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Ride’s reunion album is the British group’s first since returning to stages in 2015. It’s promising but never quite satisfying, with modern production touches courtesy of DJ Erol Alkan. | Ride’s reunion album is the British group’s first since returning to stages in 2015. It’s promising but never quite satisfying, with modern production touches courtesy of DJ Erol Alkan. | Ride: Weather Diaries | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/ride-weather-diaries/ | Weather Diaries | Reunion albums, by definition, mark a new chapter in a band’s life—when nostalgic critical acclaim is superseded by a rather more discerning eye. Rarely, though, do these albums mark a genuinely new musical chapter. That makes Weather Diaries, the first album by Ride since they returned to the live scene in 2015, a rarity. It’s new but also different for Ride, with occasional moments of retrospection—like the harmonies that introduce “Charm Assault” or the kaleidoscopic chorus to “All I Want.” Ride mostly sounds like another beast on Weather Diaries—one that, for better or worse, exists firmly in the present.
Modern production touches adorn Weather Diaries courtesy of DJ and producer Erol Alkan. At times, these fit well with Ride’s dreamy appeal of the old, with the swirling synth lines on kraut-y album opener “Lannoy Point” underpinning the band’s airy guitar like a well-pegged tent. At others, notably the glitchy vocal effect that introduces “All I Want,” they prove a distraction, verging on an annoyance. Earlier this year, Dirty Projectors showed that modern pop production can work with what is ostensibly guitar music, but the intro to “All I Want” lacks any electronic finesse. The result sounds tacked on and frankly unnecessary.
As “Lannoy Point” demonstrates, 2017 model Ride are also willing to dip their toes into new genres, with occasionally impressive results. “Integration Tape” is two and a half minutes of My Bloody Valentine-indebted guitar drones and echoing vocals—a logical extension of Ride’s more cottony guitar moments—while album closer “White Sands” throws the doomed harmonies of 1970s Beach Boys and staccato jazz rhythms into the mix. These are solid songs in themselves, though they could possibly better suit Mark Gardener and Andy Bell’s post-Ride careers.
Elsewhere, the band’s experimental tendencies run the risk of suffocating the beautiful harmonic bombast that made Ride so special in the first place. These are the moments when Weather Diaries proves most frustrating. “Cali,” for example, squanders a soaring verse, complete with a brilliantly nagging guitar line, on a curiously understated, half-spoken chorus that feels naked without the band’s characteristic harmonies. “Rocket Silver Symphony,” meanwhile, is exactly half a great Ride song, a wonderfully strident chorus sharing space with a weakling verse that lays bare the underwhelming melody.
Ride, famously, have a history of reinvention. Their second album, 1992’s Going Blank Again, saw the band sharpen the sound of their 1990 debut Nowhere into a guitar pop titan that reeked of self-assurance. Their third and fourth albums, 1994’s Carnival of Light and 1996’s Tarantula, dropped the guitar wash in favor of a more psychedelic—and dare we say Britpop?—sound. In the end, this proved their undoing: Ride ended up referring to their overlong (if actually pretty listenable) third album as “Carnival of Shite,” according to David Cavanagh’s Creation Records’ history My Magpie Eyes Are Hungry for the Prize. Tarantula was deleted from Creation’s catalog one week after its release, to the dismay of approximately no one.
With this ignominious history behind them, you can only salute Ride’s bravery in trying to reinvent themselves once again. And Weather Diaries actually has enough individual moments over its 11 tracks to suggest that new Ride could work. But these are sadly surrounded by too many wobbles, missteps, and poor decisions to make the case for Weather Diaries as a great comeback album. Weather Diaries is no Tarantula-sized affront to Ride’s legacy, but neither is it a Going Blank Again-style triumph of reinvention and focus. Weather-wise, it is an overcast day with a hint of sun: promising but never quite satisfying. | 2017-06-19T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2017-06-19T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Rock | Wichita | June 19, 2017 | 6.3 | 219d4d1d-9e8c-4bf4-bd8c-6b02a81af538 | Ben Cardew | https://pitchfork.com/staff/ben-cardew/ | null |
In its day, this 2007 album felt like a response to turbulent times. Revisiting the newly reissued LP, its songs feel untethered to any political moment: protest songs delivered as solemn premonitions. | In its day, this 2007 album felt like a response to turbulent times. Revisiting the newly reissued LP, its songs feel untethered to any political moment: protest songs delivered as solemn premonitions. | Joni Mitchell: Shine | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/joni-mitchell-shine/ | Shine | In the summer of 2005, Joni Mitchell was at peace. She was 61 years old, three years into retirement, and leading a life that, in her words, consisted mostly of “being a granny and watching a lot of television.” One particular day, she was sitting outside the Vancouver home where she wrote ’70s masterpieces like For the Roses and Court and Spark. She watched the Pacific Ocean sprawl in the distance. Herons flew overhead; roses bloomed in the garden. When she came back inside, she sat at the piano and translated the view into a serene, sentimental melody. It was her first new composition in years. She wanted to call it “Gratitude.”
She ended up going with “One Week Last Summer” and placing it as the opening track on 2007’s Shine, her first collection of new songs in over a decade and her last album to date. At the time of release, it was largely perceived as a response to turbulent times: the Bush administration, the Iraq War, the deterioration of our planet. Revisiting it now upon its first vinyl release, its songs still feel urgent, but they also sound untethered to any political moment. “I did a lot of weeping for what’s happening to the Earth when I was in my twenties,” Mitchell said at the time. “I could see a lot of things coming.” Even at its most hopeless, Shine observes chaos from a distance that feels centered and assured; these are protest songs delivered as solemn premonitions.
Recorded mostly alone with engineer Dan Marnien, Shine has its own distinct atmosphere. Mitchell’s ’80s work was defined by a busy, glossy pop sound that purposefully contrasted with her darker worldview, while her ’90s albums returned her to the soft, sophisticated arrangements of her most celebrated era. With flourishes of MIDI orchestras and droning synth pads, peculiar jazz phrasings and muted horns, Shine feels akin to late-career work by her peers—somewhere between Leonard Cohen’s synthetic hymnals and Van Morrison’s smooth-jazz vision quests. Its most adventurous moment (“Hana”) lurches and grinds to skittering percussion, while its ballads feature little more than her worn-out vocals and downcast piano playing. Often Mitchell uses textures from throughout her catalog like Ghosts of Christmas Past: “When this place looks like a moonscape,” she sings over the acoustic coffeehouse strum of “This Place,” “Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.”
The themes that dominate this album are ones that Mitchell had turned to over and over throughout her catalog. To prove her point that these modern worries are nothing new, she includes a revamped rendition of her 1970 hit “Big Yellow Taxi,” reorchestrating it with bursts of accordion and saxophone. Even if it’s one of the less essential inclusions on the record, its placement showcases the consistency and self-contained philosophy of her songbook. It also draws attention to what’s changed. Mitchell’s voice on Shine is a fascinating instrument: a yellowed photograph, frayed and fading. On Both Sides Now and Travelogue, early-’00s albums that felt like epilogues, Mitchell was backed by an orchestra, revisiting old songs in elegant settings. On Shine, she’s accompanied by sparse atmospheres that bring her strained, ghostly delivery into focus. This was by design: “I am closer to the singers I love,” she explained. “I never imagined I’d be able to sing like Edith Piaf.” It makes sense that she was thrilled by her transformation, by challenging expectations with each breath.
By the time Mitchell released Shine in the fall of 2007, she had completed two equally ambitious artistic projects: an exhibit of her recent, apocalyptic photography and a sprawling narrative dance piece with the Alberta Ballet Company. She had originally been asked to collaborate on a biographical show soundtracked by her hits. She said no: “I’m not interested in escapist entertainment when the planet is at red alert.” She speaks to a similar desire in the album’s title track, where, over the span of seven and a half minutes, she casts a light on all corners of the earth, calling out people by name and profession, forecasting great destruction and confusion ahead. At times it sounds like a list of grievances, her tone purposefully unpoetic. But the implied message is that it’s not too late to turn around. “When the world becomes a massive mess with nobody at the helm,” she said, “It’s time for artists to make their mark.” On Shine, Mitchell sings with wisdom and grace, sadness and compassion. Her mark is indelible.
Buy: Rough Trade
(Pitchfork earns a commission from purchases made through affiliate links on our site.) | 2020-04-11T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2020-04-11T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Rock | Craft | April 11, 2020 | 8 | 219dd2c5-5405-4878-a337-f4b9421b90e8 | Sam Sodomsky | https://pitchfork.com/staff/sam-sodomsky/ | |
When an album starts off with each member of the band announcing "I am ____, and this is my heart ... | When an album starts off with each member of the band announcing "I am ____, and this is my heart ... | Stars: Heart | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/7471-heart/ | Heart | When an album starts off with each member of the band announcing "I am ____, and this is my heart," you should probably know straight off what you're getting into. The key word here would be "heart" (not coincidentally the name of the album), as in "wears on his sleeve" or "in her mouth" or "-shaped candies with cute little phrases on them." Stars have come to rock the master of your cardiovascular system, and if you're not prepared to accommodate a healthy serving of lyrical earnestness, you should probably just Remove All from your Winamp and go play some street hockey, you manly man you.
Fortunately for whoever remains, that leadoff track ("What the Snowman Learned About Love"-- see what I'm saying?) then supernovas into a synthy planetarium soundtrack worthy of M83 before scaling back to a delicate sing-song in the vein of Broken Social Scene's "Anthems for a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl". It's a fitting overture to a strong pop album that effortlessly shifts from bombastic chamber to plink-plink twee over eleven songs, blissfully unburdened by the ambition to sound particularly new or different. In fact, I doubt the band would even mind much being referred to as a Canadian Belle & Sebastian, albeit a B&S; with more 80s synth-- which, come to think of it, might just be what the new Trevor Horn-mentored Belles will sound like.
But one song form Belle & Sebastian were never real strong with was the boy/girl conversational duet (think "Don't You Want Me?"), and Stars are happy to fill the void. "Elevator Love Letter" puts a jangly frame around urban shyness-- she's a rich girl, he's hot for the rich girl, both have spent too much time under florescent lights. "Romantic Comedy" is a domestic disintegration dialogue set to perky acoustic guitar runs and accordion. If the subject matter sounds a bit Hallmark, well, it is, but it's so persistently romantic that it should just about reach the level of excusably cornball for emotion-arbiters, like the video for Air's "All I Need" or the final scene from Field of Dreams.
Meanwhile, the group coasts on a good amount of orchestral carpets: "Time Can Never Kill the True Heart" juxtaposes the quartet with very-very-lite techno programming; "Look Up" is plausible Delgados forgery, thanks to smoky Amy Millan vocals. But even when stripped of symphonic accouterments the act doesn't wilt; the polite high range of part-time actor Torquil Campbell works wonders in "The Woods" with just a french horn and an answering machine message for company. Only when the group tries to develop some sort of awkward dark edge (the uncomfortably dreary lyrics of "Death to Death") or the sound gets nudged off the MOR cliff (greasy-slick "The Life Effect") does Heart skip a beat, become clogged, or experience any other negative heart pun of your choice.
Chalk it up perhaps to another case of Pitchfork Canuckophilia, but Stars comes as yet another Montreal act to keep the indie pop dream alive in '03. Less all over the map than the Voltron-like Broken Social Scene, and without the fetishist spice that off-kilters the otherwise straight-shooting pop of The Hidden Cameras, Stars could very easily be overlooked, or avoided like a couple prone to PDA. But as of yet we don't have immigration quotas on music from the Great White North, and Heart is a valuable pop record for those of us whose cardiac muscle hasn't stained completely black like that of, I dunno, Chris Ott. | 2003-08-14T01:00:04.000-04:00 | 2003-08-14T01:00:04.000-04:00 | Electronic / Rock | Paper Bag | August 14, 2003 | 8.4 | 219fb5be-77ff-43d6-8e48-aaf8972b66d1 | Rob Mitchum | https://pitchfork.com/staff/rob- mitchum/ | null |
Ukrainian pianist and composer Lubomyr Melnyk has spent his career developing a method of performance called "continuous music," one that splits the difference between Minimalism and New Age. His shifting chords and rising crescendos will click easily for those who follow post-rock bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor or Explosions in the Sky. | Ukrainian pianist and composer Lubomyr Melnyk has spent his career developing a method of performance called "continuous music," one that splits the difference between Minimalism and New Age. His shifting chords and rising crescendos will click easily for those who follow post-rock bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor or Explosions in the Sky. | Lubomyr Melnyk: Rivers and Streams | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/21322-rivers-and-streams/ | Rivers and Streams | Ukrainian pianist and composer Lubomyr Melnyk has spent his career developing a method of performance called "continuous music." In pieces that stretch anywhere from 10 minutes to nearly an hour in length, Melnyk delivers a sustained flurry of high-speed arpeggiated notes. By holding down the sustain pedal, he allows tones to ring out indefinitely, creating droning ambience and phantom melodies.
The pursuit of continuous music has brought Melnyk impressive chops—his website boasts that he is the fastest pianist in the world—but little in the way of critical recognition or financial reward. In interviews, he has expressed some disappointment at falling through the music industry's cracks, his playing too unorthodox for the classical establishment and too traditional for the experimental music community. However, in the last several years, Melnyk has begun to connect with a larger audience through releases on small labels like Unseen Worlds and Erased Tapes, which concentrate on modern classical and electronic music.
Rivers and Streams is Melnyk's third release for Erased Tapes. In execution, it's not too different from his previous works for the label. The music is busy and technique-intensive, but tuneful and meditative. As Melnyk plays, his melodies meld together, shifting in tone and volume. Because he allows the piano to resonate, the sound blurs, turning concise and complex patterns into aural fog. According to the composer, the album is a meditation on water—not a huge stretch given the steady, trickling, ambient nature of Melnyk's style. The performances are enhanced via co-production from label founder Robert Raths and London-based composer, Jamie Perera, who modestly augment Melnyk's arrangements with guitar.
Informed by the work of American minimalists like Steve Reich and Terry Riley, Melnyk's music draws on repetition and also a certain degree of impromptu inspiration. However, those composers—Riley in particular—often employed alternate tunings and distinctive harmonies that helped to distance their compositions from Western classical music. Melnyk's music is just as expansive, but more conservative in its approach to harmony. He's more overtly romantic. Listening to the plaintive minor key melodies on "Parasol", you can understand how, for some, the pianist's sensibility might have crossed the sometimes-thin line that divides minimalist classical and new age.
However, this is less of a liability than it might have been in the past. New age is no longer the reviled genre it once was. And there are other, more appropriate modern parallels. Melnyk's shifting chords and rising crescendos will click easily for those who follow post-rock bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor or Explosions in the Sky. And in continuous playing, sustained repetition, and simple harmony you can also hear him as a more organic cousin to the burbling synthesizer music of '70s groups like Tangerine Dream or Ashra. This is not machine music, though. It's very human—serenity delivered through sustained concentration and ecstatic energy, via a lifetime of practice and perfection rather than the twist of a knob. | 2015-12-04T01:00:04.000-05:00 | 2015-12-04T01:00:04.000-05:00 | Experimental | Erased Tapes | December 4, 2015 | 7.2 | 21a6e38e-74eb-4aa8-b887-9126847ca950 | Aaron Leitko | https://pitchfork.com/staff/aaron-leitko/ | null |
The North Carolina singer-songwriter has a voice that attracts metaphors about hypnotism. Her second album reveals a subtle, complex staging of femininity that resists easy resolutions. | The North Carolina singer-songwriter has a voice that attracts metaphors about hypnotism. Her second album reveals a subtle, complex staging of femininity that resists easy resolutions. | Skylar Gudasz: Cinema | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/skylar-gudasz-cinema/ | Cinema | Skylar Gudasz’s 2016 debut, Oleander, was North Carolina’s best-kept secret. Her follow-up, Cinema, is already attracting national attention. It’s not hard to see why this might be Gudasz’s moment: She’s a gifted singer-songwriter with a voice that attracts metaphors about hypnotism, and she’s wound her rhythm section like a swinging silver watch. Cinema is as dark and groovy as Oleander was bright and wafting; it’s more imperative and solidly formed. It also adds enough breadth to her discography to glimpse, beyond the individual beautiful songs, the outline of a holistic artistic persona, distinguished by Gudasz’s subtle, complex staging of femininity.
Cinema’s multitude of genres are all tuned to the storm-cloud key of majestic opener “Femme Fatale.” “Rider” is country, “Animal” is folk, “Actress” is garage-psych, and “Go Away” is piano pop, but the album’s well-developed throughlines make the variation discreet. Gudasz’s band of North Carolina ringers sail at a measured pace, just like how she sings, and the scratchy snarl of her guitar keeps the organs and strings down to earth. The fountaining run of her voice recalls Joni Mitchell, while her classic yet chameleonic songwriting suggests Leonard Cohen, another student of ambiguity with the nerve to put his own name in a song, as Gudasz does on “Animal.” But her developing conceptual persona adds something new to the mix: the enigmatic self-performance of someone like Lana Del Rey.
Individually, the songs impress with the poetry and grace of their sensory details, like the “waist inside the crook of my arm” from the back of a motorcycle on “Rider.” Cumulatively, they bring the razor-edged meaning of certain recurring traits into sharp focus. That “Rider” verse proceeds with such delicacy that it’s easy to miss the bloody crash at the end, and it’s indicative of the way Gudasz ironizes images of love without cheapening them.
Her songs almost invariably contain an “I” and a “you,” though Gudasz might be either, neither, or both. She addresses women characters with tenderness, and men with amused contempt veiled by sweetness. (Any time you hear her call someone “babe,” watch out.) She slips, blank-faced, into masculine pronouns, a device that runs from Oleander’s “I’ll Be Your Man” to her stunning recent cover of “Wichita Lineman.” Iconic images of feminine glamour—in press photos, she reclines on the hood of a classic car or stands on a dune wearing fur—are Trojan horses for songs that undermine them from within, as Gudasz deconstructs male projections through pantomime and denunciation. “I ain’t no silent doll, and I ain’t that sweet,” she warns on “Play Nice,” lest anyone is having trouble telling the sugar from the salt.
Cinema revolves around two archetypes: the star and the server, the one who is only seen and the one who never is. The former is writ large in the album’s title and film-noir tint, the latter in “Waitress” and the video for “Rider.” The two characters blur together in “Actress,” the purest expression of Gudasz’s resistance to resolving multiple exposures into one pat image. The overlapping, shifting edges between personal and projected desire are the contested zone she’s exploring. Instead of evading projections such as bad girl, sweet girl, tough girl—any kind of girl, really—Gudasz tries them on for size, humanizing them, only to fling back the empty costumes with a potent question for the culture that created them: So, this is what you want? Are you sure? | 2020-04-24T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2020-04-24T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Rock | Suah Sounds | April 24, 2020 | 7.4 | 21ab04ea-36aa-4aa5-a6ea-3deeb8105d75 | Brian Howe | https://pitchfork.com/staff/brian-howe/ | |
Katherine Paul’s third album of patient, cinematic indie rock surveys a return trip to her ancestral lands in the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community—and the hard-won peace she found once she arrived. | Katherine Paul’s third album of patient, cinematic indie rock surveys a return trip to her ancestral lands in the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community—and the hard-won peace she found once she arrived. | Black Belt Eagle Scout: The Land, the Water, the Sky | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/black-belt-eagle-scout-the-land-the-water-the-sky/ | The Land, the Water, the Sky | Katherine Paul, who performs under the moniker Black Belt Eagle Scout, first learned to drum from her family’s drum group, the Skagit Valley Singers. Years later, her dynamic percussion infuses her third album, the intimate The Land, the Water, the Sky, with frictionless momentum. Sometimes, Paul attacks her kit with abandon; elsewhere, a steady beat slowly builds into a rolling boil. All at once or slow and steady: Both approaches evoke urgency and a need to escape. It’s time for Paul to head home. The Land, the Water, the Sky, is an intimate survey of Paul’s rocky, COVID-era return trip from Portland to her ancestral lands in the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community and the hard-won peace she found once she arrived.
