Dirty Projectors Bitte Orca (06.2009, Domino) Verdict = Merriweather Post Pavilion is 2009’s only other album of this caliber
Bitte Orca is a prophet, an eight-foot tall shining wet black killer with a shoulder-mounted grenade launcher in one fin and a colonial cannon in the other, and it is screaming its unusual song and it sounds like triumph, like a realization, an actualization, and this whale is a machine, a beast, muscle built on muscle, taught with restraint and bearing all the explosiveness of nature, all the finesse and efficiency of a torpedo, and yes, the blasts do come, and this uncommon thing is huge, this thing has a center of gravity, it’s brimming with dynamism and craft, and its white teeth gleam and they have points like razors, real atom-smashers, and in it are past and present and future, and in it are grace and peace and in it are power and violence; it will make you swoon and make you smile and the glow of its being will warm the darkest corners of your soul; it will sit you down and break your heart and make you think about that and think about that again; it will snap with freight train force and bowl you over, bend you to fit its curve, challenge you, drop destroyers on your head; this creature has been to the summit, it has stood atop vistas and looked out over kingdom and culture and specie, and it has done its note-taking; this creature has english and deutsch and mbaqanga and alchemy, this creature is the desert and the sea, the mountains and the moon, this creation, this revelation, this thing is beautiful, and it is on a mission and it is well-equipped and well-traveled and well-learned and it is determined and it is coming for you, coming to shed some light, coming to demolish, coming to jubilate, coming to take you away.
Navigator Bad Children (05.2009, Magic Goat Music) RIYL = Mount Eerie, Woods, Times New Viking
On Braden J. McKenna's first two albums under his the pseudonym Navigator, an extremely small portion of the world was treated to some utterly ingenious lo-fi noise pop and indie singer-songwritering. Bad Children, the third full length from Navigator, seems to split the difference between the noise pop recording aesthetic of Songs For Mei and Satsuki with the outsider Americana songwriting from Throwing Tongues. The result is an odd, but enjoyable bout of noise laden Americana. There have only been a few acts in recent memory have successfully engendered dusty western musical tropes with a modern no wave despondence (Castanets, Gowns, Jackie-O), however, even these bands seem light years away from to what Navigator has produced. Instead of mining out the dark corners of folk with echoed reverberation, Bad Children is perpetually upbeat, reiterating the same flurry of C and G chords that Navigator has been pumping his tunes with since his beginning. Really, the closest relative I can think of for Bad Children is the most recent Woods release, Songs of Shame. And, just for the record, I am baffled at Songs of Shame's success. Why, you ask? Well, it really isn’t that great, especially in light of their previous records. But that is just a tangent. Bad Children on the other hand is wholly impressive, plush with warm feedback and ridiculously addictive. In a perfect (read: honest) world, Songs of Shame would be getting middling reviews while Bad Children would be peaking on the Pitchfork Best New Music list. But, then again, Pitchfork has been getting increasingly predictable in recent years (which doesn’t mean that FG doesn’t share some taste with the indie music juggernaut). I guess what I am getting at here is that Bad Children is a pretty high quality, unique little gem filled with a country mile of suburban charm. Reallistically, Navigator isn’t breaking any sound barriers with this ‘new’ sound, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t legitimately refreshing. Oh, and what's the most refreshing part? Mr. Navigator, the proprietor of the wonderful Magic Goat Music web label, is hosting free downloads of Bad Children on his website prior to its physical release. So, help yourself to some lo-fi noise country indie pop genius on Mr. Navigator – you won’t regret it.
