that have been particularly devastating for me. As I mentioned in my review of Millipede’s Hyrule, experimental stalwarts, Yellow Swans and Wzt Hearts, both announced their respective dissolutions this year (though Yellow Swans have promised their last word in a release for 2009). No band can continue forever, and personally I wouldn’t want them to, but it is still sad to hear of bands bowing out in the midst of such wonderful output. Unfortunately, Raccoo-oo-oon, the eponymous noise rock troupe has added themselves to the list of glorious bands who went their separate ways in 2008. Wooly Mammal alerted me to this first in a somewhat bittersweet announcement of Raccoo-oo-oon’s most recent and final release. It is hard to reconcile the great excitement of a new full length Raccoo-oo-oon album with the fact that it will also be the last that we’ll ever hear. It has been a relatively brief, though richly fertile run for the band and the idea of this being their swan song brings with it some hefty baggage. The album contains seven untitled tracks, the first of which threatens, quite literally, to devour the whole of music released in 2008. After meandering unassumingly for about three or so minutes, the band locks into a primordial groove reminiscent of A Silver Mount Zion when they’re bearing their teeth, granted, Raccoo-oo-oon carry a few extra rows of teeth. It’s just ferocious. However, in the midst of their powerful fit of rage, the band members seem to become confused and disoriented on subsequent tracks like wild animals in the grips of some mortal wound. With gaping bloody holes Raccoo-oo-oon spends the remaining hour+ passing in and out of consciousness, staggering and hallucinating, amassing grizzly strength only to suffer its gory depletion in a harrowing scene of wide eyed grief and frenzied rage. It’s simultaneously exciting and bewildering. The band hasn’t pulled any punches here. Every raw ounce of energy has been summoned and funneled into these tracks and, for better or worse, they have filled every last second available on the disc. It is a hard album to eff with. You really have to know what you are getting into when you get started or you’ll probably get injured - mentally and physically. It is simply unpredictable. One moment the band is locked into a furious jam that seems fit to tear down the wall of China by sheer audio fervor alone and the next minute the group has wandered, each in opposite directions creating some incomprehensible instrumental jargon. At first I was elated, I mean that first track is just about the best thing the band has ever done, but then I was disappointed by the magnified disorder that directly followed it. My feelings continued to fluctuate after through that first listen, however, with a patient and open ear, and several repeat listens, I believe that Raccoo-oo-oon has done something brave here. The album is the emotive embodiment of the celebration and sorrow of a band in the twilight of its life. Without the desire to please not a soul but themselves, Raccoo-oo-oon has thrown themselves and all the blood and sweat that they contain into a glorious requiem fit for the microcosm of noise rock of which they were deities. I would offer a “rest in peace,” but I hope that the ghost of Raccoo-oo-oon continues to haunt the souls of men for a long long time.
Inca Ore Birthday of Bless You (2008, Not Not Fun) File Under = Ghost music
After Grouper landed on the Forest Gospel radar a couple of years ago it was only a matter of time before similarly ethereal, Oregon apparition exorcist, Inca Ore, found her way to our ears. Known by family and friends as Eva Saelens, Inca Ore has been kicking up dust with a variety of limited, less limited and collaborative releases (including a split tape with the aforementioned Grouper that is set to be reissued on Vinyl and CD). With Birthday of Bless You, Saelens continues to expand her signature elusive dreaminess. With a voice that sounds like it is recorded through six feat of dirt and cloud of dusty lo-fi tones accompanying it, Birthday of Bless You still manages to be oddly calming despite its harrowing moments. I can't say that I have listened to a lot of Ince Ore's back catalog up to this point (just the Grouper split) but this vinyl only release is definitely a must have for any fans of Grouper or Valet or Jackie-O - seems like they're all pretty well interrelated anyway. There must be something in the water in Oregon that evokes this type of off kilter specter worship. Whatever it is, hopefully they start piping it into Salt Lake City soon because Birthday of Bless You is just the kind of magnificent and terrifying and gorgeous and everything else in-between that we need more of.
The Goslings Occasion (03.2008, Not Not Fun) Verdict = Deafening Oblivion via Headphones
It is difficult to determine whether Heaven or Hell is responsible for The Goslings most recent release on Not Not Fun, but to whomever is responsible, thank you. Occasion, the proper and eagerly anticipated follow up to The Goslings 2006 masterpiece, Grandeur of Hair, is simply devastating. I probably have said that about The Goslings before, but the Florida husband and wife duo has done it once again. I think it is pretty fair to say that with Occasion The Goslings are prepared to sink islands and flatten mountains. The album plays out like the audible equivalent to a steamroller the size of The Empire State Building rolling through the middle of Manhattan. It’s a terribly amazing thing to put to tape, but for those of you who are familiar with The Goslings druggy, lethargic doom metal/pop this is no surprise. This has always been The Goslings modus operandi since day one. It all comes down to the old adage: if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. With Occasion this couldn’t be more true; still firing down the same lines as they have in the past yet still scoring wildly with the most excruciatingly delicious, terribly awesome onslaught likely to have ever laid claim on rock and roll. Ha, just now sitting at my desk at my day job someone whose desk is about thirty feet away came over and told me they could hear my headphones…and the volume on my iPod is only 2/3rds the way up. Mmm, it is just so so good. My already insufficient writing ability is truly at a loss for words here. Unless The Goslings make ten more albums in 2008, it will be practically impossible that this won’t land on my top ten list at the end of the year.
High Wolf
Hexlove