If home is where the heart is, then each song on The Land, the Water, the Sky—which is carved out of the same cinematic, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink-style of indie rock that Built to Spill perfected a generation ago—is a variation of a heartbeat. There is the galloping pace of “Nobody,” a charged but breezy track in which Paul, sounding more self-assured than ever, boils the lack of Indigenous representation in the arts down to a simple, earnest declaration: “Nobody sang it for me like I wanna sing it to you.” The pulse quickens on “Fancy Dance,” a brisk, cheeky song featuring a racing guitar melody that sounds like a crush on the brink of reciprocation. “Last night/I’ll always remember you,” Paul practically sighs, before getting to the kicker: “Lying there in the nude.” If this is flirting, she’s very good at it.
Paul is at her most vulnerable on “My Blood Runs Through This Land.” The album opener pays homage to her ancestors by recording the feelings she encounters when she wanders through her homeland, dipping her toes in the water at Snee Oosh Beach and paddling through Similk Bay: “We like to see our futures bright and/I know you speak through me I/Feel it in the sound of water/Touching all the rocks I feel.” There is horror in her people’s history, which Paul brings to life with distorted guitars and ominous, aggressive drums, recalling the biting sound of the Cranberries’ “Zombie.” (That song was also, in part, about crimes committed against a country’s people.) But there is peace and beauty too, and all that fuzz and buzz still cannot drown out Paul’s bright, delicate vocals.
A faint echo of pow wow singing, twined with violin, forms the backdrop of the lilting “Spaces.” Paul’s reverberant, wide-open sound suggests a sense of possibility and the broad sweep of history, while songs like the gentle, gorgeous “Salmon Stinta” and the sprawling “Sedna” ground her music in specific locations. But The Land, the Water, the Sky is more than just a portrait of a place. During a period of collective trauma, Paul searched for healing and found it in the many connections she forged at home: with her ancestors, her parents (who lend their powerful voices to the chorus of “Spaces”), and nature. These are love songs to a community and a lineage that taught Paul how to survive. | 2023-02-17T00:01:00.000-05:00 | 2023-02-17T00:01:00.000-05:00 | Rock | Saddle Creek | February 17, 2023 | 7.5 | 21ae4202-d24a-494f-8ab0-9950fe90459e | Abigail Covington | https://pitchfork.com/staff/abigail-covington/ | |
Paul Woolford's work under the alias Special Request harks back to UK '90s pirate radio and early rave culture. Woolford, who is 40 years old, experienced the culture firsthand, and his tracks are relentlessly and briskly unsentimental: Truth in advertising, Modern Warfare is a dancefloor weapon. | Paul Woolford's work under the alias Special Request harks back to UK '90s pirate radio and early rave culture. Woolford, who is 40 years old, experienced the culture firsthand, and his tracks are relentlessly and briskly unsentimental: Truth in advertising, Modern Warfare is a dancefloor weapon. | Special Request: Modern Warfare EPs 1-3 | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/21229-modern-warfare-eps-1-3/ | Modern Warfare EPs 1-3 | As 2015 winds down, the trend of repurposing samples of UK '90s pirate radio and early rave culture might have reached its tipping point, thanks in part to Jamie xx's In Colour. And while it's the lynchpin of fellow UK producer Paul Woolford's work under the alias Special Request, it never sounds like an exercise in revisiting those old sounds. Perhaps Woolford's sensibilities come from approaching 40 and experiencing British rave culture firsthand. As he put it in an old interview, Woolford instead seeks to revel in "a false memory" in broadcasting tracks over an FM channel and then sampling the results as if it's his very own pirate radio station.
Being coy, playful, or evocative doesn't much factor into the nine tracks gathered up as Modern Warfare EPs 1-3. Much like fellow labelmate Zomby, Woolford released these EPs simultaneously on the XL Recordings imprint this week. And while both Zomby and Woolford posit them as "DJ tools," meaning they're for smashing dancefloors rather than home listening, the latter's end results are far more invigorating. One wouldn't soon mistake his rave/breakbeat/pirate radio-infused tracks for mawkishness, as he keeps the edges rough, the drive relentless, and the breaks concussive. Truth in advertising, Modern Warfare is a dancefloor weapon.
Putting the title track first feels slightly off, only in the sense that slowing down frantic breakbeats to house tempos doesn't do much for the relatively brief track. "Amnesia" treads a similar path, the snares feeling sluggish at 126 BPM. And when Woolford peels away the bass wobbles until it's just a piano line and a female voice bloodlessly saying "Come together/ We'll make it work," it smacks of the sort of soulless vocal house currently filling up innumerable Mixcloud and YouTube playlists.
But after those early missteps, Woolford finally locks in on "Reset It". Even with its faux pirate DJ shout-out and hokey backspin effects, the track transcends with a heady mix of adrenaline and ecstasy. The spare-but-brutal "Damage" builds from a nasty hi-hat pattern and soulful plea, each increasing in urgency and dub effects, suggesting a rubble-strewn landscape. Highlight "Take Me" finally approaches the velocity of old-school breakbeat but with a techno twist. These are peak-hour tracks meant for elevating a packed club to the next level and it almost feels like a crime to review them on an office stereo.
Despite the ambient opening, "Peak Dub" repurposes the "Amen break" for the millionth time with little to distinguish it, though that break fares far better in the context of "Tractor Beam", finding more snares and woozy noises to helix around it. While not the same immersive album listen as Woolford's Soul Music album from two years back, Modern Warfare's incredibly high peaks double as incendiary bombs and guilty pleasures. | 2015-11-09T01:00:04.000-05:00 | 2015-11-09T01:00:04.000-05:00 | Electronic | XL | November 9, 2015 | 7.3 | 21afe211-4ffb-4bc7-8933-111530aec879 | Andy Beta | https://pitchfork.com/staff/andy-beta/ | null |
Just in time for Halloween, the endlessly experimental and playful band take on two iconic pieces from The Shining and have a bit of frightful fun. | Just in time for Halloween, the endlessly experimental and playful band take on two iconic pieces from The Shining and have a bit of frightful fun. | Deerhoof: Deerhoof Plays Music of the Shining | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/deerhoof-deerhoof-plays-music-of-the-shining/ | Deerhoof Plays Music of the Shining | If you get invited to be the caretaker of a grand, creepy hotel in the Rockies or Cascades during the dead of winter, don’t say yes. So goes the simplest takeaway of Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick’s masterclass in surrealist horror, The Shining. But Deerhoof didn’t pay that any heed: On a new two-song 7" issued just in time for Halloween, the inveterate, ever-exploratory indie rock standbys put two iconic pieces from the score through a madhouse of noise and drama. In a quarter-century, there’s very little the art-pop-punks haven’t tried, from unexpected covers to sharing band members on splits and recruiting guests for wild collaborations. Horror-movie covers for Halloween? That’s a perfectly Deerhoof move.
These two pieces are intensely visual artifacts, sculpted with clear care. First there’s “Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, SX. 106,” an especially sinister update on the Béla Bartók original. (If you’re keeping track at home, yes, that’s Deerhoof tweaking the title of this classic.) In the film, the track is purely orchestral, its dour mood enshrouded in an austere string section and backed with drums that rumble in the distance, like a grim cloud hovering around a massive mountain’s summit. The music weaves in and out of what we see on screen, appearing in several, equally horrifying scenes, making the Overlook Hotel’s decadent, mid-century setting seem like a castle of spirits. Deerhoof’s version mimics the sound of tape being wound through an old projector, the signal cutting in and out as warped guitar and overloaded synths pull us toward doom. If there was a sense of light to the original, this horrorshow version is like a strobe flickering on bare skin in a pitch-black room. Its abrasive nature sneers like punk, making you shiver without the prettiness of the Bartók standard.
On the B-side, there’s “Midnight, the Stars and You,” written by the classic songwriting team of Woods, Campbell, and Connelly and performed in The Shining by the British bandleader Ray Noble and vocalist Al Bowlly. It enters the film in a dream sequence. Jack’s transported back to the 1920s, with gilded walls and rich guests in lavish garb. He will soon try to murder his family. Deerhoof take the kitschy bauble and let it ferment just so. John Dieterich and Ed Rodriguez elegantly pick acoustic and electric guitars, enjoying a stately duet for the first minute. But then they plateau, making room for Satomi Matsuzaki. She would sound saccharine were it not for distortion that bubbles up, causing her voice to echo until it sounds like wind blowing through an old house. Then there are the strings, completely widescreen and turning a reverie into a nightmare. The pastiche is terrifying.
These covers could’ve been horribly self-serious, unnecessarily diligent renditions of songs that have already done the job of shocking for four decades. But they are instead really fun, just the right level of unsettling for a murder-mystery party or a Halloween-themed dinner. Just don’t let your guests know what’s happening in Room 237. | 2018-10-31T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2018-10-31T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Experimental | Famous Class | October 31, 2018 | 7.1 | 21b69b94-b667-4f3b-8d59-a5e18d599acc | Sophie Kemp | https://pitchfork.com/staff/sophie-kemp/ | |
Tropic of Cancer is the project of the L.A.-based singer and synth player Camella Lobo. Stop Suffering, which she recorded and self-produced, is a work about grief, but a work wholly without self-pity. | Tropic of Cancer is the project of the L.A.-based singer and synth player Camella Lobo. Stop Suffering, which she recorded and self-produced, is a work about grief, but a work wholly without self-pity. | Tropic of Cancer: Stop Suffering EP | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/21176-stop-suffering-ep/ | Stop Suffering EP | Grief is a watery emotion, prone to slopping over the side of any container it occupies—and so it takes a project like Camella Lobo’s L.A.-based Tropic of Cancer, music that moves fluidly, to truly capture it. Stop Suffering, which Lobo recorded and self-produced with mixing and mastering from Joshua Eustis (ex-Telefon Tel Aviv), is her first major work since 2013’s glimmering Restless Idylls LP, and though it only comprises three tracks, the tracks are so finely crafted that it's a work worth returning to, playing again and again, and exploring within. It is a work about grief, yes, but a work wholly without self-pity, a work that urges slowly forward. It is a work about how grief ebbs eventually, with attention and time.
Lobo is an expert in how nearly microscopic musical changes can have an enormous emotional effect, and the opening title track is a master class on this phenomenon. It's built on gauzy layers of synth-wash just a step or a half-step away from one another, and as Lobo introduces a layer or pulls one back the subtle movement causes the whole track to shiver, like a spider’s web trembling below the movement of tiny feet. Her timing has to be impeccable to achieve this, and it is. Her vocal melody also stays within a relatively small range for most of the song, functioning more as an additional instrumental/ambient layer—pushed back in the mix, hovering suspended in delay—than a traditional vocal line winding around and through the instrumentation. It is a dense song with a dark heart that only truly shows itself near the end of the track, but it never feels murky.
"I Woke Up and the Storm Was Over" is more glacial in pace than the title track, but with a minimal heartbeat ticking at its core. It stretches luxuriously, like a cat's yawn, all choral synth and tidal sweep and percussive shoegaze bass, the sort that sounds like a big piano. On this one, Lobo’s vocals sit more atop the mix, more the focal point, more the driver. There is something in it that feels immensely, strangely hopeful.
If the title track is slowly running water and "I Woke Up and the Storm Was Over" is the glacier formed as that water starts to freeze, the closing track, "When the Dog Bites", is its iced-over final form. Droning and sparse in comparison to the highly textural tracks before it, "When the Dog Bites" throws Lobo’s voice into final heavy relief. When the bass drum hits, it feels like a communication across a vast expanse. The entire record feels composed in the way a classical piece does: a tale of grief in three movements, a tale of the sick motion of heartbreak eventually becoming still and distant, if not forgotten, as one's own sense of self becomes more pronounced. It is a delicate and painful journey, and one worth taking at Lobo’s side. | 2015-11-02T01:00:04.000-05:00 | 2015-11-02T01:00:04.000-05:00 | Rock | Blackest Ever Black | November 2, 2015 | 7.1 | 21b8745e-c5c8-4f25-b767-e7476f35f8eb | JJ Skolnik | https://pitchfork.com/staff/jj-skolnik/ | null |
These hardcore miscreants never seemed like a band suited for reunions, so their first album in eight years reimagines their prior intensity with blown-out, abstracted menace. | These hardcore miscreants never seemed like a band suited for reunions, so their first album in eight years reimagines their prior intensity with blown-out, abstracted menace. | Daughters: You Won’t Get What You Want | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/daughters-you-wont-get-what-you-want/ | You Won’t Get What You Want | You know how life goes: One day you’re making songs like “The Fuck Whisperer,” selling hideous yellow shirts with a vagina-bat flying above your band’s name, and sleeping on your ex-girlfriend’s couch just to spite her current boyfriend. Years go by, and suddenly everyone’s getting married and having kids; after all the actual blood, piss, and sweat that went into mocking indie culture and convention, your friends have somehow become craft brewers and commercial-music writers. Rhode Island hardcore misanthropes Daughters never seemed the sort of band compatible with the demands of adulthood. When they broke up in 2010 due to extreme internal duress, there was little reason to believe some newfound cachet, changing times, or popular demand would ever coax their wildly abrasive music back into action. They actually tricked each other into reuniting, anyway, with no organizing principles or plans besides a lingering contempt for humanity. You Won’t Get What You Want,they say by way of a title for their fourth album and first in eight years; what they really mean is you will get what you deserve.
Daughters’ past work provided instantaneous, absurdist release, strings of one-minute songs that pummeled and then fled. But at 48 minutes, You Won’t Get What You Want is almost as long as their last two albums combined, four times as long as their spastic tantrum of a debut, Canada Songs. In this more weathered iteration, rage and rancor are fleeting and unsustainable, forms of weakness that are at odds with their monomaniacal vision. So they’re used judiciously: “They got a name for people like you/But I didn’t take the time to write it down,” Marshall sneers on “The Reason They Hate Me,” a dance-punk anthem for cubicle-bound non-punks who would never dance. They distill the message into an all-caps rallying cry fit for the Big Black-through-Pissed Jeans continuum: “Don’t tell me how to do my job.” It’s the catchiest song they’ve ever written.
Similar to their Providence art-metal contemporaries in the Body, Daughters’ accessibility is directly proportional to their uncompromising compositional choices—hypnotic dissonance, martial drums cranked to incapacitating volumes, scathing vocal repetition, all rendered through impossibly vivid production. This is not music interesting in growing on you: it consumes and dominates. As “Satan in the Wait” and “Ocean Song” churn past seven minutes, they don’t aspire to communal catharsis; instead, they reward individual endurance. “Long Road, No Turns” takes perverse solace in Daughters’ dedication to anti-commercial craft (“Ain’t it funny how it works/Someone’s always got it worse”). Marshall’s grunts on “City Song” come off like a shell-shocked veteran of urban combat trying and failing to recapture any semblance of emotional arousal. After the percussive rubber bullets fire their last volley through a web of screams and groans, the words “And the fires are out and the water sits still” hang over complete silence. Daughters are still committed to violence, but more frightening is their capacity to harbor and patiently honor eight years of ill will.
“I let it into my heart.../I let it into my bed.../I gave it complete control/Led a long way down,” Marshall sings on the self-explanatory “Less Sex.” It’s delivered in the grand oratory fashion of Michael Gira and Nick Cave, singers often used as stand-ins for the anhedonic men of Cormac McCarthy novels, “Red Dead Redemption II,” or “Peaky Blinders.” But like Daughters, their cynicism is a product of their environment and their greatest asset; their solemn duty to the task at hand is the key to surviving a wasteland. | 2018-11-09T01:00:00.000-05:00 | 2018-11-09T01:00:00.000-05:00 | Rock | Ipecac | November 9, 2018 | 8 | 21c4a751-4a11-49a8-8de6-22556c5b1ee0 | Ian Cohen | https://pitchfork.com/staff/ian-cohen/ | |
The iconoclastic artist moves to a plush and magisterial kind of rock music for a gratifying and intense record, one whose pleasures are viscerally immediate. | The iconoclastic artist moves to a plush and magisterial kind of rock music for a gratifying and intense record, one whose pleasures are viscerally immediate. | Yves Tumor: Heaven to a Tortured Mind | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/yves-tumor-heaven-to-a-tortured-mind/ | Heaven to a Tortured Mind | Yves Tumor plays a sex god on their latest album, a carnal rock record called Heaven to a Tortured Mind. If you were only familiar with the experimental ambient and noise Tumor was making just four years ago, this might sound unlikely. But transformations and roleplaying are key to understanding why Tumor is among the most interesting artists working today. Genre-bending is an inadequate rubric for describing what makes Tumor’s sound so enticing; with each new record, they seem to embody a genre—its history, its texture, its tropes. The mutations and evolutions across their work are something closer to method acting.
Every gesture or affect on display across Tumor’s previous albums represents an engrossing performance of whatever genre they’re studying at the moment. When Tumor became a darling of the experimental scene following 2016’s Serpent Music, they looked the part of a confrontational noise and ambient artist: decked out in chains, cowboy hats, and flowing robes. Their sound matched—a mix of influences that found common cause with the likes of Laraaji, William Basinski, and Dean Blunt. Then came 2018’s auteurist pop masterpiece Safe in the Hands of Love, Tumor’s most successful project to date, which transformed them into a charismatic bandleader and howling vocalist.
When I saw them on that album’s tour, I was struck by the metamorphosis of Yves Tumor, dressed in a crushed velvet suit and flowing white blouson, carried themselves like the wayward son of Prince, bounding across the stage as explosions of percussion and guitar rattled behind them. The ardor of the performance demystified at least one mystery about this artist: Yves Tumor’s next project was learning to be a rock star. And with the glorious sonic smut we find on Heaven to a Tortured Mind, we get a sense for the very kind of star Tumor wants to be known as.
While Heaven to a Tortured Mind, like past Yves Tumor records, is a collage of styles (there’s glam, psych rock, krautrock, Britpop, soul, and noise here), a distinct personality emerges—that of Yves the seducer. This plush and magisterial kind of rock—heavy on imperial horns and crashing drums and bodacious guitar solos—evokes the sensuousness of suede and cigarette smoke, conjuring an atmosphere of total, decadent vice. With its hellish brass instruments and prowling basslines, the album’s doozy of an opener, “Gospel for a New Century,” is a perfect distillation. Amid the indulgence, Tumor’s voice becomes a thing of beauty: A raspy, sometimes guttural instrument that howls of love, loss, and damnation. It suggests a time when rock music felt forbidden—played backwards on turntables to reveal messages from sexy heretics.
Tumor is fascinated with blending disgust and pleasure, beauty and abjection. On “Medicine Burn,” they strike an unholy balance between gory imagery (“Severed heads on the mental guillotine/Life of blasphemy a room full of kings”) and a buoyant, bouncing vocal performance. A similar tension underlies “Identity Trade,” where the wonderfully schmaltzy squawk of what sounds like a clarinet accompanies a tale of murderous desire (“I saw my first lover clutching a dagger sunk beneath the water”). The study in contrast that’s been a motif of Tumor’s work from the start is magnified, given the swagger and attitude of music you would hear in a stadium. “Kerosene!”, a lovely and bracing duet with the singer Diana Gordon, builds to a towering, speaker-shattering guitar solo; the two-part “Romanticist/Dream Palette”—a collaboration with Sunflower Bean’s Julia Cumming and Kelsey Lu—swirls the voices together around pummeling drums and dueling guitars. These are not songs for the ascetic within us; this is music meant only for reverie.