When Julianna Barwick set the blogosphere [shudders] afire last year with Sanguine, I think that there was a general consensus that we needed more and fast. Sanguine was most certainly beautiful, that’s why everyone was so excited, but with a majority of the tracks on that mini album clocking in between one and two minutes, it felt sorta incomplete. The amazing part was just how full and wonderful Barwick’s gorgeous compositions were even in this tamed form. With Florine, Sanguine's proper follow up, I think I speak collectively for internet critics and music lovers the world over when I say, “…wow!” Sanguine enjoyed a similar response, but my goodness, Florine is absolutely jaw dropping. Barwick maintains her signature layers of looping vocals, but this time around she has provided more room for the development of these loops. I think Florine is being touted as an EP (which it is in terms of length), but the six songs here run just as long as the twelve on Sanguine. EP or not, Florine feels much more like a complete document of what Ms. Barwick can accomplish with some proper breathing room. All of the comparisons are still apt on this release. I still feel like Grouper is the dark witch of reverberated female vocals and Barwick is the white witch. They share many similarities, but the difference in major and minor keys is unquestionably significant. The only downfall I can even think of in regards to Florine is the fact that it is not available as a physically tangible release. Someone needs to put this stuff on wax and fast. So, as a recap: beautifully ethereal vocals looped and reverberated into little patches of heaven equals one of the years very very best releases. Highly recommended.
Keith Jarrett Trio Yesterdays (2009, ECM) RIYL: Ahmad Jamal, Oscar Peterson, Vince Guaraldi, Thelonious Monk
Keith Jarrett is a legendary jazz pianist for a reason. His trio of 25 years, with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack DeJohnette, is the most legendary jazz trio alive, and for a reason. That reason being? Give a few listens to their newest offering, Yesterdays—you tell me. But, a little about the record, just in case you need some goading… Yesterdays is a live standards album, recorded in Tokyo in 2001. The trio plays (more-or-less) straightforward jazz, and the songs on Yesterdays are, well, standards—they’ve been played by hundreds of artists, and for decades. If you’re a fan of the genre, you’ve probably heard them. What, then, makes this album remarkable? Hint: the men are giants of their instruments. For years, it’s been argued that Jarrett is one of the greatest pianists of all-time (and not just as a jazz player). DeJohnette is the consummate improvisational drummer, famous for incorporating experimentation into a very classic drum style. And Peacock just freaking eats this set for breakfast. As much as Jarrett is a highlight, the bass on Yesterdays is absolutely silly when Peacock lets things go. He really makes this album his own. But talent only goes so far. (This is especially true when we’re talking jazz standards, as these tunes have been riffed on and ripped apart by every era’s greats.) What’s equally crucial is the emotionality with which these players play. They shred through “You Took Advantage of Me”, but also expand their ragtimey version to ten-minutes—it adds great, exploratory dynamic to a song that can become cheesy quickly. The Diz’n’Bird classic “Shaw’nuff” is basically strapped up to a jet propulsion engine and l-a-u-n-c-h-e-d… it takes the audience awhile to even catch up. And the ballads, welcome after joyrides like that, are played with patience and unwavering respect. They are spare, still, and stellar. After every song, you feel it’s been played the way it ought to be played, the way it must be played. That’s the truest value of this album: While Yesterdays doesn’t necessarily cover new ground for the trio, it exemplifies, again and again, what makes them great. Longtime followers won’t be let down; newcomers… dig in.
Sunset Rubdown Dragonslayer (06.2009, Jagjaguwar) RIYL = Wolf Parade, Frog Eyes, Swan Lake
In an age of album leaks, the idea of placing faith in a pre-ordered copy of an album requires a little bit less faith. However, for those strong few (or uninformed few), you can preorder the new Sunset Rubdown and receive a digital version of the album immediately. That being the case, there are scores of Sunset Rubdown fans who are already legally listening to Dragonslayer making now as good a time as any to present this album before people who haven’t (at least yet) purchased this album for consideration. For those who don’t know Sunset Rubdown, the band is the brainchild and former solo project of Wolf Parade/Swan Lake/Frog Eyes contributor, Spencer Krug. There is a common sentiment among Krugian acolytes that Mr. Krug can do no wrong. As a shameless Krug fanboy myself, I must admit that this thought has crossed my mind; however, after my first few listens to Dragonslayer, I found that I wanted to like it a whole lot more than I actually did. It’s not that I didn’t like the album after my first couple listens, it was great – classic Krug – but there was a certain imaginary standard of “beyond greatness” that was somehow left unmet. It is a little bit unfair, I realize, to place such expectations on mere mortals, but it remains true that Krug’s track record hints at his capability for perfection. One initially glaring strain on my out-and-out giving in to Dragonslayer as perfect was that Krug redid “Paper Lace,” a song that was originally recorded and released only a couple of months ago with his other other band, Swan Lake. For an album with only eight songs, the repetition of one already released song seems like a pretty big deal. Not only that, but the Swan Lake version rocks the Sunset Rubdown version. In other places, Krug’s signature lyricisms fell a little short with some phrases that I personally found a little lacking. I was being critical because Random Spirit Lover was my favourite album of 2007 and I loved Shut Up I’m Dreaming even more than that. It’s weird how a little head over heals adoration can make you feel like an artist has a certain obligation to you or that you have some type of quasi-ownership -like stock shares- in the continued success of the band. Well, if you’re a Krug lover and this talk has you worried – don’t. I haven’t abandoned Sunset Rubdown. Most importantly because Sunset Rubdown hasn’t abandoned me. I kept listening. Replaying the album over and over again, not because I felt my initial criticisms were wrong, but because Dragonslayer is…awesome. In fact (as is always the case with Mr. Krug), repeated listens has afforded me the special privilege of peeling away at the layers and layers within these eight tracks and in turn falling absolutely head over heals with this most recent incarnation of indie rock genius that is Sunset Rubdown. Sunset Rubdown does something for me that no other band on the landscape of contemporary music has done for me since I was in junior high. In my explicitly geeky music past, bands like At the Drive-In and Dismemberment Plan drove me to rock out air-guitar style to entire albums in front of the wide mirror in my room. It was pretty much the standard of my school nights: Simpsons, Seinfeld, homework and then rocking out. Sunset Rubdown is the only band left that can provoke such unabashed idolization and air-rock mimicry and it feels good. I listen to these tracks, their gorging drama, their pulsing climaxes, and can do nothing but nod repetitiously with the rhythm and mouth every lyric. That power is in Dragonslayer. And, true to the subliminal connotations of its name, Dragonslayer has some of the grittiest guitar shredding Krug has ever had put to tape. Sunset Rubdown is no longer just a solo project though. This is a full, sincerely talented group of musicians who are, in my opinion, the very best still using guitars, drums, bass the way they were meant to be used. It just doesn’t get better than this. So, do I still want to like this album more than I do? No. If I loved this album any more, my wife would probably ask me to marry it, and that would just be awkward. Scoot over Animal Collective, based on this hat trick of releases from Sunset Rubdown, this blog should’ve been named “Idiot Heart.”
Silver Antlers Black Blood of the Earth (2009, Magic Goat/American West Freedom Society) RIYL = Stag Hare, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Animal Hospital, Mount Eerie by Microphones
Let me start off by saying that there are very few musicians who have established themselves with enough artistic credibility to merit the production of a release that consist of a single album length track. Some of the heavyweights who come to mind on this extremely short list are Keith Fullerton Whitman, Birchville Cat Motel and Gavin Bryars - not exactly beginners when it comes to music composition. There are at least a couple reasons why this is an arena only fit for a very limited few, the first being the value of time. Asking someone to endure an album length track in one sitting requires quite an investment from a listener. This is especially true in an era when most people don’t have forty-five minutes to an hour to give up in a regular work day. Then, when you do find someone with the time and interest to consume a single album length track in one sitting, it usually requires some type of prescription drug to keep them from aborting the task out of a lack of patience or a fill of anxiety. Secondly, who is to say that this forty-five