In that way, Heaven to a Tortured Mind is the most straightforward record in Tumor’s catalog. It’s an album with commercial, or at least mass, appeal in mind. And it seems to confirm something Tumor hinted at in a 2016 interview about their musical aspirations: “I only want to make hits. What else would I want to make?” The product of this ambition is a gratifying and intense record, one whose pleasures are viscerally immediate. Above all, it’s loads of fun to watch Tumor don the guise of a devilish rockstar. It’s not exactly a new archetype in our cultural imagination, but the ravishing delight Tumor brings to this character is what makes their music so affecting. Yves is a performer whose roles, played with the utmost rigor, always find a way to linger in the memory.
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Buy: Rough Trade
(Pitchfork earns a commission from purchases made through affiliate links on our site.) | 2020-04-03T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2020-04-03T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Rock | Warp | April 3, 2020 | 8.5 | 21c883ef-faf3-408d-8e25-f0bf1dd45044 | Kevin Lozano | https://pitchfork.com/staff/kevin-lozano/ | |
A previously unknown recording, discovered by chance in 2017, captures the saxophonist testing the limits of his sound in the summer of 1961. It’s a snapshot of a pivotal moment in jazz’s evolution. | A previously unknown recording, discovered by chance in 2017, captures the saxophonist testing the limits of his sound in the summer of 1961. It’s a snapshot of a pivotal moment in jazz’s evolution. | John Coltrane: Evenings at the Village Gate: John Coltrane With Eric Dolphy | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/john-coltrane-evenings-at-the-village-gate-john-coltrane-with-eric-dolphy/ | Evenings at the Village Gate: John Coltrane With Eric Dolphy | John Coltrane began the decade in which he became immortal in typically audacious style. He quit the biggest jazz band in the world, led by Miles Davis, at arguably the peak of their fame. His early-’60s classics Giant Steps and “Live” at the Village Vanguard planted seeds for free and spiritual jazz, which flowered into teeming subgenres. Before he lost his fight with liver cancer at age 40, Coltrane released definitive albums in both modes, but they were hardly end points for an artist who often seemed to embody flux itself. He went from playing changes to reinventing them. His constant transformations illustrated a quintessential ’60s metaphor: Coltrane’s music rolled along too hard and fast to gather any moss.
In 1961, it picked up speed. A year before his vaunted classic quartet took shape, Coltrane assembled a band and then replaced individual members—not because their contributions were lacking, but because each iteration told him what to do next. Accompanied by pianist McCoy Tyner, drummer Elvin Jones, and bassist Steve Davis, he released a profound take on Richard Rodgers’ “My Favorite Things” that got so much airplay it revitalized the soprano saxophone. Recording with a new label, Impulse!, Coltrane switched bass duties to 23-year-old Reggie Workman and backed his combo with a slew of auxiliary musicians. The result was the risky, perennially underrated Africa/Brass, which updated the big-band ensembles of yore with transatlantic clave beats and polyrhythms. Anomalous on the surface, such albums offered a blueprint for Coltrane’s future: screeching, unsettled melodies; bottom ends that churned and thrashed; a sprawling palette that mixed in music from India and Africa. Four years had passed since Coltrane quit heroin and resolved to become a “preacher” on his instrument, and now he eschewed the bohemian archness of giants like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie to propound an earnest, devotional relationship with his art. The rest of jazz soon followed suit: A decade later, musicians far and wide explored the spiritual caverns and world-spanning vistas that Coltrane uncovered at the dawn of the ’60s.
Evenings at the Village Gate: John Coltrane with Eric Dolphy, a new archival release, captures the 34-year-old artist as he comes to grips with his music’s remarkable possibilities. The album is culled from a couple of nights during an August and early September residency at the Village Gate, a since-shuttered Greenwich Village venue. Containing just five songs in 80 minutes, the set is nonetheless comprehensive. Coltrane plays a hit (“My Favorite Things”), a standard from before his era (1936’s “When Lights Are Low”), a song that he would not put out on record for several years (“Impressions”), and a couple of recordings that the world was about to hear in studio form (“Greensleeves” and “Africa”). The LP is a freeze-frame of jazz as it escapes the present and absconds to the future.
It also illuminates Coltrane’s work with a tragically short-lived fellow traveler, Eric Dolphy. Unlike Coltrane, who was keen on modality, Dolphy experimented without abandoning tonal concerns. He was a crackerjack soloist who could make any stray bleat from his mouthpiece sound soulful. The quartet welcomed him in the spring of ’61 as a featured sideman, and he left fingerprints on much of what Coltrane accomplished for the rest of the year. The multi-reedist orchestrated large sections of Africa/Brass in May and June, and his solos took over the bandstand while he gigged with the band that summer and fall. Just as Coltrane did for Miles Davis during their final shows together, Dolphy widened Coltrane’s canvas. The two had been friends for years. Coltrane even carried a photo of Dolphy with him after he died, at 36, in 1964, from a diabetic coma, hanging it on the walls of hotel rooms while he traveled. But the beauty of their interplay was tightly wound in the tension of two self-directed men with irrepressible appetites for innovation. Coltrane understood that he had to carve out space for Dolphy’s individuality within his band. He purportedly sat offstage during Dolphy’s solos at the Village Gate, magnanimously handing the reins to an artist who would express himself regardless.
Critics tout Coltrane’s soprano saxophone as the key that unlocked the door to spiritual jazz, yet Dolphy’s similarly unconventional instrumentation greased the hinges. The version of “My Favorite Things” on Evenings at the Village Gate begins with a prelude from Dolphy’s flute, airy and ascendant, before the main horn line offers solid footing. On the next track, “When Lights Are Low,” Dolphy’s bass clarinet simmers below Coltrane’s tea-kettle sax tones. Together, they liberate the cut from its worn page in the jazz fakebook.
Coltrane’s road to the avant-garde was built from his ability to compose, arrange, and imagine new roles for diverse instruments on his bandstands. He divided rhythm duties, writing static harmonies that pulsed through his piano lines, permitting more movement from drummers and bassists. On “Greensleeves,” Tyner’s hypnotic chords riff on the motif from “My Favorite Things.” Meanwhile, Jones tumbles out of a waltz and through a seemingly endless fill on the toms and cymbals. Some of the Village Gate dates featured a second bassist, Art Davis (no relation to Steve), who provided drones and allowed Workman to roam without restraints.
Album closer “Africa” emerged from one of those nights. It’s the only live rendition of the Africa/Brass centerpiece known to exist on tape. The song begins with applause, as the band teases a fleeting figure from a George Gershwin tune that Coltrane reinvented, “Summertime.” Davis plunks away regularly, enabling Tyner to sprint up and down the keys and Workman to navigate a searching bass solo. Africa/Brass was Coltrane’s most unusual album in the busy year of 1961, and it landed on shelves near the end of his run at the downtown venue. The inclusion from his latest, weirdest disc coaxes the audience to polite applause and probably some puzzlement, too.
Confusion was a frequent reality at the Village Gate, a hall that prided itself on its sometimes disarming variety. Comedy acts appeared after avant-garde jazz musicians. Experimental luminaries performed on the same stage as popular singers. During various appearances at the Gate, Coltrane faced skeptical audiences who had come to see folk singer Odetta, blues legend Lightnin’ Hopkins, and 19-year-old Aretha Franklin. The shows included on Evenings at the Village Gate were shot by photojournalist Herb Snitzer, who claimed that the room was half empty; he imagined Coltrane had made five or “maybe ten bucks” from the concert. The dog days of summer were in full swelter, and the venue had to lure listeners out of their homes and onto the sticky Village streets for dinner (bad service, but apparently tasty food!) and a show. Yet it’s hard to imagine that Coltrane and co. cared much about their audience. The sound from the stage is an elemental force blasting through the soporific climes, shaking the empty seats.
Across the hall, one spectator made a spontaneous decision. Twenty-four-year-old engineer and Village scenester Rich Alderson wanted to test the club’s sound system and also an old RCA 77-A ribbon microphone he had modified. Coltrane and club owner Art D’Lugoff never meant to cut a record, but Alderson captured a couple of evenings and then forgot about them. He soon moved on from the Village Gate—eventually, Alderson built the sound system for Bob Dylan’s mid-’60s tours—and the recordings were lost until a Dylan scholar discovered them by accident while doing research at the New York Public Library in 2017. Another piece in the puzzle of John Coltrane arrived, as it should, by improvisation and chance.
Still, the rudimentary production will frustrate fans who seek sonic perfection from mid-century pioneers. Tyner’s piano is muffled enough on “My Favorite Things” that his parts can sound like ghostly percussion unless you focus on them. Basslines are sometimes difficult to unearth from the tumult, with the notable exception of “Africa”—ditto Dolphy’s more delicate trills. Scores of Coltrane heads weaned themselves on the impressive fidelity of “Live” at the Village Vanguard and 1964’s Live at Birdland, both of which were captured with extreme stereo know-how by Rudy Van Gelder. Fans expecting this treatment may be displeased, but their reactions befit the artist—Coltrane never liked meeting expectations.
His Village Gate set offers us something beyond pristine audio: extraordinary energy. The parts we cannot clearly perceive murmur away, offering fullness to the music anyway. Improved sound quality wouldn’t make the listening experience more authentic—but it could make it fussy, more in keeping with sterile 21st-century airpods than an acoustically challenged Bleecker Street basement in the early ’60s. (This basement remained a venue, Le Poussin Rouge, after the Gate closed 30 years ago; the ground floor, naturally, has become a CVS.) Alderson placed his single mic near Elvin Jones, whose elastic drumming feels like a marvelous solo act. He flails against orthodoxy, rattles the bars of swing time and jeers at the expectations of consistency that percussionists have to shoulder. Ostensibly a timekeeper, Jones was the wildest member of Coltrane’s ’61 quartet, and perhaps as a result he was the last player of this era that Coltrane would replace.
At the end of the year, Workman left— his father was sick and Coltrane had a new trajectory in mind. Dolphy departed soon after, eventually joining Charles Mingus’ band for the second time, where his deft reedwork could take center stage. The quartet reshuffled as Coltrane surged forward. These Village Gate performances, though, continued to reverberate in his own music and in music at large. There were precedents for composers using two bassists, but arguably no one before Coltrane had saddled one bassist with roving lead parts and another with a stationary, raga-inflected drone. Coltrane battle-tested this dynamic at the Gate, and then developed it over the years. His experimentation signaled something both impractical and studied, a breakdown of big-band largesse into the endless permutations that opened to jazz musicians as ’50s conventions fractured into parallel universes of sound. Within a month of the Gate performances, Ornette Coleman released Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation, which used two bassists. In 1966, Cecil Taylor doubled up bassists on his uncompromising Unit Structures. By 1970, Coltrane’s former boss Miles Davis was using two bassists on a game-changing release in a far different vein, Bitches Brew.
The poet and jazz critic Amiri Baraka (then known as LeRoi Jones), in his gorgeous liner notes to Live at Birdland, called McCoy Tyner “the polished formalist of the group” and claimed that he played more cautiously than his bandmates. Baraka’s comment became writing on the wall—in 1965, Coltrane replaced Tyner with his wife, Alice Coltrane. But the saxophonist was merely trying out something new, not deriding something old. Perhaps because he died tragically young, it’s easy to imagine that Coltrane had a destination in mind with his music, some heavenly realm formed of sacred geometries and unceasing magic-hour light, where an even more classic quartet plays nonstop with Rudy Van Gelder perched behind the sound boards. In reality, had Coltrane lived to ripe old age, he would have continued to try out different styles, bands, influences and ideas, no doubt jamming with past collaborators along the way. Squabbles about sound quality, and comparisons between various iterations of his quartet, are never convincing: John Coltrane cared about change, not perfection.
He played “My Favorite Things'' during his last recorded concert, in 1967, at the Olatunji Center for African Culture in Harlem. The version bears no similarity to the original except for a several-second phrase during a breathless solo. These familiar notes are surprising after an onslaught of free jazz, masterminded by a terminally ill genius who had passed through all sorts of flames in order to become the most transformative, intense and grating saxophonist in the world. Then again, Coltrane once said that he considered “My Favorite Things” to be the best recording he ever made. He liked the composition because he could play it fast or slow, because it “renews itself according to the impulse you give it,” because it was a good place to start.
On Evenings at the Village Gate, Coltrane treats his hit as raw material. He adapts it for another soloist, and rebuilds it into other tracks, one of which he dedicated to Africa. The experience recalls a quote that, like his music, has been referenced too often but retains its grandeur all the same: “I want to start in the middle of a sentence and then go both directions at once.” Coltrane reaches at once into the future and the place where music began. He touches the primeval and follows along with the changes. | 2023-08-01T00:01:00.000-04:00 | 2023-08-01T00:01:00.000-04:00 | Jazz | Impulse! / UMe | August 1, 2023 | 9.2 | 21d08eaf-d1f2-49cd-baad-27fca4a5fc3b | Daniel Felsenthal | https://pitchfork.com/staff/daniel-felsenthal/ | |
Experimental artist Kerry Leimer self-released his and others' work on his Palace of Lights imprint, and the erudite RVNG imprint has put together this collection of unreleased tracks that position Leimer as one of the few American artists who worked in the field of kosmiche at the time of the sub-genre's original peak. | Experimental artist Kerry Leimer self-released his and others' work on his Palace of Lights imprint, and the erudite RVNG imprint has put together this collection of unreleased tracks that position Leimer as one of the few American artists who worked in the field of kosmiche at the time of the sub-genre's original peak. | K. Leimer: A Period of Review (Original Recordings: 1975-1983) | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19387-k-leimer-a-period-of-review-original-recordings-1975-1983/ | A Period of Review (Original Recordings: 1975-1983) | Three years ago, Douglas Mcgowan (the man behind last year’s resplendent new age compilation, I Am the Center) sent a parcel of strange records my way, including one from Seattle-based musician Marc Barreca which seemed to hover in between many genres: new age, industrial, soundtracks. Barreca's record was released on the obscure Palace of Lights imprint run by another musician operating in the mists of the Pacific Northwest, Kerry Leimer, who himself had self-released a handful of his own work.
Investigating Leimer’s albums—specifically, 1982’s Land of Look Behind and 1983’s *Imposed Order—*revealed a curious artist. While the pastoral synths might scan as those of a new age practitioner, the weird loops of bass and noise eddying throughout suggested someone with more avant-garde tendencies. And when the drums burst into those otherwise ambient pieces (Look Behind drew on field recordings made in Jamaica of nyabinghi drumming, while Order used drum machines), it complicated matters further. These albums are long out of print, so it makes sense that the erudite RVNG imprint—already responsible for reviving forgotten artists ranging from Harald Grosskopf to Franco Falsini—would claim Leimer as one of their own.
A Period of Review (Original Recordings: 1975-1983) posits K. Leimer as the American Eno, and while there are sonic ties back to the likes of Cluster, Faust, and Jon Hassell, Eno is the only predecessor that Leimer admits to, telling writer Dave Segal in the liner notes: “None gave me more of a push than Eno, specifically…No Pussyfooting. The attractor was the loops: the loop provided an instant structure.” The Eno fandom is obvious on one of the set’s rare vocal pieces, “Lonely Boy,” where Leimer laments being a composer watching tiny lights blinking at him. “I don’t know what to do/ With instruments and all these wires,” he intones, even nailing Eno’s dry British deadpan. Another song title is perhaps too on the nose: “Eno’s Aviary.”
Despite that namecheck, there is something distinctly punk coursing through this compilation of thirty previously unreleased tracks. The sleeve art of other Palace of Lights releases (which RVNG also plans on compiling later this year) are odd pencil drawings: heads morphing into home stereos, diagrams where fingers become entangled with bass strings. It suggests that strange time period after the Sex Pistols exploded overseas but before punk crossed the Atlantic and crystallized into hardcore. Much like other punks of that era who didn’t really want to shove a pin through their nose, Leimer was more than a trained musician who simply wanted to vent frustration and make some noise with tape loops.
One of the set's pleasures is that although Leimer doesn’t quite know what to do with the instruments on hand—primarily a Rickenbacker bass, a Mini Moog, Revox tape decks, and a handful of effects pedals—the results are entrancing. The drum machine beats feel primitive yet intuitive on pieces like “Entr’acte” and “Archie’s Dub”, which possess a strange layering of dub effects that bring to mind Eno’s collaboration with David Byrne on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (Leimer’s band Savant would explore that polyrhythmic sound even further). For an album featuring so many dreamlike, drifting passages, it’s startling to look at the runtimes and realize that only four pieces ever top the 4:30 mark; beautiful ambient tracks like “Almost Chinese”, “At Daybreak”, and “Two Voices” take you much further afield than their concise runtimes suggest.
These pieces most closely evoke the work of Roedelius and Moebius in Cluster: meditative, wistful, lovely, giving off gentle glimmers of light. In trying to think of the closest American corollary for this set, the possibility emerges that Kerry Leimer is one of the lone examples of American kosmische music, that elegant hybrid that falls somewhere between the Velvets-styled mesmerism of Can in the early '70s and the placid tones of new age music that arose in the next decade. It’s a sound that applies to mid-70s Cluster, Ash Ra Tempel, Popol Vuh, the second side of Kraftwerk’s Autobahn, and others. Yet while import copies of such records no doubt made their way back to the States, it’s rare to find the American version of such a sound. There’s cosmic overtones to be found in jazz from that era (Miles Davis’ “He Loved Him Madly” in particular) as well as from more academic composers like Terry Riley and Laurie Spiegel, but for most bands and musicians of that decade, kosmische seems to have not been emulated. In experiencing this evocative set some three decades later, Leimer’s music sounds like the road not taken. | 2014-05-28T02:00:04.000-04:00 | 2014-05-28T02:00:04.000-04:00 | Electronic | Rvng Intl. | May 28, 2014 | 8.2 | 21d665e5-bde5-4255-a536-3d0a6ead41d6 | Andy Beta | https://pitchfork.com/staff/andy-beta/ | null |
The famed producer teams with the Italian composer to attempt to salvage the "soundtrack without a movie" concept album. Jack White and Norah Jones guest. | The famed producer teams with the Italian composer to attempt to salvage the "soundtrack without a movie" concept album. Jack White and Norah Jones guest. | Danger Mouse / Daniele Luppi: Rome | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15435-rome/ | Rome | The "soundtrack without a movie" album, an attempt to recreate the evocative sweep of a film score away from the screen, has a long and mostly ignoble history. The concept was flogged so hard in the 1990s, usually by dance producers desperate to break out of the club scene, that it was almost left for dead. It didn't help that most of these records were limp pastiches of old-school Hollywood orchestration that paled next to 99% of either actual film scores or real-deal pop albums.
All that bad product doesn't make the movie-less soundtrack a bad idea, of course. It's just that few of these projects have had the talent pool, or the commitment, to pull off a Rome. You can hear composer Daniele Luppi's love and respect for the brooding romanticism, fragile delicacy, and almost psychedelic spaceiness of classic Italian soundtracks in just about every note. In his partner Danger Mouse, he's found not only a similarly smitten collaborator, but a producer who's made a career out of accurately capturing the atmosphere of old records without (usually) coming off sterile. And they've got the moody vibe of those 60s soundtracks down on Rome, as much due to the vintage recording touches as to the Italian movie industry O.G.'s the duo drafted in to lend their hard-earned feel for this music.
But Rome isn't just about faithfully recreating a much-loved period in film history. It'd be a much more boring, if beautifully produced, record if it were. In addition to his work as a composer for film, Luppi's lent his talents as arranger and player to various pop acts, and Danger Mouse has spent much of his career using his crate-digger's ear to craft retro-minded albums that still work for a modern rock audience. Rome's real coup is that, despite its concept hook, you don't have to listen to it as if it were a potential film score. What the duo's made is a beguiling and true hybrid, halfway between pop album and soundtrack-minus-the-movie. If you've got no familiarity with the music Rome pays homage to, you can take comfort that much of it sounds, coincidentally, very similar to the gentle-but-dark 60s psych-pop Danger Mouse makes with Broken Bells, sans a singer. And while it's true that the bulk of the album is instrumental, more concerned with mood than hooks, it's sequenced masterfully, including a handful of well-placed (if purposefully subdued) songs.
Luppi and Danger Mouse cannily snagged two talented but obviously very different voices in Jack White and Norah Jones. White's natural eeriness and Jones' diffident eroticism certainly fit a sound built around mystical melodrama and chilly Euro heartbreak, but their voices are such complimentary opposites that they turn out to be what gives Rome much of its distinctness, keep it from being just another record collector (or film collector) exercise in getting everything period-perfect. And true to the album's slippery not-quite-an-album/not-quite-a-score form, their contributions can either work as the big showcase moments for pop fans, or just as part of the soundtrack-like flow. And whether or not the album succeeds for you as a score to your own invisible flick, inducing images of fog-swept villas and sigaretta-chomping villains in fedoras as the organs swell and the guitars pluck mournfully away, it's purely gorgeous. | 2011-05-16T02:00:00.000-04:00 | 2011-05-16T02:00:00.000-04:00 | Rap / Experimental | Capitol | May 16, 2011 | 7 | 21d7b108-63e3-47a4-a0af-464a4a82bd8e | Jess Harvell | https://pitchfork.com/staff/jess-harvell/ | null |
2 Chainz is rap’s court jester of the moment. FreeBase, his recently released free EP, allows 2 Chainz to stay in character without overstretching his shtick. | 2 Chainz is rap’s court jester of the moment. FreeBase, his recently released free EP, allows 2 Chainz to stay in character without overstretching his shtick. | 2 Chainz: FreeBase EP | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19361-2-chainz-freebase-ep/ | FreeBase EP | 2 Chainz is rap’s court jester of the moment, and he's requested by rappers far and wide to deliver on that talent: precise bars, quotable lyrics (“Money tall like Jordan”), and his trademark adlibs wrapped in his crude but charming persona. In his solo work, nearly every line is a result of his desire to get a laugh, and FreeBase, his recently released free EP, allows 2 Chainz to stay in character without overstretching his shtick.
FreeBase remains as sonically adventurous as 2 Chainz’s previous two albums. Mike Will Made It’s lumbering stomp on “Wuda Cuda Shuda” and Young Chop’s eerie speedboat-chase music on “They Know” demonstrate why they have been go to producers of the last few years. The tape's padded out with samples from Richard Pryor and the absurdist comedy Step Brothers, providing a framework that makes the EP more than a pack of leftover tracks from an old recording session.
On repeated listens, 2 Chainz’s punchline-focused style turns initial smirks into outright laughter. His sense of humor is most potent when riffing on familiar rap tropes, but it can be hard to stomach when he turns to pure misogyny on tracks like “Flexin on My Baby Mama”. Regardless, FreeBase has its genuinely funny moments, such as when 2 Chainz, who has worked with everyone from Kanye West to Lil Boosie, states “I’ve done a song with everybody from Jermaine Dupri down to Papoose,” which is at the least an interesting selection of artists to namedrop.
2 Chainz can appear on a song with any rapper or pop star, but he also wants to throw his weight around in the area of modern rap that A$AP Rocky namechecks on “Crib in My Closet”: fashion. "Crib in My Closet" sounds like a 2000-era Big Tymers boastful track where 2 Chainz, A$AP Rocky, and Rick Ross fight for the “Best Dressed” crown, with Rocky delivering the knockout punch by name-dropping the Met Ball and Anna Wintour. It should be said, though, that 2 Chainz's obsession with fashion also provides the best intentionally ironic line, as he yells “I don’t respect my elders,” willfully ignoring that, in terms of age, he's the oldest rapper to appear on the EP. 2 Chainz been rapping for over a decade, but now his music sounds like he’s just entertaining himself during late night recording sessions and (correctly) assuming his audience is along for the ride. | 2014-05-16T02:00:02.000-04:00 | 2014-05-16T02:00:02.000-04:00 | Rap | self-released | May 16, 2014 | 7.2 | 21d9cfb9-d1e8-43c8-8b5c-dd3dc730a9c9 | David Turner | https://pitchfork.com/staff/david-turner/ | null |
On his third album and his Merge debut, garage rocker Mike Krol plays and sings with the uncontainable excitement of an underdog finally realizing his dreams, and the album courses with the adrenaline of newfound confidence. The sound is scuzzy, but the energy is pure. | On his third album and his Merge debut, garage rocker Mike Krol plays and sings with the uncontainable excitement of an underdog finally realizing his dreams, and the album courses with the adrenaline of newfound confidence. The sound is scuzzy, but the energy is pure. | Mike Krol: Turkey | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20944-turkey/ | Turkey | The title of singer/guitarist/drummer Mike Krol's third album is a bowling reference, used for when you get three strikes in a row. On a poster in the liner notes, he is pictured holding two gold records, with tags beneath each reading, "to commemorate the sale of no more than 500 copies." Clearly, Krol has a sense of humor about himself, and his position.
But his Merge debut isn't hangdog at all. It has a do-or-die desperation: The sound is scuzzy, but the energy is pure, bristling with the aim to be stronger and more memorable than the two that came before it. When Krol whines and shouts lines like "you've been warned that I'm not fooling around," you believe him. The song that line comes from, by the way, is called "Neighborhood Watch", and it's sung to somebody who stole his bike. This is one of Krol's strongest suits; taking a small and seemingly silly premise, making it universal and hiding at least one line in each song that could be pulled from it to form a mission statement. "The world can't stop me now," he sings in "Cactuses", a song about being mad at the pain that a cactus has caused him.
Krol recorded Turkey in just four days, co-producing with Elliott Kozel, who also plays piano and synth on the album. Engineer Beau Sorenson improves upon the sound of Krol's first two albums, without compromising any of the shambolic glory. Instruments are panned hard, handclaps occasionally emerge through thick fuzz and squalls of feedback, and at the center of it all is Krol's nasally voice, singing sweet melodies through a guitar amp and hitting effects pedals at just the right time. He sings with the uncontainable excitement of an underdog finally realizing his dreams, and the album courses with the adrenaline of newfound confidence.
It's hard to resist comparing Krol's voice to John Dwyer or King Tuff, and Krol seems ready to dispel any accusations of bandwagon-jumping. "I feel left out of every city and scene I belong to," he sings on a track that is unambiguously titled, "Left Out (ATTN: SoCal Garage Rockers)".
If Turkey just misses greatness, it's because it's just too short. The whole thing is over in 18 minutes. This is the downside to spending only four days recording. And with the way that Turkey is sequenced, you can feel the slow deflation of the world-conquering drive. The album is front-loaded with biting rock that eventually devolves into "Piano Shit", a song which is just a Dustin O'Halloran-ish re-working of the previous track. (It's called "Less Than Together", and Krol's singing is less-than-in-tune on it.) The song "Save the Date", where Krol anticipates an invitation to the wedding of an ex, hints at deeper moods, but it, too, is over too quickly, a verse shy of poignance. You can hear Krol's asides to the engineer on Turkey, just as you can in his previous releases, and they hint at his gradually expanding ambition. His 2011 album, I Hate Jazz, ends with him simply asking, "Did that sound even close?" Turkey finds him zeroing in: "Did that sound better?" | 2015-09-04T02:00:04.000-04:00 | 2015-09-04T02:00:04.000-04:00 | Rock | Merge | September 4, 2015 | 7.4 | 21dc7d0c-ad3c-4290-9e56-e48b938fc4cd | Pat Healy | https://pitchfork.com/staff/pat-healy/ | null |
Even if the second album from this Nashville singer doesn’t sound like the blues, she embodies the spirit, squaring up to her demons without fear. | Even if the second album from this Nashville singer doesn’t sound like the blues, she embodies the spirit, squaring up to her demons without fear. | Adia Victoria: Silences | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/adia-victoria-silences/ | Silences | “The blues” summons a bevy of specific sounds: the piercing riffs of Big Mama Thornton, the scratching strums of Memphis Minnie, the brazen swagger of Bessie Smith, the relaxed picking of Algia Mae Hinton. But more than chord progressions or meter counting, the blues are about feeling, about looking demons in the eye and calling them by name. Silences, the second LP from Nashville’s Adia Victoria, scans like a biting, lush indie rock record, but it’s a blues album in this pure sense. As she cavorts with and squares off against demons across these dozen tracks, Victoria positions herself as a 21st-century heir to the blues, honoring traditions while eagerly bucking them.
Silences takes its title from the 1962 book of the same name by first-wave feminist Tillie Olsen, a reflection on the yawning void in artistic canons that came with excluding women from serious consideration. Victoria’s corrective measure is mighty. Working with producer and the National guitarist Aaron Dessner, she lets these dense arrangements occupy every corner of the mix. “Clean” opens with slumping, bowed strings, descending with the drama of a diva floating down a grand staircase. Atmospheric guitars, electronics, and saxophones lend Victoria support as she sneers. Her vocals remain cool and controlled, as if she’s refusing to let trouble get the best of her.
Victoria brings jagged-edge attitude to the hard-charging “Different Kind of Love” and the determined “Pacolet Road,” where she sings about escaping the South to do “everything in the world that my grandma ever wished she had.” There are moments of gentler reflection, too, as on the lilting “The City,” which Victoria adorns with a sample of Billie Holiday crooning “Lady Sings the Blues.” With “Get Lonely,” a poignant twist on love-song tropes, Victoria yearns for an intimacy that may be untenable: “Maybe you’ve prayed your demons away/But something tells me mine are here to stay,” she sings.
The foes here are both internal and external—betrayal, prejudice, temptation, herself. Victoria approaches these familiar struggles not with lowdown defeat but with frank acknowledgement of the trouble they give her, letting listeners into these intimate battles. “I like the things that make me hurt,” she admits on “Devil Is a Lie,” a wry, stuttering waltz of horns and pizzicato strings. “You give an inch, they take a mile/No, you will not make me smile.” It is a lament and taunt within a single breath. On “Nice Folks,” she takes do-gooders to task, noting that they drag her down and silence her without recognizing the harm they do. The track’s climactic drum break feels apocalyptic, as if Victoria herself were summoning heaven and hell to right such wrongs.
Victoria buttons up Silences with “Dope Queen Blues,” a powerhouse reiteration of her battle to emerge triumphant in a world that wants to flatten her—the culmination of her ruination, as she sings in the refrain. But as Victoria makes clear during Silences, demons don’t have to be all bad news; if we have the power to name and shame them, we have the power to have a little fun with them, too. | 2019-02-25T01:00:00.000-05:00 | 2019-02-25T01:00:00.000-05:00 | Rock | Canvasback | February 25, 2019 | 7.7 | 21ddb1c2-11a6-4041-bd41-a523cf74b643 | Allison Hussey | https://pitchfork.com/staff/allison-hussey/ | |
On their debut album as a quartet, Greg Fox, Melvin Gibbs, Sasha Frere-Jones, and Grey McMurray find common ground in psychedelic post-rock jams that are both sprawling and supremely focused. | On their debut album as a quartet, Greg Fox, Melvin Gibbs, Sasha Frere-Jones, and Grey McMurray find common ground in psychedelic post-rock jams that are both sprawling and supremely focused. | Body Meπa: The Work Is Slow | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/body-mepa-the-work-is-slow/ | The Work Is Slow | All four musicians in avant-rock supergroup Body Meπa—drummer Greg Fox, bassist Melvin Gibbs, and guitarists Sasha Frere-Jones and Grey McMurray—have spent their careers in myriad contexts, and their debut album together, The Work Is Slow, finds them operating in yet another mode, dishing out sprawling post-rock jams both jazzy and psychedelic. One could point to previous efforts as antecedents—jazz-fusion freak-outs in Gibbs’ Power Tools, funk-rock meanderings in Frere-Jones’ Ui, drugged-out fuzz in Fox’s Teeth Mountain—but the quartet sounds supremely focused on this record. More than their other output, the goal here is to entrance.
As the title suggests, The Work Is Slow has songs that unfold patiently, and opener “Horse Flower Storm/Fabuloso” is suffused with the sweet languor of a hot summer day. That feeling primarily comes from the guitars: In the beginning, McMurray opts for ambient mood-setting while Frere-Jones plays the role of the noodler (the former’s guitar appears in the left channel while the latter’s is in the right). Even as McMurray creeps into noisier terrain, he never vies for center stage. Such restraint is key to Body Meπa’s cohesion: They constantly play off each other without overstepping boundaries, well aware that atmosphere is best maintained when everyone has equal say. When Fox whips out his double-kick-drum barrages, it’s less for the sake of an ostentatious climax than to playfully offset those contemplative guitar melodies.
The Work Is Slow is more than just dreamy soundscapes, though. “Bullitt” features a fiery wall of noise conjured up by Gibbs’ robust bass, Fox’s clanging cymbals, and McMurray’s searing guitar. Frere-Jones’ brambly free-improv guitar whimpers amid the chaos, like a small animal trapped in a burning building. It’s the most raucous song on the album, and every element is neatly controlled for maximum immersion and impact. It’s followed by “Motherwell,” which serves as a necessary relief. The meaty bassline is sandwiched between bright, nimble guitars, and repetition keeps you locked into its meditative groove.
There’s a quote from Ornette Coleman, the jazz titan whose 1978 album Body Meπa take their name from, that feels apt: “The theme you play at the start of the number is the territory. And what comes after, which may have very little to do with it, is the adventure.” While Body Meπa don’t sound as unwieldy or unpredictable as Coleman’s Prime Time band, there’s a similarly invigorating spirit of possibility in how the quartet navigates each track. On “Money Tree,” flurrying guitars inspire hypnagogic bliss, but Gibbs’ mid-song string of unbroken eighth notes injects hair-raising verve. Suddenly, everything snaps into place.
That’s the real joy of The Work Is Slow: You can feel the weight of each note and skronk and hiss, every change in rhythm and beat and melody. Fox, Frere-Jones, Gibbs, and McMurray’s contributions may be understated, but they’re all crucial to each track’s creation. This, in conjunction with clear and sustained atmospheres, allows for songs to feel both out of time and patently linear; they’re quietly thrilling, like hours-long road trips. On the triumphant closer “Ribbon,” sputtering kick drums burst alongside sparkling guitars, and it exudes the magic of a fireworks show. Even with decades of collaborations under their collective belt, Body Meπa accomplish a feat that always impresses: They’re a new band in perfect lockstep.
Buy: Rough Trade
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Catch up every Saturday with 10 of our best-reviewed albums of the week. Sign up for the 10 to Hear newsletter here. | 2021-06-04T00:00:00.000-04:00 | 2021-06-04T00:00:00.000-04:00 | Rock | Hausu Mountain | June 4, 2021 | 7.7 | 21e3aa22-5d48-4e3a-8821-76a62c5f10a9 | Joshua Minsoo Kim | https://pitchfork.com/staff/joshua-minsoo kim/ | |
After a string of muted, experimental releases, Ghost strains to recapture some of the old Wu fire. | After a string of muted, experimental releases, Ghost strains to recapture some of the old Wu fire. | Ghostface Killah: Ghostface Killahs | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/ghostface-killah-ghostface-killahs/ | Ghostface Killahs | After the high-water mark of 2006’s Fishscale, Ghostface Killah embarked on a series of intriguing collaborations with producers like Adrian Younge and BadBadNotGood. Receding into the middle distance of his own music, he offered solid verses that served as backdrop for a more free-flowing, live-band sound. It seemed, perhaps, that Ghost might be reverting to an older definition of MC in his middle age, turning from a microphone controller into a master of ceremonies.
But on his new album, Ghostface Killahs, he strains to recapture the old Wu vibe, with limited success. It’s a brisk listen with plenty of strong tracks. “Me Denny & Darryl” features huge verses from Ghostface and a laid-back Method Man, who grants the song its title and whose verse is filled with vintage quotables. Ghostface does him one better on the second verse of “Flex,” jumping from a loving description of Wallabees with an Air Max bubble to “Fish tank so big even the babies can swim in/Rockin’ the toddler, four finger lacin’, ridiculous gems in ’em/Benjamins stuck together like boxes of Entenmann’s.”
This is Ghost at his most undeniable, breathing new life into tired Wu-Tang tropes. On Ghostface Killahs he’s emerged from the fugue in which he’s seemed lost for so much of this decade; his energy is up. On “New World,” the producer Danny Caiazzo isolates the bassline from Aaron Neville’s “Hercules” (a favorite used to memorable effect by Action Bronson, Biz Markie, and UGK, among others) to give Ghost a vehicle. The rapper plays tour guide through bus windows to a world as ugly as ever, one where red meat makes people crazy and the police are murdering black people. It’s a great example of what late period Ghostface could be, a ringmaster bringing experience where youthful passion once raged.
Were the album filled with songs like these, it’d be a minor revival, but Ghostface Killahs is marred by too many tracks that are either curdled by casual cruelty or just tired retreads. The sheer number and intensity of the gay slurs is indefensible, reaching its peak on “Pistol Smoke,” a barely-there beat with no imagination leaving Ghost spewing vitriol at effeminate enemies. The song, with a snarled hook by the Wu-Tang affiliate Solomon Childs, appears to be trying to approximate the menace of classic M.O.P. It doesn’t have half the energy or a quarter of the inspiration. And while the beats here are generally competent, they are beige imitations of the production granted to Ghostface over his career from some of the best producers in rap history.
Not that Ghostface Killah needs inspiration or a Rushmore of beatmakers to sell records. The new album, which was released on the rapper’s website a week before it hit streaming platforms, shot to No. 2 on the iTunes charts upon its broad release, behind only Post Malone. That’s not Billboard, of course, but it shows that the rapper still has a dedicated audience, to whom the quality of the new music might be less important than their ongoing loyalty. Which is to say, if Ghost is to recover, he’ll be doing it for himself.
Buy: Rough Trade
(Pitchfork may earn a commission from purchases made through affiliate links on our site.) | 2019-09-20T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2019-09-20T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Rap | Music Generation Corp. | September 20, 2019 | 6.2 | 21e61ae7-ab66-4122-82b8-46d10b45a9dd | Jonah Bromwich | https://pitchfork.com/staff/jonah-bromwich/ | |
On his fifth solo album, the Memphis legend invites guests like Jay Rock and Megan Thee Stallion, splitting the difference between coasting and staying fly. | On his fifth solo album, the Memphis legend invites guests like Jay Rock and Megan Thee Stallion, splitting the difference between coasting and staying fly. | Juicy J: The Hustle Continues | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/juicy-j-the-hustle-continues/ | The Hustle Continues | Juicy J opens “Po Up,” the fourth song from his fifth solo album The Hustle Continues, on a nostalgic note. We hear the sound of liquid filling a cup and then the Tennessee rapper-producer lists the names of several icons who recently passed away, from rappers Nipsey Hussle and Juice WRLD to filmmaker John Singleton and basketball star Kobe Bryant. The moment charts a genealogy through Juicy’s long and prosperous career; he first formed his group Three 6 Mafia with Lord Infamous and DJ Paul in 1991, the same year Singleton released his breakout film Boyz n the Hood. The Mafia released their debut album Mystic Stylez in 1995, one year before Bryant became a first-round NBA draft pick for the Los Angeles Lakers. Much like Singleton and Bryant, Juicy J altered the foundation of his chosen field, honoring its roots while blazing a new trail with an irreverent smirk.
The Hustle Continues is proof that Juicy’s sound remains unstuck in time almost 30 years later. The ear-shattering low end and hellacious synths and keyboards he’s trafficked in since his start are more popular now than ever, and he knows it. Hustle, then, is Juicy’s attempt at continuing to carry the torch, like the favorite uncle you can always count on to shut down the VIP section at the club. He sounds particularly engaged at his best, ready to occupy familiar roles with ease. He oozes menace on opener “Best Group” and “Memphis to LA,” where he trades tales of guns and death with TDE’s Jay Rock and fellow Three 6 member Project Pat. “Shopping Spree” and “She Gon Pop It” sound like the strip-club standards they’re destined to be once clubs and bars are safe to attend again post-COVID. His voice billows across the skittering drums of weed anthems “Gah Damn High” and “What I Need.” Juicy sounds like he’s still having fun and, most importantly, like he wants listeners to have fun, too.