minutes to an hour of music is going to be any good? Even amongst the recordings put to tape by those with a healthy back catalog of consistently great records, the album lengthed track can prove a stumbling block; an artsy, self-conscious striving that fails to maintain interest or intrigue and barely carries the weight of even a single listen. I was a little afriad of listening to this Silver Antlers debut because of these reasons and especially since the album takes a quite a bit of time to pick up and get going. However, I am glad that I did. Turns out Silver Antlers is a fairly adept musician and Black Blood of the Earth is a more-than-impressive debut worthy of many repeated listens. So, if my little preface didn’t clue you in you should understand that Black Blood of the Earth is a single fifty-two minute opus that, against all odds, is engaging and insanely good. Silver Antlers starts things off slowly with a repetitious vocal motif that reminded me a little bit of The Besnard Lakes mumbling over some standard guitar swirls. At about the seven minute mark this vocal arrangement has departed and is replaced some more prevalent guitar patterns and wordless, disembodied vocals. Pretty standard fare so far. It is at this transition that a bit of beauty seeps in to propel you forward. From here, Black Blood rises and swells majestically, harkening moves from the late great Godspeed You Black Emperor. Then things really start to pick up at about the twenty minute mark when some propulsive drumming is added to the mix and the flow turns from lovely river to blistering locomotive. Along with some additional vocal incantations, this drumming and the accompanying guitar seemed to have stolen the essence of Mount Eerie, my favourite album from The Microphones. This is a good thing. Silver Antlers doesn’t seem to be afraid of his influences which helps Black blood of the Earth use these reference points as building blocks for wholly new creation. The album seems to be constructed on a few different movements, each with their own compelling rhythm and instrumentation, each flowing into the next with added strength and beauty. The awesome part about Black Blood of the Earth is that it never stops surprising with continuously climactic moments that progressively one-up the previous high. In fact, the most impressive moments coalesce with a powerful push that begins about thirty-five minutes in and uses the remaining time to fully flesh out its tribal drumming, buzzing guitar attack and gorgeous violins before fizzling and fading away with the wind. Honestly, those final fifteen minutes are among the best musical moments I’ve heard all year. This is an album that is definitely worth the effort required. Still, there are certainly instances here which lend themselves to track separation. I can’t help but wonder what separating this piece into even just two or three tracks would do for Silver Antlers’ listenership, because as it stands, Black Blood of the Earth is one of the most memorable listening experiences I’ve had this year.
My first thought after listening to Deerhunter’s new EP sized outing, Rainwater Cassette Exchange, was more of the same. Then I listened to it again and realized that this ‘same’ that I was thinking of was also one of the best albums to come out last year. So with that, yes, more of the same – a veritable extension of the ridiculously wonderous Microcastle (which already had one extension in Weird Era Cont.) and, consequently, another batch of equally ridiculous bouts of syrupy goodness. These Deerhunter folk just can’t be stopped can they? With only five songs, Rainwater Cassette Exchange flies by in no-time flat, but that also means that I’ve had time to run through this thing a couple dozen times. The experience has taught me that what Deerhunter’s most recent output lacks in quantity it more than makes up for in quality. Each track here is perfectly constructed dream pop with nary a misplayed note. Methodical and addictive, Rainwater Cassette Exchange shows that not only do Deerhunter have plenty left future highlights to look forward to, but that it only takes five perfect songs to keep even their most reserved followers in tow.
Grizzly Bear Veckatimest (05.2009, Warp Records) Verdict: Lives up to the hype. Don't be a hater.
After touring with Radiohead, Grizzly Bear's popularity is in tip-top shape, making Veckatimest clearly one of the most anticipated albums of 2009. When I first started hearing all the hype I was a little confused, since I thought Yellow House was a little on the dull side of things. However, I did like Department of Eagles quite a bit and was definitely interested in what this crew had up their sleeves. At first, the catchy as can be "Two Weeks" grabbed me in a strangle hold, and then as I was lying there in surrender, the rest of the album, every single gorgeous track, repeatedly attacked me until I was in complete submission. Now, "Two Weeks" is one of my least favorite tracks (not that I don't still love it) and the other tracks have proven their worth through wonderful diversity of mood and a swelling and pulsing sound washing over you in waves of luscious melody. I love it. Don't be fooled by any backlash to the hype, cause that's all it is, backlash to hype, not a backlash to the actual album. This album lives up to it's potential in every way. Veckatimest's sweet chamber pop is subtle enough to keep you listening over and over, but not so subtle that it's impossible to enter. It's immediately enjoyable, and repetitively more enjoyable. Gorgeous!