The fun reaches another level when Juicy raps alongside younger artists. “Killa” floats a fierce piano refrain and trunk-rattling 808s down the river Styx and teases an uncharacteristically high-energy verse out of Griselda rapper Conway the Machine. Young Dolph and Megan Thee Stallion bring this same energy out of Juicy on “Shopping Spree” and “She Gon Pop It,” respectively, confirming why both continuously come to Juicy for beats on their albums.
Unfortunately, plenty of features that seemed great on paper come across as stale and awkward in execution. A$AP Rocky (“Po Up”) and new Memphis star Key Glock (“That’s The Way It Goes”) sound asleep at the wheel while others, like Jay Rock, sound out of place. Maryland rapper Logic—who’s already omnipresent throughout as the voice behind Juicy’s new beat tag—is given two features, both of which are energetic but rife with bars that crumble like Nature Valley granola (“Was never one for the Akademiks/But knew the everyday struggle”). The worst of Hustle’s features either feel like padding or derail the album’s meticulously crafted atmosphere.
The Hustle Continues isn’t concerned with rewriting the book of Juicy J. There are no risks taken and the stakes aren’t particularly high, but they don’t need to be. At 45 years old, Juicy is a legacy act whose influence can be seen in rappers from Tyler, The Creator to Travis Scott to Rae Sremmurd. He seems content with the privilege of collecting publishing on his vast back catalog and clearly relishes creating alongside his progeny in the process. When the stars align this smoothly, sometimes the best option is to simply stay fly.
Catch up every Saturday with 10 of our best-reviewed albums of the week. Sign up for the 10 to Hear newsletter here. | 2020-12-08T01:00:00.000-05:00 | 2020-12-08T01:00:00.000-05:00 | Rap | eOne | December 8, 2020 | 6.8 | 21ec85c6-27f0-4c62-aa89-ae7b464f7d83 | Dylan Green | https://pitchfork.com/staff/dylan-green/ | |
Toro Y Moi's Chaz Bundick continues to show his dance bona fides on this 12" of Italo disco, house, and retrofitted roller boogie. | Toro Y Moi's Chaz Bundick continues to show his dance bona fides on this 12" of Italo disco, house, and retrofitted roller boogie. | Les Sins: Lina | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/14886-lina/ | Lina | Even though the debut LP by Chaz Bundick's Toro Y Moi, Causers of This, maximized the zoned-out vibes, there were traces of dance signifiers worming their way out of the music, itching to be sped up and broadcast as something bigger and bolder. That's exactly what happens on Bundick's solo side project, Les Sins. His first outing under the name, Lina, is a 12" double-sided single that sounds like Toro Y Moi on club DJ duty, grafting Italo disco, house, and retrofitted roller boogie elements into his already pop-edified palette. The resulting nine minutes of music explore Bundick's dance-friendly impulses in ways both enjoyable and grating.
A-side "Lina" is the real keeper. Bundick establishes a steady groove with a female vocal hook, funked-out bass, and string loops. It's propulsive and clean, even when Bundick starts to deconstruct and chop away at all the details. The first minute or so feels rarefied-- fans of Daft Punk and Avalanches will easily find something to latch onto-- it seems a little pointless to just drop everything into the Cuisinart. But since Bundick is able to shape and re-wrap these elements back into the groove so precisely, all the refitting feels ambitious. "Lina" shimmers on the surface and pulsates steadily underneath, making it a perfect fit for some cavernous warehouse space that's packed with bodies and hasn't been hit with a noise violation yet.
"Youth Gone" is very much the leftfield, exploratory B-side, and despite featuring a similar level of energy, it lacks "Lina"'s warm, delirious throb. In fact, it's actually a little irritating. A too-short, horn-guided sample leads the first half of the track, imparting a nauseating feeling that awkwardly amplifies some of the skittery leanings of Toro Y Moi proper. Labored and repetitive, "Youth Gone" never eases up, even when a more concrete two-step beat is laid down. As a whole, Lina kind of knocks the wind out of you, in ways that feel both pleasurable and disorienting. Still, Les Sins is just the kind of thing you'd want to hear on the side from someone like Bundick-- a brief, intriguing flight of fancy. | 2010-11-29T01:00:02.000-05:00 | 2010-11-29T01:00:02.000-05:00 | Electronic | Carpark | November 29, 2010 | 6.8 | 21ec868d-8e0f-46c9-9b1a-9c2ae25e866b | Zach Kelly | https://pitchfork.com/staff/zach-kelly/ | null |
On a mixtape of exclusive material debuted on NTS Radio, the Toronto-based producer Jacques Greene trades distanced, soulful melancholy for full-on dancefloor hypnosis. | On a mixtape of exclusive material debuted on NTS Radio, the Toronto-based producer Jacques Greene trades distanced, soulful melancholy for full-on dancefloor hypnosis. | Jacques Greene: Mixtape | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/jacques-greene-mixtape/ | Mixtape | By the time Jacques Greene released Feel Infinite, his 2017 debut album, he’d mastered the art of headphone house: dance-lite takes on electro-R&B that are more about the club than for it. The Toronto-via-Montreal producer, born Philippe Aubin-Dionne, spent years perfecting his style by flipping chopped-up vocals from artists like Ciara and Tinashe into sweaty, syncopated heat. His bedroom tones and chart-music samples became a hit among Tumblr kids and techno elites. And then, right at the moment moody R&B began to sweep the mainstream, he changed gears.
Aubin-Dionne’s venturesome new mixtape trades distanced, soulful melancholy for full-on dancefloor hypnosis. The 48-minute stream of new material, debuted on NTS Radio and also available on YouTube, is far-out and shape-shifting, like wandering through the different rooms in a dark, labyrinthine nightclub. There are trance climaxes, purring techno intervals, ambient meditations, and spells of after-hours soul—sounds that seldom appear alongside each other, especially this elegantly. Unlike Feel Infinite’s song-focused format, this collection flows with the finesse of a sophisticated DJ set, with each new discovery a seamless surprise. If you thought his club days were behind him, think again.
The Jacques Greene alias was built on eclectic digital crate-digging and fearless sampling (Aubin-Dionne is known to bury YouTube covers and strangers’ phone recordings into the sheets of his tracks). Here, he expands on this affinity for imaginative vocal samples by chopping them into more abstract forms, and then folding them into dancier structures. While this isn’t a dramatic reinvention, it’s a distancing from the diva samples and pop re-cuts he became known for (his edits of Drake and Radiohead, though tasteful, feel beneath him). The only remix here is a spin on Rhye’s “Song for You,” where synth arpeggios and whirring drums make the serenade feel ominous and urgent. It’s the closest the producer gets to the kind of traditional vocal that played such a big part of his old sonic identity. But aside from Cadence Weapon’s hushed raps on “Night Service,” the soulful murmurs that appear here have been so heavily treated that they provide more texture than melody. Similarly, the nervous “DMs With God” begins as a cluster of clangy percussion and humming before a warm, grooving bassline lifts it into a dancefloor moment.
But all that texture! Between the breathy hiccups, squishy synths, sheets of white noise, and glacial echoes that hum like bowls in a Tibetan sound bath, there’s so much activity under the surface that the absence of easy-to-spot singers feels insignificant. Lose yourself the whinnying synth line of “Convex Mirror,” the mixtape’s brightest shining star, for a taste at what he can do with machine-driven melodies. With the frenetic energy of a spaceship rave, notes fly high and low like shooting stars while polyrhythmic percussion swirls beneath. It’s a delight to know that Aubin-Dionne’s next phase won’t sacrifice his knack for melodrama, but even more exciting to glimpse the new depths ahead. | 2018-05-08T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2018-05-08T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Electronic | self-released | May 8, 2018 | 6.9 | 21ee5607-b625-4fb0-8e85-7875c041f835 | Megan Buerger | https://pitchfork.com/staff/megan-buerger/ | |
The 1998 collaborative album brought together a trio of legends from the worlds of ambient and chillout. It’s a placid but playful collection that is like nothing else in their repertoires. | The 1998 collaborative album brought together a trio of legends from the worlds of ambient and chillout. It’s a placid but playful collection that is like nothing else in their repertoires. | Mixmaster Morris / Jonah Sharp / Haruomi Hosono: Quiet Logic | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/mixmaster-morris-jonah-sharp-haruomi-hosono-quiet-logic/ | Quiet Logic | Haruomi Hosono was, in his words, “adrift in the sea of ambient music” in the ’90s. The multi-instrumentalist and producer had grown restless with the level of celebrity foisted upon him as one third of synth-pop supergroup Yellow Magic Orchestra and was desperate to take his career in another direction after the band decided to go their separate ways. He immediately went into hiding, ramping up work as a producer for other artists and obscuring his identity behind a network of different aliases. (Coming up with band names to camouflage himself, he says, was a fun hobby.) In further pursuit of new experiences, he spun up a series of labels on which he could collaborate with artists outside of his usual circles. As Hosono descended deeper into his latest obsessions, it seemed inevitable that he would collide with like-minded icons Mixmaster Morris and Jonah Sharp.
The UK producers are legends in their own right. Morris made a name for himself as a prolific DJ, becoming a pioneer of ambient chillout, which gave ravers respite from the fast-paced environment of the main floor. Sharp, recording as Spacetime Continuum, occupied a similar zone—originally influenced by Chicago house and Detroit techno, his sound transformed as he retreated to the chill-out rooms and turned down the tempo. Both shared Hosono’s curiosity for music from all genres and corners of the globe, keeping everything from Balearic beats to atmospheric jazz in their toolkits.
When the pair arrived at Hosono’s Quiet Lodge studio in 1997 to begin work on their collaborative album, Hosono gave them total freedom to play around. Operating on opposite circadian rhythms, the two recorded throughout the day and Hosono tuned the results while they slept. Hosono trusted the musicians to tinker with any instrument in his studio, with one exception—nobody could lay a hand on his Moog theremin. (“It’s a theremin,” Morris recalls slyly responding in the liner notes of the album. “I don’t need to touch it.”) On the title track, the bounty at their disposal becomes evident. Drum and cymbal samples intermittently skip over a shuffling pulse. Synthesized melodies stack up and rapidly fall away while kalimba-like tones occasionally roll in like a gently cresting wave. It’s placid but playful; it feels like they’re having a blast packing in as many sounds as they can.
The English producers bring their otherworldly ability to bend time to the project. “Uchu Yuei (Swimming in Space)” sounds like what you’d expect from crossing the two musicians, but the building blocks are carefully placed; the track slowly gathers momentum as they tease the central rhythm, eventually letting it erupt into a skittish drum pattern. They push each other to new heights too, like on “Waraitake.” A cascade of fluttering notes underpins the almost 14-minute odyssey as it sweeps through various movements, like the endless prismatic patterns of a kaleidoscope. Digital glitches cut in and out, twisting into jagged waveforms. The beat picks up intensity until it becomes a heavy stomp, punctuated with reverb as if each hit of the drum pad has 10 tons of weight behind it. It’s like nothing in either of their discographies.
But what makes Quiet Logic feel complete are the moments of contrast that Hosono provides on the tracks he co-produced. The walls close in on “Wakarimasen,” heightening the tension with an oppressive throb. Hosono speaks a mix of Japanese and English, coating his voice in a viscous echo as he utters abstract phrases. It would be the least ambient piece on the record if not for the closing track “Dr. Gauss / Yakan Hiko (Night Flight),” which releases the relaxing spell with its elastic, unsteady cadence. If Morris and Sharp have the power to effortlessly put you into a trance, Hosono knows best how to snap you out of it.
Quiet Logic was originally distributed on Hosono’s independent imprint Daisyworld, making few waves in or outside Japan where it was released. For Morris and Sharp, that low profile was an opportunity to toy with sounds outside their repertoire and work in ways neither of them were accustomed to. Hosono was looking for a change too; by the time the three had met at Quiet Lodge, he was already washing ashore from the ambient sea and had an eye to new frontiers. Quiet Logic captures a legendary trio at the top of their game, right before the moment they were set to scatter in different directions. | 2024-03-01T00:01:00.000-05:00 | 2024-03-01T00:01:00.000-05:00 | Electronic / Pop/R&B | WRWTFWW | March 1, 2024 | 8.2 | 21f6bf1d-5975-435b-b2d7-2af1c910fc56 | Shy Thompson | https://pitchfork.com/staff/shy-thompson/ | |
The newly reissued collaboration between Brian Eno and bassist Jah Wobble from 1995 is an outlier in both their catalogs, which is part and parcel of its allure. | The newly reissued collaboration between Brian Eno and bassist Jah Wobble from 1995 is an outlier in both their catalogs, which is part and parcel of its allure. | Brian Eno / Jah Wobble: Spinner | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/brian-eno-jah-wobble-spinner/ | Spinner | Rather than simply releasing the music he had recorded for Derek Jarman's 1994 film Glitterbug, Brian Eno handed over the score to bassist Jah Wobble, encouraging him to do with it as he pleased, with the results released in 1995 as Spinner. Wobble—born John Wardle—wasn’t any old bass player: His cavernous dub bass lines lifted Public Image Ltd. out of the Sex Pistols’ considerable shadow. By 1994, he was an artist of some repute, having led his Invaders of the Heart, a globe-trotting collective of musical mavericks, to the middle reaches of the British charts.
All the same, you can picture the flicker of delight that must have traced across Eno’s brow when he received back his musical cues alternatively untouched (“Garden Recalled”), employed as the basis for entirely new tracks (“Steam”), and accompanied by Wobble’s bass pressure (“Like Organza”). “I didn't even hear it all till it was finished,” Eno told The Wire in September 1995 of Spinner’s recording. “Everything that he [Wobble] put on, he produced. Anything you hear looming around in the back is probably what I produced…”
That “probably” is important. Spinner—which is being reissued in an expanded edition—fills an intriguingly permissive space in the Eno catalog, where he stepped back from his own strict editorial criteria and placed himself “in the hands of Jah.” Spinner comes from synergy and collectivism rather than individual inspiration, an impression reinforced by this reissue, which adds “Stravinsky” (an original Eno track from the much bootlegged Glitterbug soundtrack) and “Lockdown” (a new song by Wobble) to the collected canon. Spinner is also an outlier in the Eno catalog for its pulsating low end, a rarity for a producer who was more audibly influenced by the spaces of dub rather than its bass textures.
“Like Organza” is the perfect example of how this musical tag-teaming works. Nothing much actually happens in the song: Eno (presumably) brings the chiming of a bell and a drone-y organ, to which Wobble adds a serpentine bass line, which curls around the melody like a warm dog’s embrace. For two-and-three-quarter minutes, all is well in the world, as if the perfect harmony of bass and melody has temporarily restored cosmic stability.
At other times, Wobble’s direction is notably more maximalist. On “Unusual Balance” he employs metallic guitar, drums locked in a haltering reggae two step, and the electrifying voice of Iranian-born vocalist Sussan Deyhim to create a dubbed-out Middle-Eastern space metal, while Eno’s contribution is seemingly reduced to a few stray piano notes littered around the background. “Transmitter and Trumpet,” meanwhile, mixes up Can’s Jaki Liebezeit on heavily-processed drums with other-worldly atmospherics; the tent-peg-solid three-note bassline balances this eight minutes of kosmische drift that sits somewhere between the Orb and Can’s own adventure in reggae on 1976’s Flow Motion.
The upshot of this wild collaborative fever is that Spinner’s weaker numbers are those—like “Garden Recalled” and “Space Diary 1”—where Eno’s original work is left untouched, their glassy textures a little cold in comparison to the fervent musical madness around them. Given Wobble’s work on the rest of this album, though, you trust him that these songs were better left untouched and Spinner’s excellent sequencing allows them to serve as a palate cleanser between contrasting musical flavors.
Spinner’s cosmopolitan influences and improbable origin means it often gets overlooked among the labyrinthine Eno catalog. It’s not quite ambient; it’s not exactly dub; it’s not even really a Brian Eno production. And yet there is something invigorating in this album’s refusal to conform. Eno, a man known for his career left-turns, cerebral innovation and nonconformist working attitudes, once called it “a very strange record”. And coming from him, that’s quite a compliment.
Buy: Rough Trade
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Catch up every Saturday with 10 of our best-reviewed albums of the week. Sign up for the 10 to Hear newsletter here. | 2020-08-21T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2020-08-20T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Electronic / Global / Rock | All Saints | August 21, 2020 | 7.7 | 21f8f29b-37dd-4a89-b3f3-90173bd37904 | Ben Cardew | https://pitchfork.com/staff/ben-cardew/ | |
Punk-turned-country-leaning chronicler Laura Stevenson’s third album is her first with an outside producer, Kevin McMahon, who's previously worked with Titus Andronicus and Swans. It's also the first where she's decided to deal with her demons. | Punk-turned-country-leaning chronicler Laura Stevenson’s third album is her first with an outside producer, Kevin McMahon, who's previously worked with Titus Andronicus and Swans. It's also the first where she's decided to deal with her demons. | Laura Stevenson: Wheel | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/18037-laura-stevenson-wheel/ | Wheel | On punk-turned-country-leaning chronicler Laura Stevenson’s first album, 2010’s A Record, she was frank about her tendency to obscure her feelings. The precious, old-timey piano waltz of “Beets United” found her intoning, in her sweet vinegar voice, “I need to stop singing in code/ To start ringing true because true rings only.” But it’s taken her until her third LP-- the second for Don Giovanni-- to feel she’s reached that point. She’s also dropped …and the Cans from her stage name (though they remain her backing band) and decided to deal with her demons: the realization that death is inevitable, and the ensuing battle between succumbing to futility, self-destruction, or balancing somewhere between the two. “There comes a time when you decide if you fight it off or learn to die,” she sings on “Triangle”, her snarl slight over her band’s crunching, good-timey wallop. It’s heavy stuff, but you wouldn’t immediately know it just by listening to Wheel, which spins a line in folk-rock bonhomie so sincere that a few gnarled sticks thrown in its spokes wouldn’t go amiss.
The 28-year-old Long Islander isn’t exactly an open book on Wheel, but sticks to a neat scheme of metaphors to dress up her existential anguish. The characters in her songs are either trapped, cowed within disintegrating bodies (Stevenson is a big Jeff Mangum fan, and it shows), hiding away from the world, still living within damaging, inescapable situations; or they’re trying to run, though beyond the general idea of escape, towards what and why is never that obvious. (Though the record’s most quotable line doesn’t fit either foot: “You’ll be a home for ungrateful drones who will churn your bones to butter,” she rails on “Swim Swim”, where California gets swallowed up by an earthquake and bees set down roots.)
Problem is, if Stevenson's lyrics are desperate and raw, her and her band's music bowls along blithely, neutering her newly on-show, distinct personal anguish: The sugary gait of “Renee” and “The Move”’s simpering softness fall halfway between I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning-era Bright Eyes and the slightly self-satisfied cadence of popular, modern British folk. Standout single “Runner” is a weird, twangy anthem with a pop-punkish chorus (“This summer hurts! This summer hurts!”) that nods to Stevenson’s teenage obsession with Green Day and Operation Ivy. “Bells and Whistles” has similarly overflowing verses and indignant, punchy choruses to Lady Lamb the Beekeeper’s recent album, Ripely Pine, but lacks Aly Spaltro’s taste for blood; “Every Tense” is strings-swollen and grave, like Sigur Rós making Americana, “Telluride” the flagging third hour of a Bruce Springsteen outdoor show. You get the picture: Stevenson and band cover the full spectrum of 21st century populist folk, from hushed intimacy to torrid crescendo and dusk-lit festival stage rousing, a touch like latter-period Rilo Kiley.