James Blackshaw The Glass Bead Game (05.2009, Young God) RIYL = Jack Rose, Steve Reich, Glenn Jones
Last year James Blackshaw released Litany of Echoes, an album which saw the UK’s premier guitar genius moving away from the John Fahey comparisons and towards a more minimalist, compositional arena that harkened Steve Reich and Philip Glass. The progression was a dynamic one to say the least, but certainly just a stepping stone to bigger and better things. Prior to this most recent album which I'm reviewing, The Cloud of Unknowing was far and away my favourite album. Just preceeding Litany of Echoes, The Cloud of Unknowing was certainly Blackshaw’s most focused and beautiful album, displaying what I thought then was the pinnacle instrumental guitar. Well, it only fits that Blackshaw be the one to prove me wrong. Somehow (surely by tapping into the long history of the UK’s ties to magic) Mr. Blackshaw has combined his newfound compositional fortitude as developed with Litany of Echoes and infused it with the placid beauty he had been developing for years in The Cloud of Unknowning. The result is by and large Blackshaw’s most incredible album to date; a pristine mark not only in the realm of contemporary instrumental guitar, but in the field of music as whole, regardless of generation or genre. I’ve been browsing through the list of albums that I’ve listened to this year and last year and I can’t find anything that comes close to the sweeping beauty of The Glass Bead Game. It’s that good. Blackshaw’s guitar work has never felt stronger or more assured than on this release. His flurry of guitar plucking simply melds together like some granular drone that pulses melodically with every subtle shift in key. Previous Blackshaw albums have held one or two gems amongst their tracklisting or, if they only held longer compositions, one or two moments that jumped out and really knocked your socks off. On The Glass Bead Game, every track is as beautiful and breath taking as the last. Blackshaw’s measured use of accompanying strings and piano instrumentation are placed perfectly and serve only to improve Blackshaw’s momentum. In fact, Blackshaw's piano work has become the focus of two of the five tracks on The Glass Bead Game and succeed in a way I would have never expected. The album is just pitch perfect. There isn’t a missed note amongst the literal thousands of notes that fill the album. From what I understand, The Glass Bead Game even brought Young God label creator and leader Angels of Light, Michael Gira to tears. Considering his musical background, that probably isn’t something that happens everyday. The Glass Bead Game is a career definer. When you apply that statement to James Blackshaw, someone who has already quite a few marvelous albums under his belt, the sentiment is even more resonant. Unmissable.
Elisa Ambrogio and Pete Nolan follow up Boss with this? [Nodding] Alright! It is pretty clear that Boss was Magik Markers first real stab more straightforward song structure and less noise (marginally). I for one was pretty excited about the evolution, which isn’t to say that I disliked Magik Markers more abstract, noisy past. No, no, I loved that stuff, but evolution is always important and Boss stirred up some genuine excitement in me about the potential avenues of these here Markers. However, Boss was just the groundwork, not the definitive statement. Just the declaration of intent – the preliminary dip. I liked it quite a bit, but I would have liked to like it a whole lot more. That is where Balf Quarry comes in as the transition from pretty good album to really good album. Maybe the Markers just need a little space from Thurston Moore and Ecstatic Peace in order to more properly rip off Sonic Youth. And I don’t say rip off in a demeaning way. The Balf Quarry version of Magik Markers is obviously a descendent of Sonic Youth and their not shy of that fact. For my taste Balf Quarry is as good as or better than anything it’s aping. Ambrogio’s demented vocal delivery is probably the deciding factor in that conclusion. I can’t think of a better front woman in all of rock. Ambrogio is simply all that. But you can't leave out Pete Nolan’s ramshackle drumming. Nolan’s loose, blistered drumming is simply irreplaceable. I don’t know of many other drummers who can derive that much character out of a drumset. The bottom line is that Balf Quarry is real rock n’ roll. Balf Quarry is as punk as it comes and the first three tracks are probably my favourite songs Magik Markers have ever done, shifting from laconic and syrupy to drug induced and feverish. It’s just so dirty; you can practically see the moldy water pipes and stripped brick walls that this stuff should be played in. Sassigrass would do well to realize Balf Quarry as the real sleaze rock.