Wheel is Stevenson’s first record with an outside producer: Kevin McMahon has previously worked with Titus Andronicus and Swans, so he should be a dab hand at managing vim and dread, but the thick arrangements and too-poignant string interludes often make Stevenson’s lyrics difficult to hear properly, and their tendency toward generic twang and climax gets old quickly. Wheel is accomplished, but does next to nothing you haven’t heard before and offers no original thrills.
It's no means an unpleasant record, however, and Stevenson is a winsome presence with a wild voice, and an occasional knack for compellingly weird hybrids; “Runner” and the Fiona Apple-does-Built to Spill vibe of “Eleonora” put a halfway idiosyncratic spin on theatrical, muscular folk rock. But it’s Laura Stevenson’s third album, and the third that leaves you feeling warmly disposed but unconvinced, gamely professing your interest to see what she does next time around. The rub is that the notion of potential unfulfilled is in part responsible for crushing her songs on this record, aspiring to templates and rafters that definitely don’t ring as true as Stevenson’s vividly impressionistic, twisted lyrics and psyche. | 2013-04-29T02:00:03.000-04:00 | 2013-04-29T02:00:03.000-04:00 | Rock | Don Giovanni | April 29, 2013 | 6.2 | 22082c91-b26f-4c12-89b7-18b490889e4d | Laura Snapes | https://pitchfork.com/staff/laura-snapes/ | null |
Vivian Girls bassist Katy Goodman uses simplicity as an airy foundation for her lovelorn twee-pop songs on this side project. | Vivian Girls bassist Katy Goodman uses simplicity as an airy foundation for her lovelorn twee-pop songs on this side project. | La Sera: La Sera | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15108-la-sera/ | La Sera | Katy Goodman can usually be seen playing bass and adding syrupy harmonies to Vivian Girls' spiky guitar songs. Her voice and melodic bass lines lend a sense of fragility to that band, so it's no surprise to hear that carried over into her side project, La Sera. Here, Vivian Girls' distorted guitar and haze is replaced by a bare sound, stripped to its core elements, while Goodman's voice becomes central, sometimes double-tracked.
The opening jangle of "Beating Heart" builds with purpose, slow and precise as Goodman sings above clean guitar chimes. Honeyed vocal harmonies stream in, collecting these simple elements, giving the song an ebb and flow that recalls stately, more minimal guitar bands such as Galaxie 500. When a distorted guitar cuts in toward the end, it feels all the more powerful for the restraint surrounding it.
It's this kind of heft that carries the first-- and best-- quarter of the album, where Goodman uses simplicity as an airy foundation for her lovelorn twee-pop songs. It's a trick showcased well on "You're Going to Cry", with its weary lyric pitted against off-the-cuff acoustic guitar strums and sparse drumming. Something in her enunciation on the song, not allowing any syllable to fade away, sounds quite innocent and childlike, making for an interesting contrast with the seen-it-all-before theme of the verses.
There's a subtle 1960s girl-group influence throughout, but there are also hints of the folk-pop of that era on "I Promise You", as a sweet organ line props up the end of the song, sounding almost like a flute. These interesting moments, living in the space in the music, allow it to feel blithe and easy.
The carefreeness that lends La Sera's better songs a sense of spontaneity shows up some of its weaker moments. "Left This World" feels thin and more like a foundation or fleeting idea than something fully formed. That song is typical of the latter half of the record and, despite being made up of very short songs, still feels like a slog. "Lift Off", at one minute long doesn't stick around long enough to command much attention, except to note the odd-sounding chorus harmony. This sort of brevity and emptiness makes the tail end of the album, already short at 26 minutes, feel throwaway and hasty. It's hard not to feel, therefore, that this would have made a much better EP, losing some of the shapeless songs that drag down the momentum and charm of the record. | 2011-02-14T01:00:01.000-05:00 | 2011-02-14T01:00:01.000-05:00 | Rock | Hardly Art | February 14, 2011 | 7 | 220d572b-4c89-4964-931e-41666e1d9355 | Hari Ashurst | https://pitchfork.com/staff/hari-ashurst/ | null |
The playful, whipsmart UK band returns, this time with leader Eddie Argos trying his hand at some actual singing. | The playful, whipsmart UK band returns, this time with leader Eddie Argos trying his hand at some actual singing. | Art Brut: Brilliant! Tragic! | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15417-brilliant-tragic/ | Brilliant! Tragic! | All right, whose brilliant (i.e., tragic) idea was it for Eddie Argos to start singing? Was it producer Frank Black? Argos himself? Jasper "the Dolphin" Future? Did anybody actually think the problem with Art Brut was all the talking? I rather thought that was like the whole point. Granted, you either love the talking-singing thing or you hate it (see also: the Hold Steady), but at least it was their thing. And beyond being totally, instantly recognizable, it wasn't all that bad of a look for Art Brut, either: Argos' witty, conversational lyrics were always well served by his spoken delivery, offset by the band's playfully slick rock session band chops. But now Argos has gone from ranting about halting a make-out session to turn up a pop song, to singing (scarcely), "I want to be played in the background while couples drink their wine/ That would be a triumph with a voice like mine/ Everybody wants to feel sexy sometimes/ I can make it happen with a voice like mine."
Well, at least he hasn't lost his wry sense of humor. But about this newfound singing business: Argos has discovered a voice that sounds a bit like Jarvis Cocker's, only if he'd lost it after a long night out drinking-- a little hoarse, whispering low so as not to upset the hangover. So the album opens with what might as well be its mission statement, "Clever Clever Jazz", a typically dry-humored song about a band punching above its weight: "Sorry that it doesn't sound like it's planned... can't you see we're doing the best that we can?" Next is another entry into the band's "Weekend" trilogy (now extended, Douglas Adams-like, to four songs if you count B-side "Really Bad Weekend"), "Lost Weekend", and while it's as clever and sweet as any of its predecessors, Argos' intonation doesn't exactly do it any extra favors.
Some songs work fine with the singing: The above-quoted ballad "Sexy Sometimes" succeeds by dint of making Argos' very struggle the subject of its gently plodding fun, as does "Is Dog Eared" to some degree. And then halfway through the album, it seems like even Argos has started to think all this is a bad idea, reverting back for the remainder to his old patterns of speech and shouting.
The results are, unsurprisingly, some of the album's strongest songs, largely because Argos just gets out of the way of his own lyrics. "Martin Kemp Welch Five A-Side Football Rules!" is a scorcher, covering the familiar Art Brut territories of football and unrequited schoolboy crushes. "Axel Rose" raucously praises its subject as being the sort of guy you'd want in your corner when giving the world the finger. Maybe best of this side is "Sealand", ending the album on a drifting note, a dream of starting a sovereign nation of two at sea that affectingly flips the motto of It's a Bit Complicated standout "People in Love": "People in love lie around and get fat/ I didn't want us to end up like that."
In all this talk about talking, the band Argos originally hired through an ad in the back pages of the NME gets short shrift. But trust that they still sound very much like a band hired from the back pages of the NME: competent rock hands with equal flair for squealing guitar solos and pop backing vocals, easy showmen but not exactly showy. Basically, they punch their weight, and they do it quite well-- sorry to say, but their frontman-turned-singer might want to follow their example. | 2011-05-23T02:00:00.000-04:00 | 2011-05-23T02:00:00.000-04:00 | Rock | Cooking Vinyl | May 23, 2011 | 5.5 | 22159f64-7223-44fd-9f48-eab3b91ad02a | Eric Grandy | https://pitchfork.com/staff/eric-grandy/ | null |
The New Jersey band turns in another solid album of old-school riffs and ripping solos, but the songs stop just short of the radio-rock anthems they want to become. | The New Jersey band turns in another solid album of old-school riffs and ripping solos, but the songs stop just short of the radio-rock anthems they want to become. | Screaming Females: Desire Pathway | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/screaming-females-desire-pathway/ | Desire Pathway | Screaming Females don't immediately seem like a band that's been around for 18 years, but perhaps their longevity can be chalked up to their consistency. They’ve maintained the same power trio lineup, and all eight of their albums have been released on the same label. Their sound has undergone only incremental changes and, even with the occasional power-couple collaboration, plum opening gig, or glowing profile, they’ve never blown or broken up, maintaining a fairly constant state of popular and critical acclaim over the past decade. But at least for the first 35 seconds, Desire Pathway teases the possibility of a shocking reinvention.
Screaming Females’ eighth album fades in with an uncharacteristic whirling synth effect, but “Brass Bell” soon reverses course, underlining everything that makes Desire Pathway a modern anomaly. Marissa Paternoster plays riffs, things that make you pick up a Gibson SG in Guitar Center with no intention of buying it. There might be occasional leads, but more often, Paternoster rips solos, ones that could easily hold their place in Guitar World alongside their 25th tablature of “Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2” and a new Ghost song. If Desire Pathway is anyone’s introduction to Screaming Females, it immediately reiterates why Paternoster ranked ahead of hotshots like Dave Navarro and Vernon Reid on a 2012 “Greatest Guitarists of All Time” list. Even if Screaming Females’ name and DIY operating principles inherently subvert the lemon squeezin’ excess of classic rock, their actual musicianship often aligns with the taste of the most staunch hesher revivalist.
But in 2023, classic rock stations might actually be playing Nirvana and PJ Harvey, and this is the legacy Screaming Females tapped into by recording at Pachyderm Studios—the same Minnesota facility that birthed In Utero and Rid of Me, two of the gnarliest albums funded by major label money in the ’90s, whose veins pumped stomach acid and migraine medications. In the past, these might have been best case scenarios for a Screaming Females record; indeed, they already made an LP with Steve Albini titled Ugly. Pachyderm also bore witness to less credible, though no less beloved hits from Soul Asylum and Alkaline Trio, whose unfussy and immediate variants on Midwest pop-rock are more in line with the coordinates of Desire Pathways. Though Paternoster’s booming bellow is best suited to chromatic, Mandatory Metallica melodies (“It’s All Said and Done”), it can also be accessorized by paisley jangle (“Beyond the Void”), double denim (“Let You Go”), or Sharpie-black nail varnish (“Mourning Dove”).
Much like Screaming Females’ previous albums, Desire Pathway feels like it’s competing with a bolder version of itself that sits just outside of view. This is the third album they’ve made with Matt Bayles, a guy who made his reputation producing post-metal bands like Isis and Russian Circles with clinical precision. The refined touch that felt so jarring on 2015’s Rose Mountain became familiar on 2018’s All at Once, and Desire Pathway goes even further to distance itself from the concussive force of Screaming Females’ live presence. If not exactly “heartland rock,” Screaming Females are working within its adjacent descriptors: earnest, workmanlike, lifers. Yet, the songs on Desire Pathway beg for a more audacious treatment that lets them live out their destiny as radio rock anthems in practice rather than theory. With very few exceptions—the occasional flange effect, an exaggerated volume swell at the end of “Brass Bell,” a handful of judicious and effective vocal harmonies—Desire Pathway never sounds like anything other than three people playing together in a room, albeit being seen and heard from the other side of the studio glass.
The fault isn’t entirely with Bayles, though. After a spirited Side A, Desire Pathway settles into modest tempos and conventional rhythms, as Paternoster’s commanding vocals take command more or less the same way, flattening the emotional arc implied by the subject matter: “I’m a freight train in the desert dragging chains,” “now the stage is empty and I am too,” “I’m withered in despair, a burnt pile in the sun,” “a titan of love and shame.” The lyric book reads like a volcanic, ugly cry. But Screaming Females’ entire existence has been a rare testament to consistency and, despite being five years in the making and inspired by a devastating breakup, Desire Pathway can’t help but be their most consistent album yet. | 2023-02-23T00:00:00.000-05:00 | 2023-02-23T00:00:00.000-05:00 | Rock | Don Giovanni | February 23, 2023 | 6.8 | 22172bf2-acc3-423b-9b65-9f4cfd38452f | Ian Cohen | https://pitchfork.com/staff/ian-cohen/ | |
An architect of New Zealand’s fabled Dunedin sound returns with another dose of heavenly pop. This time, he may even be happy. | An architect of New Zealand’s fabled Dunedin sound returns with another dose of heavenly pop. This time, he may even be happy. | The Chills: Snow Bound | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/the-chills-snow-bound/ | Snow Bound | A happy man is a platitudinous man. In his sixth decade, the Chills’ Martin Phillipps sounds this note of wary optimism. “Even bad sugar makes bitter taste sweet” goes the first chorus of Snow Bound, his classic New Zealand pop band’s sixth album in thirty years, barely a minute in. The same songwriter who penned the rumbling, wounded classic “Pink Frost” goes so far here as to title a song “Easy Peazy.” Of course, calling a heroin-triggered hepatitis C survivor and admitted hevay drinker a happy man attests to the delusionary glint inherent in Phillipps’ heavenly would-be hits. Hoping Snow Bound succeeds on what’s left of college radio is its own kind of delusion, but the Chills always had a knack for being slightly behind the times. Still, Snow Bound is the Dunedin native’s most winning album since 1990’s Submarine Bells—brash, tensile, and enormously confident.
Phillipps’ has a penchant for huge keyboards, the kind that fans of the Cure’s Disintegration know well: the kind that billow and unravel like storm clouds moving across plains. Oli Wilson’s criss-crossing organ and Cars-indebted synths over Todd Knudson’s walloping drums during “Scarred” will be familiar to fans of early ’80s AOR. Rolling piano lends “Lord of All I Survey” an insistent optimism, as Phillipps wills himself to be happy. But no Chills album is without its melancholic whorls, as when Phillipps announces during the title track, “You cut through the city like a surgeon’s knife/On a quest for life but saving no one.” As a writer and bandleader, Phillipps has learned to trust his instinct for the topic sentence, supported by gradations of sound and thought as lucid as citations.
Sure, some fans might long for the mysteries of Submarine Bells, where the songs shone through subaqueous environments. But Snow Bound’s mid-tempo churners, like “The Greatest Guide,” offer plenty of mystery through Phillipps’ guitars, anyway. If there’s an analog, it’s the last album of the first run by the Chills’ Australian contemporaries the Go-Betweens, 16 Lovers Lane. With an eye on the charts, that quintet wrapped acoustic guitars in pastel gauze, though the tension between two gifted songwriters resulted in a minor sunshine-on-a-cloudy-day masterpiece, bleak and rueful and suspicious. Snow Bound similarly trembles with Phillipps’ effort to cheer himself up. On these 10 songs, noticing other people and accepting the damage done are synonymous.
By his standards, Phillipps has entered a prolific release regimen: Snow Bound comes three years after Silver Bullets, a follow-up to an EP released during Dubya’s first term. Distinguished by Phillipps’ insistence on redressing mistakes and a welcome awakening to global political trends, Silver Bullets was the comeback he and we needed. But as the keyboards twinkle above the guitars on Snow Bound’s final cut, Phillipps avers, “We still, still, still believe in harmony,” it’s clear that this is even better than the old times. Harmony at large is Phillipps’ equivalent of the Lord’s Prayer: a practice done for keeping aloneness at bay, for Phillipps the intensest rendezvous. | 2018-09-22T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2018-09-22T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Rock | Fire | September 22, 2018 | 7.5 | 2217f32c-0427-452a-b9e9-947c3a2a9a7f | Alfred Soto | https://pitchfork.com/staff/alfred-soto/ | |
Leslie Feist follows her half-covers/half-originals album Let It Die with a record that's equally diverse yet more full-blooded, all sung in a voice that could make even Dick Cheney weep. | Leslie Feist follows her half-covers/half-originals album Let It Die with a record that's equally diverse yet more full-blooded, all sung in a voice that could make even Dick Cheney weep. | Feist: The Reminder | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/10178-the-reminder/ | The Reminder | On "Mushaboom", the signature track from her 2004 breakthrough album Let It Die, Leslie Feist claimed, "It may be years until the day my dreams will match up with my pay." Now, after countless sold-out shows across the world, close to half of a million records sold, and placement in a commercial for British bed manufacturers Silentnight, it seems safe to say this NPR darling's "pay" should be satisfactory. But, while Feist may now be able to afford the idyllic hideaway she pined for in "Mushaboom", the Calgary native still wouldn't be able to enjoy its creature comforts thanks to her hectic, frequent-flyer schedule. Alas: Faraway, so close. Brimming with heartbreak, solitude, and foggy memories, Feist's "dreams" still sound distant on The Reminder, the singer's outstanding third album.
Mostly written on the road, the new LP gets its inspiration from the disconnections of non-stop, intercontinental hotel-jumping. Talking about her ephemeral lifestyle in an interview with Pitchfork last year, Feist said, "You just never set roots; you take pleasure in simple conversations, because you know you're not going to have much more than that." Though she's trekked on her own and with bands including By Divine Right and Broken Social Scene for more than a decade, the 31-year-old songwriter sounds desperate for something more than "simple conversation" here.
Unlike the half-covers/half-original split of Let It Die, every song but one was at least co-written by Feist on The Reminder. (And her buzzing take on the traditional playground sing-along "Sea Lion Woman" makes it distinctively Feist-ian anyway.) Whereas her last album's smoothed-out eclecticism could be both daunting and empty, The Reminder is equally diverse yet more full-blooded. From the indie pop of "I Feel It All" to the creeping electro-ballad "Honey Honey", the album ambles effortlessly; its musical palette is wide enough to stave off repetition yet innate enough to offer an intense cohesiveness. The record's keen combination of off-the-cuff production and no-fat songwriting is likely linked to its method: With several songs whittled down over years of performances, Feist-- aided by her usual one-named conspirators Gonzales and Mocky, along with Jamie Lidell and others-- recorded them in less than a week in a manor outside Paris. Fleeting touches from horns, glockenspiels, makeshift choirs, and other subtle accoutrements never announce themselves ostentatiously. Instead, the LP relies on a modest refinement that breaks with current singer-songwriter trends that promote infinite ambition in lieu of the basics-- melody, arrangement, feeling.
Hardly the first singer-songwriter to love, live, lose, and emote, Feist once again elevates herself above countless other diary-keeping tunesmiths with a voice that could make even Dick Cheney weep. Marked by specks of Dusty Springfield's soul, Björk's confrontational adventurousness, and Joni Mitchell's warmth, the singular allure of Feist's vocals is difficult to deny or overstate. You might hear her over cappuccino-machine hisses in Starbucks, but her direct-line moans easily cut through the biscotti muzak. And on The Reminder, her whisper-to-wail control-- exemplified by stark heart-tuggers "The Water" and "Intuition"-- is even more striking than before.
"With sadness so real that it populates the city and leaves you homeless again," coos Feist on "The Park", a desolate, lovelorn lament. The song-- with its references to a relationship torn by distance, omnipotent nature (a carefree bird can be heard mocking Feist's sadness in the background), and a hazy "past" that offers partly-forgotten flickers and flashes-- is a fitting summary of The Reminder's wounded pleas. Leery of a sixth sense, the songstress concludes "Intuition" with a question, "Did I miss out on you?"-- its insolubility packing more ache than a hundred clear-cut break-up songs. Such eternally spotty "what if?" queries needn't always strike such dour chords. On the shaggy, Broken Social Scene-esque romp "Past to Present", the refrain ("There's so much past inside my present") has the singer embracing yesteryear with a proud vitality. But no matter where she sits on love's teeter-totter-- down on the after-the-fact apology of "I'm Sorry" or aloft in heady infatuation on "Brandy Alexander"-- her philosophy-of-self is sound.
After inconclusively rifling though her personal history for 12 songs, Feist finally seems to reach an Emersonian transcendence on finale "How My Heart Behaves": "I'm a stem now...fanning my yellow eye," she sings over wafting piano and harp. Though the song reads like a zen tutorial to her own unsettled emotions, it still finishes with a query: "What grew and inside who?" What she's referring to isn't exactly clear-- and that's the point. Pasts pass. People stay, go. But finding sanctuary within half-realized dreams and faces? Timeless. | 2007-04-30T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2007-04-30T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Rock | Interscope / Cherrytree | April 30, 2007 | 8.8 | 221ad310-954c-401a-8eac-2a51b8e602c9 | Ryan Dombal | https://pitchfork.com/staff/ryan-dombal/ | null |
The Chicago bassist and guimbri player turns in a minimalist mountain of an album, one whose slow pace and gradual changes prove unusually mesmerizing, even sublime. | The Chicago bassist and guimbri player turns in a minimalist mountain of an album, one whose slow pace and gradual changes prove unusually mesmerizing, even sublime. | Joshua Abrams / Natural Information Society: Mandatory Reality | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/joshua-abrams-natural-information-soci-mandatory-reality/ | Mandatory Reality | A recent New York Times story on productivity proposed shifting emphasis from time-management strategies to something called “attention management”: “the art of focusing on getting things done for the right reasons, in the right places and at the right moments.” Chicago bassist and bandleader Joshua Abrams has practiced his own kind of attention management over the course of his career, not as a means to more productive ends but as the goal itself. As he told Pitchfork a few years ago: “I encourage everyone who’s playing to keep that sense of driving on the road without knowing how far it is to your destination. So keep alert but stay patient, and we can get to a focused place, where we feel like it can go on forever.”
Abrams has roots spread across Chicago’s creative music scene, having worked with post-rock bands, singer-songwriters, electronic producers, and free-jazz players, but his Natural Information Society, with its ever-changing lineup, is where he has given the freest rein to his wandering instincts. Perhaps that sense of attentiveness his music inspires come from Abrams swapping his acoustic bass for the three-stringed guimbri, a lute from Northern Africa whose resonant low end and buzzing resonance are conducive to trance states. With each successive release from the band comes the suggestion that the songs can go longer and push deeper, and with Mandatory Reality, Abrams and his cohorts strain against the confines of recorded music. The 81 minutes that these four pieces inhabit—all put down in real time in complete takes with no overdubs—push both the ensemble and the listener into an immersive and sublime space.
The octet that Abrams has convened for this iteration of NIS has its roots in Windy City jazz, from woodwind players Nick Mazzarella, Jason Stein, and cornetist/ flautist Ben Lamar Gay to legendary percussionist Hamid Drake. Drake’s presence on tabla and frame drum here makes clear a through line stretching back to the worldly spiritual jazz of Don Cherry, yet the music itself drifts closer to the classic minimalism of early Philip Glass and Steve Reich. But where those minimalists were driven by New York’s speedy metabolism, the 20-plus minutes of “In Memory’s Prism” are exquisitely slow, like tai chi or a record played back at 16 rpm. It’s so languid that you feel not so much like you are listening to a band so much as walking among them.
“Finite” might be the most gorgeous entry in the NIS catalog, all 40 gradual, unhurried, undetectable minutes of it—a musical mountain. Abrams’ thrumming guimbri is soon joined by Drake’s tabla and Ben Boye’s considered piano, a mixture suggestive of a liminal space between Indian classical, Chinese court music, and Dixieland jazz. When the horns enter, each sounds a note in a cycling motif. With almost every turn in the cycle, new tones emerge, like the shuddering drone of Lisa Alvarado’s harmonium and Stein’s bass clarinet. Each horn extemporizes on the original figure, and the vibrato on a gorgeous sax solo 10 minutes in conjures Coltrane while also echoing the subliminal buzz of Abrams’ guimbri. “Finite” spends the first half accruing more details as solos emerge out of the foliage, never quite stepping to the fore so much as being glimpsed among the piece’s open spaces. It feels as connected and individualized as birds chirping in a garden.
Just as Gay provides a burnished, hushed cornet solo near the midway point, the piece starts to turn, and Abrams’ guimbri figure is slowly eroded away. As steady as the buildup has been, the group’s hike back down the mountain is just as gradual, the underlying bass pulse paring back and each phrase growing shorter. Nearly 40 minutes from where we started, they align on a single pulse.
“If our music’s political, it’s because it offers the possibility of slowing down,” Abrams has said. With the amount of time spent taking in the sheer size of these canvases, a certain effect does take hold, one that’s increasingly rare in our experiences of art, much less our daily lives. Perhaps that’s what the title is meant to suggest: The music moves so slowly as to impart the notion that this sense of pause, of dilated attention, might itself be the mandatory reality, rather than the one that clutters our waking lives from every possible angle.
Just as abruptly, the last quarter of the album plunges us amid the onrush of “Shadow Conductor,” the band’s rapid-breath, flickering eighth notes like a particular antsy take on Music for 18 Musicians. The sudden ratcheting up of speed between pieces is the album’s only real disruption, a moment of hastiness that at first seems unearned. After over an hour of totally becalmed drift, the bustling pace here at album’s end feels like leaving a day spa only to squeeze onto a rush-hour train. You might find yourself simply wishing the album extended just a few minutes longer. | 2019-04-15T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2019-04-15T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Experimental / Jazz | Eremite | April 15, 2019 | 7.7 | 221c0b80-2e9b-4023-9c64-31bb1ecc97cc | Andy Beta | https://pitchfork.com/staff/andy-beta/ | |
Kelela’s latest collection of remixes is an adventurous victory lap, plunging deeper into her world of aqueous R&B. | Kelela’s latest collection of remixes is an adventurous victory lap, plunging deeper into her world of aqueous R&B. | Kelela: RAVE:N, the Remixes | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/kelela-raven-the-remixes/ | RAVE:N, the Remixes | In the beginning, Kelela aspired to sound like a remix. The artist once said that her interest in the form came from the attention to detail in UK garage and 2-step reworks, as well as the potential they offered to beam a singer’s vocals into radically new contexts. Together with her collaborators, Kelela sought to transpose the sensuality of R&B onto hard-hitting but finely crafted dance beats, mapping sleek hooks onto blasted-out electronics. The word most critics used to describe her music was “futuristic,” but in hindsight, her early recordings seem emblematic of a current of creativity that crackled in the air throughout the 2010s: one that was musically omnivorous, ultra-tactile, conceptually heady, and internationally minded. To revisit interviews published around the time of Cut 4 Me’s release is to encounter a world of cross-genre optimism, fueled by dreams of forging new connections across Black and queer club scenes worldwide. Back then, Kelela was the diva uniquely poised to bring those sounds to a wide audience.
Fast forward 10 years. Kelela now exists among the upper echelons of stars called “mother” online; she is lovingly teased by fans for her inability to find a weed plug or protect her Twitter account from scammers trying to sell PS5s. She is a senior figure in a landscape of young musicians drawing on regional club music to great success. Last year’s Raven demonstrated how fully Kelela’s sound had transformed over the last decade of her career, as speaker-rattling R&G had been gradually phased out in favor of vaporous ambience. These new songs had formed, pearl-like, around a kernel of pain and insecurity, a “rustiness” she attributed to feeling exploited for her voice. Having accomplished the difficult task of piecing together a fractured sense of self on that record, Kelela’s latest collection of remixes is both a victory lap and something of a memory trip. Apart from reminding us of her career-long talent as a curator and executive producer, it’s her most uniformly satisfying and adventurous remix collection to date.
In the past, Kelela remixes have traditionally split the difference between full-blown reimaginings and particle-collider deconstructions, with the latter tending to represent the more fun but overall weaker tracks in this category (think of MC Bin Laden’s Brazilian funk overhaul of “Rewind” or Divoli S’vere’s ballroom makeover of “Truth or Dare,” which were more compelling for their audacity than as actual pieces of music). RAVE:N, on the other hand, is distinct: Each track deepens the aqueous world of the original record. It seems inconceivable that “Contact” should work without its full-bodied Baltimore club pulse, but Karen Nyame KG manages to transform the song into something gorgeously weightless, placing Kelela’s vocals over an airy bed of synths and the faintest Afrobeat percussion, as if she were levitating. DJ Manny and Loraine James’ intricate drum programming adds some nervous ballast to their respective spins on “Divorce,” but the real magic lies in how they fold and layer the vocals so that the song’s depressive undertow and tortured thoughts come into greater conflict. It would be foolish to try and replicate the oceanic pull and release of the title track, so Agazero pitch shifts the singer’s voice and imposes a beat for the formidable Bbymutha to tear into, matching Kelela’s battle weariness with her own fierce resolve.
RAVE:N bears the distinction of being the most kinetic Kelela release in a very long time. Beats that once sighed now absolutely slap, as the singer’s creative partners excavate the record’s submerged drums and detonate them for all of their latent force. LSDXOXO’s rework of “Sorbet” flips the track’s barely perceptible thump, recasting the toe-curling bliss of her lyrics into a breathy dancefloor command to go harder and harder. SUCIA!’s take on “Bruises” is deceptively minimal, substituting the original’s prominent kick drum with idling piano, until the chorus launches into hyperdrive with an absolutely scorching drum break. As the blankest slates on the record, “Washed Away” and “Far Away” are the most remixed songs here, with Ethereal, DJ Swisha, Suutoo, and DJ LHC all imposing a ground floor of percussion for the singer (and guest vocalists Liv.e and Ms. Carrie Stacks) to mournfully and triumphantly scat over. However, each producer’s approach runs a little too parallel; they lose their distinction when placed next to each other.
What is most striking about RAVE:N is the feeling that Kelela has made good on her early hype as a futurist in the best possible way, through a clear influence on a legion of like-minded artists. A.G’s rework of “Happy Ending” features among the record’s very high points and could easily have slotted among the best of any of her previous releases. The producer colors the song’s headlong pursuit of romance with shadows, as the ecstatic, pitch-shifted vocals crest and recede over roiling waves of grime bass. Her version is musically inventive, emotionally attuned, and contains glimmering traces of Kelela’s music that go far beyond its source material. Like many songs on RAVE:N, it bridges “far away” feelings with an intimate understanding of the singer’s greater artistic project. | 2024-02-14T00:01:00.000-05:00 | 2024-02-14T00:01:00.000-05:00 | Pop/R&B | Warp | February 14, 2024 | 7.8 | 221dcf5c-0dbd-4a04-8f18-25e714d13253 | Harry Tafoya | https://pitchfork.com/staff/harry-tafoya/ | |
Sufjan Stevens has always written personally, weaving his life story into larger narratives, but here his autobiography is front and center. Carrie & Lowell is a return to the stripped-back folk of Seven Swans, but with a decade's worth of refinement and exploration packed into it. | Sufjan Stevens has always written personally, weaving his life story into larger narratives, but here his autobiography is front and center. Carrie & Lowell is a return to the stripped-back folk of Seven Swans, but with a decade's worth of refinement and exploration packed into it. | Sufjan Stevens: Carrie & Lowell | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20218-carrie-lowell/ | Carrie & Lowell | Sufjan Stevens' new album, Carrie & Lowell, is his best. This is a big claim, considering his career: 2003's Michigan, 2004's stripped-down Seven Swans, 2005's Illinois, and 2010's knotty electro-acoustic collection The Age of Adz. He's also had residencies at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, collaborated with rappers and the National, donned wings and paint-splattered dayglo costumes, and released Christmas albums. But none of those side projects were ultimately ever as interesting, or effective, as when Sufjan was just Sufjan, a guy with a guitar or piano, well-detailed lyrics, and a gorgeous whisper that could reach into a heartbreaking falsetto.
Part of what makes Carrie & Lowell so great is that it comes after all of those things—the wings, the orchestras—but it feels like you're hearing him for the first time again, and in his most intimate form. This record is a return to the sparse folk of Seven Swans, but with a decade's worth of honing and exploration packed into it. It already feels like his most classic and pure effort.
By now the album's main narrative is well-known. Carrie & Lowell is titled after Stevens' mother and stepfather. Carrie was bipolar and schizophrenic and suffered from drug addiction and substance abuse. She died of stomach cancer in 2012, but had abandoned Stevens much earlier, first when he was 1, then later, repeatedly ("when I was three, three maybe four, she left us at that video store," he sings on "Should Have Known Better"). His stepfather, Lowell Brams, was married to Carrie for five years when Sufjan was a child. As a testament to the importance of his role in Stevens' life, Brams currently runs Stevens' label, Asthmatic Kitty, and shows up repeatedly in the record, most poignantly on the title track, where Stevens frames those five years as his "season of hope."
Stevens has always written personally, weaving his life story into larger narratives, but here his autobiography, front and center, is itself the grand history. The songs explore childhood, family, grief, depression, loneliness, faith, and rebirth in direct and unflinching language that matches the scaled-back instrumentation. There are Biblical references, and references to mythology, but most of it is squarely about Stevens and his family. A few of the songs ("Carrie & Lowell", "Eugene", "All of Me Wants All of You") mention the summer trips to Oregon that Stevens made, between the ages of five and eight, with Carrie, Lowell, and his brother. There are Oregon-specific references to Eugene, the Tillamook Burn forest fires, Spencer Butte, the Lost Blue Bucket Mine, and swimming lessons with a man who calls him Subaru. These were moments when Stevens was closest to his mother, or at least in most constant proximity to her, and he recorded some of Carrie & Lowell's tracks on an iPhone in a hotel in Klamath Falls, Oregon, as if trying to find a way to recreate those moments one more time.
Other songs focus on an adult Stevens coping with the aftermath of those early years, and the blankness his mother's distance and death left in him. He beats himself up for not trying harder to be closer earlier. On "Should Have Known Better" he sings "I should have wrote a letter/ Explaining what I feel, that empty feeling." He talks about his own drinking ("Now I'm drunk and afraid/ Wishing the world would go away") and drug abuse, disconnected relationships ("You checked your text while I masturbated"), self-loathing, and emptiness ("In a manner of speaking I'm dead"). There are suicidal thoughts (arm cutting, driving a car off a cliff, drowning, and questions like "Do I care if I survive this?"), which he pushes away with his faith and by focusing on the wonders around him ("Sea lion caves in the dark," the hysterical light of Eugene, Oregon). There is a lot of blood. Some broken bones. Tears. There is also a constant need to be closer—to his mother, to himself, to the world around him—even when it seems useless: "What's the point of singing songs/ If they'll never even hear you?" ("Eugene"). The other main character here is his brother, Marzuki Stevens, and his daughter, Sufjan's niece, who provides the one true moment of joy on the record: "My brother had a daughter/ The beauty that she brings, illumination" ("Should Have Known Better").
As he told Pitchfork, "With this record, I needed to extract myself out of this environment of make-believe. It’s something that was necessary for me to do in the wake of my mother’s death—to pursue a sense of peace and serenity in spite of suffering. It’s not really trying to say anything new, or prove anything, or innovate. It feels artless, which is a good thing. This is not my art project; this is my life." On the second to last track, "No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross", he sings, in falsetto, "Fuck me I'm falling apart," and it is maybe the barest, most honest declaration you'll hear on a record this year.~~
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His relationship, or lack thereof, with his mother is complex: He never hates her. He feels her everywhere: She passes through him as an apparition, and everything comes back to her in one way or another. "I love you more than the world can contain/ In its lonely and ramshackle head," he sings. He doesn't cast blame. "Fourth of July", a tender song about her death, is filled with terms of endearment ("my little hawk," "my firefly"), and questions about how he can raise her from the dead and then make the most of his own life, before he ends the song by repeating, soberly, "We're all gonna die."
The lyrics here are masterful and carefully shorn, and the music is as well. Stevens is joined by Laura Veirs, S. Carey, Thomas Bartlett, and others, but they come off as ghosts in the room around his carefully constructed soundscapes, compositions that tastefully blend acoustic and electronic elements that grow deeper with each listen. There are pianos, organs, starry washes, smears of synthesizers, clicking percussion, unidentifiable pulses, doubled vocals, soaring background harmonies, and quickly picked acoustic guitars that will remind you of Elliott Smith. In the past he'd get showy with multi-part suites or huge arrangements; the writing here is just as ambitious, but never showy. You often forget the music's there, but when you don't, it's catchy, inventive, melodic, seamless. The haunting production, too, is minimal but fathomless.
Stevens has been making music for a long time, and Carrie & Lowell shines a light back on the rest of his oeuvre. You realize the story of Michigan's "Romulus" is heartbreakingly real, down to its references to Oregon ("Once when our mother called/ She had a voice of last year's cough/ We passed around the phone/ Sharing a word about Oregon"), and that desperate desire for even one touch: "Once when we moved away/ She came to Romulus for a day/ Her Chevrolet broke down/ We prayed it'd never be fixed or be found/ We touched her hair." He loves his mother, and is ashamed of her, and can't stop loving her. It's one example of many, and when you re-listen to the past albums, and songs like "The Seer's Tower" and its once mysterious "Oh, my mother, she betrayed us, but my father loved and bathed us," it acts as a skeleton key to what was once an ineffable sadness. As he put it in "John Wayne Gacy, Jr.": "Even in my best behavior I am really just like him/ Look beneath the floorboards for the secrets I have hid." Here are those secrets laid bare.
There is a photo in the booklet of a young Stevens, at the table, eating a banana. It's one of a few photos in the booklet that seem to depict some of those Oregon summers: a beach spotted with rocks, a small half-painted wooden house near trees and hills. His look is not happy or sad; he's just a kid at a table, eating. But there's something melancholic there, something maybe you add onto it after listening to Carrie & Lowell, but something real nonetheless: His mother is standing beside him. She's not looking at him, but she's there. (She appears in three shots, and in none of them can you see her eyes.) You imagine Lowell took the picture (on the back of the booklet you see his reflection in the mirror of a photo taken of Carrie crocheting). It's a haunting feeling that that little kid, years later, would create a masterpiece so knowing about suffering, sadness, death, and loneliness. In that photo, though, he's still a kid, with all those kid hurts, trying to make sense of the world. And, at least for that moment, he's close to his mother. And it seems like maybe he's happy. | 2015-03-30T02:00:00.000-04:00 | 2015-03-30T02:00:00.000-04:00 | Folk/Country | Asthmatic Kitty | March 30, 2015 | 9.3 | 22227382-43f0-42a4-9bbc-b6322d81691d | Brandon Stosuy | https://pitchfork.com/staff/brandon-stosuy/ | null |
Mtendere Mandowa, a veteran (and cult favorite) of the L.A. beat scene, gathers fresh collaborators for a set of effortless, shape-shifting tracks that make time stand still. | Mtendere Mandowa, a veteran (and cult favorite) of the L.A. beat scene, gathers fresh collaborators for a set of effortless, shape-shifting tracks that make time stand still. | Teebs: Anicca | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/teebs-anicca/ | Anicca | Creative collectives come together through a combination of will and serendipity to make superstars out of those who might otherwise be cult figures, and cult figures out of those who might otherwise never have made music at all. In Los Angeles, starting in 2006, the Low End Theory night at the Airliner was that kind of scene. Many of the names that emerged from there are well known. Then there were artists like Mtendere Mandowa, better known as Teebs. To those who followed what was happening at Low End, he was up there with Flying Lotus and Nosaj Thing, partly thanks to the strength of his 2010 Brainfeeder album Ardour. The record sounded like what would happen if you could plant hip-hop beats in the soil and plug headphones into the flora that emerged.
Teebs was a visual artist first; the Low End movement helped him to understand himself as a musician, too. But by 2014, some of the scene’s bigger names had moved onto bigger things. That year, Teebs released an album called E S T A R A. It was perfectly pleasant. But it felt as if it had been too long since someone pushed him toward anything new.
Now, he’s back with Anicca, his first album in five years and his strongest musical offering since Ardour. In lieu of the collaborators with whom he first attracted notice, Mandowa has gathered a new assemblage—some are familiar names, and some of them relative newcomers. Anicca sparkles when it features them, and also when it doesn’t. Teebs benefits once again from a vibrant musical scene, this time one that he’s gathered himself.