Cymbals Eat Guitars Why There Are Mountains (2009, Self-Released) RIYL = Paper Airplanes, Evangelicals, Pavement
Based on the band name and album cover alone, I was expecting something totally different from Why There Are Mountains. Something more austere. Something, you know, with more riding cymbals and less guitars. I mean look at that cover: where is the bleak grays and blacks and the brooding reds in this music? Regardless of my impressions prior to listening to Why There Are Mountains, my impression afterwards was, “whoa, that was pretty great.” Subsequent listens had me repeating my own words minus the “pretty” qualifier. That’s right, Cymbals Eat Guitars are just straight up great and, surprisingly, Cymbals Eat Guitars are just straight up indie rock. Yep, the name and album cover don’t quite translate, but really that’s neither here nor there when an album is able to pull off what Why There Are Mountains does. With their debut album (I think), Cymbals Eat Guitars has created the only kind of indie rock that can really sustain itself, the kind centered on pure authenticity. Authenticity is a hard quality to identify and quantify, but suffice it to say that it is that it factor that first helped the world fall in love with indie stalwarts like Pavement, Dinosaur Jr. and Built To Spill. Cymbals Eat Guitars can stand side by side (or at least somewhere in the same room at a hoity toity indie rock party) with these bands because it’s not just how the songs are written on Why There Are Mountains, but how they're played. There is an urgency, an immediacy here that even brings to mind early records from At The Drive-In and The Get Up Kids (remember them?), though not quite as cool as the former and not quite as geeky as the latter. Either way, Cymbals Eat Guitars succeeds because of the genuine spirit with which they attack their bristly rock songs and turn them into soaring anthems based solely on the excitement with which they are played. Why There Are Mountains is one of those albums that you simply can’t hate. And if you do? Well, I think this album is the perfect measure of whether or not you are heartless hipster snob (test it out on your friends!). I kid. But seriously, what a delicious debut – bravo.
Animal Hospital Good or Plenty, Streets + Avenues (02.2009, Mutable Sound) RIYL = Dosh, Tortoise, Some Beasts
I guess 2009 is officially Animal Hospital’s coming out party. I first became smitten (and rightly so) by the release of Memory on the illustrious Barge imprint and apparently this little puppy preceded Memory by a month, so it looks like I am taking in the releases in reverse order. Of course, this matters not at all. A cursory listen to either album would quickly lead a listener to the other release on the basis of sheer goodness. Oh Animal Hospital, will you never stop healing our poor pets and wild Earthly co-inhabitants? Hopefully not. Good or Plenty, Streets + Avenues is a wonderful addition to the Animal Hospital repertoire that was presented on Memory. The album avoids the lengthy, dramatic surgeries displayed on that release and instead focuses on the standard day to day operations of animal hospitalateering: daily check-ups, medicine prescriptions, happy customers. GorP,S+A is a light hearted dip into the joys of healing animals via layers and layers of homespun loops. As a refresher for those who were unable to wade through my lengthy review of Memory (or simply missed it altogether), Animal Hospital is not “Animal Hospitals.” It is a single edifice and as such is the pseudonym designated for a single musician from Boston named Kevin Micka. Micka’s work here is built around his slowly evolving and elaborate looping of guitars, percussion and electronics. Unlike Memory, GorP,S+A steers clear of weighty crescendos and instead offers beautifully intricate character sketches with each track. In a way, this kind of meandering structure is harder to pull off, but Micka proves ownership of a keen ear and adept musicianship by executing each track with the utmost precision and always keeping things interesting. Good or Plenty, Streets + Avenues is one of those rare albums I’ve found that I can always listen to even when nothing else will do. Really solid work.
Dear Salt Lake City residents: Animal Hospital is currently on tour with electronic musician Lineland and desire to play a show for us lucky folk on June 8th. Unfortunately most venues are booked that night. Anyone with information on a good location to setup this show, please contact us at forestgospel@hotmail.com.
Dirty Projectors