Teebs’ music begins as beat music and grows from there. The opener, “Atoms Song,” is a good example: It starts with a simple keyboard loop, going around and around. But then synths drift in like wind, elements disappear and reappear, a string section paints the song with light. Before you know it, seven and a half minutes have gone by and a lovely sonic sunshower has come down.
One of the things that differentiates Anicca from E S T A R A is its sense of propulsion. There’s constant movement here, and while everything is lovely, nothing lingers too long or lends itself to stasis. Mandowa’s collaborators help keep things moving. Sudan Archives, one of the most exciting Stones Throw prospects in a minute, leans forward over a thumping beat on “Black Dove,” maintaining momentum even when she slows the tempo. “Studie” is replete with all the warmth of early Panda Bear, who arrived at a sound similar to Teebs’ through an entirely different route and who appears on the track to sing, once again, about the perils of social status: “Tripping on the social climb get in line.” (It’s been nice to see Panda Bear start to be understood as a beat-music pioneer in his own right.) Another standout collaboration comes later in the album as Pink Siifu leads “Daughter Callin’” over a shuffling beat that sounds like great, late-period Dilla.
Teebs doesn’t need other artists to sound inspired. The softly vibrating “prayers ii” seems at first like a standard beat until you realize how the percussion is tempered by strings and synths, the space between each beat breathing and expanding. It’s a track where the time signature isn’t as obvious as you might initially think. “Slumber” opens with a canvas made of strings, shifts its focus to keyboard, and then redoubles the strings; as the keyboard acquires more and more urgency, the strings grow louder and you can just barely hear what sounds like a human voice low in the mix.
That might be Mandowa’s daughter, who was born the year after E S T A R A came out and whose voice appears on Anicca, along with sounds created by her mother. Where Ardour was influenced by loss—Teebs’s father died during the making of the record—the new album sounds like the work of a man obsessed with family, and willing to bring his collaborators into his own. Perhaps realizing that scenes dissolve, that friends and colleagues move on, helped Teebs to understand just how important it is to make the best of connections while they’re still available. The word “anicca” refers to the concept of impermanence, and this gorgeous album does move along. It’s over before you know it. While you listen to it, though, time disappears entirely.
Buy: Rough Trade
(Pitchfork may earn a commission from purchases made through affiliate links on our site.) | 2019-10-24T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2019-10-24T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Electronic | Brainfeeder | October 24, 2019 | 7.8 | 2222cb43-21e9-421d-9136-75a322ffb4c0 | Jonah Bromwich | https://pitchfork.com/staff/jonah-bromwich/ | |
Trading his High Aura’d alias for his own name, the Providence experimental musician finds evocative depths in the small, transitory details of slowly evolving drone pieces. | Trading his High Aura’d alias for his own name, the Providence experimental musician finds evocative depths in the small, transitory details of slowly evolving drone pieces. | John Kolodij: First Fire • At Dawn | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/john-kolodij-first-fire-at-dawn/ | First Fire • At Dawn | John Kolodij saw the slowly unraveling instrumentals he made for nearly a decade as High Aura’d as the soundtrack to spaces he barely knew. In 2017, he told Tiny Mix Tapes that as he sat at home working on his music, he’d often imagine himself in far-off lands—“in a desert, at the edge of an ocean, nighttime in Sonoma, crossing a footbridge in Miami”—and try to make pieces that fit those landscapes. It was his way, he says, of trying to “score everyday life,” and his years of recording with that idea as a guidepost resulted in an evocative, strikingly visual body of work. High Aura’d’s pieces were minimal, but there were always suggestions of memory, adventure, and kaleidoscopic imagery woven into the gentle drones.
For First Fire • At Dawn, Kolodij left the High Aura’d banner behind in favor of his given name, but his instrumentals still follow in the transportive tradition of his earlier pieces. As with a lot of amorphous music, there’s certainly joy in just drifting along to the slow-panning movements of the record’s two side-long pieces, following the arc from noise to melody and back again. But First Fire • At Dawn is special, even among Kolodij’s accomplished catalog, because of the delight it seems to take in small, transitory details, the shimmery liminal spaces that naturally emerge as its tracks build and boil.
“First Fire” is the more austere of the two pieces, opening with the stark wheeze of a grayscale drone that slowly grows in scale and momentum throughout its nearly 18-minute runtime. By the time it peaks, around the 13-minute mark, the music resembles something more like a snowblind black-metal riff than the ominous rumble that started the song. The instrumental accumulation is glacial, but if you pay close attention there’s beauty to be found in the growing maelstrom. The nimbus-like billowing of Kolodij’s guitar work often creases and coalesces into striking shapes, revealing complex harmonies and churning melodies in the depths of the drone. These moments appear for just a second, then pass, a tactic that makes these pieces feel illusory but engaging: You lean closer to hear what other secrets might be lurking in the murk.
The record’s other side, “At Dawn,” is gentler. Built around the mantra-like repetition of a simple banjo melody and some placid guitar work, it’s a stretched-out, twisted-up sort of Americana, similar to Charalambides’ distressed blues or the Appalachian fog of the composer Ross Gentry’s music as Villages. But even though its form is more recognizable at first, “At Dawn” is just as focused on the shape-shifting details that give “First Fire” color. The track begins with the twittering of field recordings of birds, which then make little appearances throughout, adding micro-melodies and a sense of real-world groundedness to the loping instrumental. As the piece unfolds, Kolodij’s contributions are joined by some gasping fiddle work from Anna RG of the experimental folk duo Anna & Elizabeth and glittering mallet percussion from the composer Sarah Hennies.
If, as the song’s title suggests, it’s meant to be a companion to early morning quietude, these contributions from Kolodij’s friends are the ornamentation that lends that time of day its strange magic: The string flourishes hang delicately like fog on a lake, a vibraphone glinting like dew on the grass in the half light. As soon as these moments of bliss appear, they vanish, blending into the blustery ambiance and the sound of rushing water. First Fire • At Dawn relishes in these moments, in the ways their details can appear then evaporate, almost as quickly as you can perceive them. He has said his music has always been about astral trips to far-away lands, but First Fire • At Dawn is less about the destination than the journey itself. You stare outside as the landscape changes—every moment you’re somewhere new.
Catch up every Saturday with 10 of our best-reviewed albums of the week. Sign up for the 10 to Hear newsletter here. | 2020-10-22T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2020-10-22T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Experimental | Astral Editions | October 22, 2020 | 7.1 | 222875c7-366a-45ee-8c42-a2f59d0d8f63 | Colin Joyce | https://pitchfork.com/staff/colin-joyce/ | |
The experimental producer and composer’s score for the prairie gothic film is luminous, faintly menacing, and clouded with uncertainty. | The experimental producer and composer’s score for the prairie gothic film is luminous, faintly menacing, and clouded with uncertainty. | Jim O’Rourke: Hands That Bind (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/jim-orourke-hands-that-bind-original-motion-picture-soundtrack/ | Hands That Bind (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) | In Kyle Armstrong’s Hands That Bind, horror is hiding in plain sight. The film, which premiered in 2021 and is due for theatrical release this fall, is set amid desolate Alberta farmlands—a space whose relentless flatness you might assume allows for few mysteries. Straight roads stretch endlessly toward the horizon; barns outnumber trees by a wide margin. Any approaching threat ought to be visible from miles away. But in the world of this carefully paced prairie gothic, unsettling events arrive from out of nowhere, leading to more questions than answers. Who, or what, is mutilating the farmers’ cattle? Who’s in the black sedan making ominous drive-bys? And what are those lights swirling in the sky?
The crucial question, which drives the film’s grippingly human drama as well as its more cryptic events, is philosophical in nature: whether we can ever truly be certain about anything. “My opinion isn’t going to solve anything for you, because my opinion is that I don’t know,” remarks a bartender played by a scene-stealing Will Oldham, as he turns off a Scratch Acid song on the stereo. “Certainty is the rare exception to the rules of life. Whatever’s easiest to swallow is what most folks gravitate towards. Even if you lie to yourself, as best as you can, and look for something you call true, well, whatever your theory is, it’s probably wrong.”
Jim O’Rourke’s soundtrack is perfectly calibrated to this unforgiving space squashed between parched fields and blown-out sky. His palette—detuned piano, watery vibraphone, and a muted, amorphous shimmer that might be harmonium or synthesizer—matches the film’s dusty tones of beige and pewter and mobile-home brown. A high-end fizz resembles the incessant whine of crickets; the occasional spritz of static mimics the strange electrical phenomena on screen. Closer in spirit to the longform drone works of his Steamroom series than the fingerpicked Americana of Bad Timing or the mischievous classic rock of Simple Songs, O’Rourke’s instrumental score is, much like the landscape of the film, flat, faintly menacing, and miserly with its details. (Another comparison point might be the Boxhead Ensemble’s 1997 soundtrack to the film Dutch Harbor: Where the Sea Breaks Its Back, featuring O’Rourke alongside Chicago luminaries like Ken Vandermark and Douglas McCombs.)
It begins gently enough, with a high, lonesome harmony reminiscent of a freight train’s distant whistle. An acoustic bass plucks out a tentative melody. These opening passages move with pastoral ease. But the music quickly sours, clouded with uncertainty, as dark, shapeless figures clamber up from the lower register to disturb the tranquil upper reaches. Light is one of the film’s unspoken subjects—the implacable sun beating down on sere crops, the bokeh-like orbs cutting curlicues in the night sky—and O’Rourke’s soundtrack has similarly luminous properties. He favors soft attacks that come on like a backlist mist, and streaks of dissonance that flash out and disappear, swallowed up in the dull radiance.
The 38-minute score cycles through just a handful of themes and motifs, stirring them occasionally, as though to keep them from sticking. Halfway through, with “A Man’s Mind Will Play Tricks Upon Him,” brushed cymbals and plucked bass kick up a groove beneath a chiming piano melody; it’s one of few places where the record approaches anything resembling a song. But the moment is fleeting. In the concluding “One Way or Another I’m Gone,” the drumbeat returns, but this time there’s no lightness to it. It plods sullenly as jabbing tritones, a constant throughout the album, hint at a nameless evil. The soundtrack ends as it began, hovering in a nebulous interzone, neither major nor minor—ambiguous, ambivalent, unresolved. | 2023-07-21T00:00:00.000-04:00 | 2023-07-21T00:00:00.000-04:00 | Experimental | Drag City | July 21, 2023 | 7.5 | 222d3c76-6412-4aa9-bef2-3d9b688fe816 | Philip Sherburne | https://pitchfork.com/staff/philip-sherburne/ | |
Age has mellowed rap’s most audacious fabulist, and on the sequel to his breakout debut he settles into his luxe sound like a pair of velvet slippers. | Age has mellowed rap’s most audacious fabulist, and on the sequel to his breakout debut he settles into his luxe sound like a pair of velvet slippers. | Rick Ross: Port of Miami 2 | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/rick-ross-port-of-miami-2/ | Port of Miami 2 | Rick Ross’s 2006 debut Port of Miami was almost humble compared with what followed it. He indulged in plenty of Scarface fan fiction, yes, but the florid touches that would make Ross a superstar were a few years away. In retrospect, the gap between Port of Miami and “B.M.F.” is the difference between the first Fast & Furious, which was mostly a bunch of street races, and the newer ones, where they’re dropping cars out of helicopters and wrestling nuclear warheads away from international cyberterrorists.
Perhaps the time was right for a sequel to Port of Miami, because over the last half decade, Ross has begun to return to Earth. Age has mellowed the rapper, taming the audacity that fueled his brush with greatness. He’s grown out of action-movie theatrics and toned down the chest-beating bluster of his early ’00s peak as he’s retreated ever-further into gilded luxury rap. He was once one of rap’s all-time great fabulists, but he no longer seems to have the energy to sustain any fantasy that requires him to change out of his velvet slippers and smoking robe.
On Port of Miami 2, Ross no longer raps with an air of invincibility, either. When he suffered a pair of seizures on a plane in 2011, he brushed them off on 2012’s God Forgives, I Don’t as a product of an in-flight blowjob. To the extent that Ross even allowed himself to consider the afterlife back then, it was only to imagine it as another opportunity to show off his finest ride (“On the highway to heaven, can I let my top down?” he rapped). Compare that to Port of Miami 2’s emotional centerpiece “I Still Pray,” which opens with the image of Ross waking from a coma, tubes lodged in his throat. “You could have the biggest clique, but you gon’ die a loner,” he chastises himself. “What good is all the wealth, shitting on yourself?” On the album cover he clutches a photo of his manager Black Bo, who died of cardiovascular disease in 2017.
Ross remains a sharp writer. On “Vegas Residency” he castigates Kanye’s MAGA moment (“Went from battle raps to now we wearin’ MAGA hats/Dade County, nigga, mansions up in Tamarac/Never golfing with the Trumps and I give you my word”). And Port of Miami 2 offers a bounty of other pleasures, too, including fiery guest spots from Jeezy, Meek Mill, and the late Nipsey Hussle, who cuts down Tekashi 6ix9ine from beyond the grave on “Rich Nigga Lifestyle.” Even Wale, who’s sounded absolutely lost for much of the decade, locks in on “Act a Fool.” And then there’s “BIG TYME,” which lives up to its all-caps title, granting listeners the pleasure of hearing Swizz Beatz hype-man over a Just Blaze beat.
Ross records are always great for moments like that. Other rappers give their fans red meat; Ross serves his Kobe. And yet there’s no getting around it: His presence is dulled. Ross used to put his back into his grunts, stringing together verses from contemptuous snarls. But too often on Port of Miami 2, he locks into the flow of least resistance and simply lets it ride, hiding behind his production instead of asserting his dominion over it. And while his music remains sumptuous as always, that luster alone is no longer enough to wow. You can only hear Ross turn the studio into a Cigar Aficionado cover shoot so many times before it loses its thrill. | 2019-08-14T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2019-08-14T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Rap | Maybach Music Group / Epic | August 14, 2019 | 6.6 | 222e6e5f-aeb1-4948-a363-42869b5ab95b | Evan Rytlewski | https://pitchfork.com/staff/evan-rytlewski/ | |
Wolf Parade co-vocalist and keyboardist Spencer Krug's side project completes the progression from rickety, insular lo-fi to well-dressed, multi-hued glam pop. | Wolf Parade co-vocalist and keyboardist Spencer Krug's side project completes the progression from rickety, insular lo-fi to well-dressed, multi-hued glam pop. | Sunset Rubdown: Shut Up I Am Dreaming | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/7818-shut-up-i-am-dreaming/ | Shut Up I Am Dreaming | As the Wolf Parade juggernaut gathers steam, the quintet's charismatic keyboardist, Spencer Krug, somehow found time to follow his recent self-titled Sunset Rubdown EP with Shut Up I Am Dreaming, a collection of his strongest, most fully realized non-Wolf Parade material to date. Over the course of just one year, Sunset Rubdown's progressed from Snake's Got a Leg's rickety and insular lo-fi basement tape sound to a fuller-bodied EP to this exceedingly well-dressed, multi-hued glam pop.
Now operating as a full band (here, a quartet), Sunset Rubdown more closely resemble Wolf Parade but still maintain the rougher ragtag sound of their previous recordings. A good example is triumphal opener "Stadiums and Shrines II", which continues the practice of updating Krug's songs and echoing his past catalogue (all while building a personal cosmology). This version includes the same lyrics and general melody as the scrubbier slip-n-slide on Snake's Got a Leg, but otherwise it's an entirely different monster. Krug sheds the off-kilter dust-bowl harmonium and stuttering underwater feel of the original for a cleaner, less warped anthem. Now, when he sings "there's a kid in there/ And he's big and dumb/ And he's...kinda scared," instead of going by unnoticed, it'll make you lose your breath.
In his more fleshed-out, metaphysically epic form, Krug consistently finds ways to yoke disparate parts; there's so much inventive stitching, in fact, it makes it tempting to offer a play-by-play with color commentary for every song. Beyond writing catchy tunes and packing them with whispers, mallets, harpsichord, and patches of cheapskate drum machines, he's an intriguing presence. Instead of bubbling along at one level, he roller coasters and raves, mixing nonsense with sharp observations and sadness with puns. This jam-packed, unbridled sound ought to heighten the Frog Eyes comparisons, but complicated by the groups' shared tour and Krug's former role as one of Carey Mercer's band members, that contrast is a bit of a bore. Besides, Krug doesn't stick to any particular style beyond his approach to his howls.
More interesting to note: The cumulative effect of Shut Up I Am Dreaming surpasses "I'll Believe in Anything"'s ostensible perfection. That's a brilliant song, yes, but this a brilliant album, ballooning with those sorts of moments on repeat. See, for instance, the speedy ragtime re-versioning of "Snake's Got a Leg III", which feels comparable to Wolf Parade's "Dears Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts"-- albeit with a scrubby sense of pathos-- or jaunty sawdust kicker "They Took a Vote and Said No". As in many of Krug's songs, there seems to be some sort of moral, as if he's writing warped and warbling Aesop Fables. Here, it's "a kid" who "wants a ride", learning that nothing comes for free and "there are things that have to die so other things can stay alive." Some fleet-fingered guitar work and crashing drums obscure the lesson; after a pause and piano line, we're handed a kick-ass axe-toting coda.
Then there's the piano-based ballad "Us Ones in Between", on which he pulls out his deck of unexpected metaphors woven with an endlessly ambient tone-generating guitar: "You are a waterfall/ Wading inside a well/ And you are a wrecking ball/ Before the building fell." Again, there's one of those tenderly surrealistic morals: "I've heard of creatures who eat their babies/ I wonder if they stop to think about the taste." Through an inversion, Krug himself becomes the creature as well as the eaten, asking, "Oh baby, mother me before you eat me." In other new turns, there are female backing vocals provided by former Pony Up! member Camilla Wynne Ingr, and on many tracks glockenspiel or xylophone tap a ringing background.
The opening piano tingle of "Swimming" churns into haunted-house circus music and then it bursts and blooms into the catchiest little music-box reprise of "The Dust You Kick Up Is Too Fine" from the debut. These echoes are everywhere, the resampling a weirdly pleasant and satisfying sort of minimalism, offering listeners a chance to see his work from various angles.
This is rich stuff and it won't be surprising if some listeners prefer Krug's maniacal flights of fancy to Apologies to the Queen Mary's sense of balance. There's obviously much to be said for Wolf Parade's addictive push/pull switch hitting-- that overflowing seep between Bowie/Eno and jittery Iggy/Springsteen-- but it's also incredibly fun watching pop songs pulled apart and restitched into tiny rococo monuments and tossed skyward. All the Wolf Parade comparisons are a drag, sorry, but they're inevitable. Plus, the context's important: Because Krug followed some of the best material on Apologies with this elegant wallop, he's looking increasingly like an important songwriter rather than just another flavor-of-the-month. | 2006-05-03T01:00:02.000-04:00 | 2006-05-03T01:00:02.000-04:00 | Experimental / Rock | Absolutely Kosher | May 3, 2006 | 8.6 | 223c92cb-bd0e-4dfb-a3fc-64aad8d38e68 | Brandon Stosuy | https://pitchfork.com/staff/brandon-stosuy/ | null |
On their first album in almost six years, Kranky's drone stars explore the difference between music and sound, turning in an effort that's much more minimal and muted than 2001's outstanding The Tired Sounds of... | On their first album in almost six years, Kranky's drone stars explore the difference between music and sound, turning in an effort that's much more minimal and muted than 2001's outstanding The Tired Sounds of... | Stars of the Lid: And Their Refinement of the Decline | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/10064-and-their-refinement-of-the-decline/ | And Their Refinement of the Decline | The vanishing-point music created by drone elders Phil Niblock and, especially, LaMonte Young is what happens when a fixation on held tones reaches a tipping point. Timbre is reduced to either a single clear instrument or a sine wave, silence disappears completely, and the base-level interaction between small clusters of "pure" tone becomes the music's content. This kind of work takes what typically helps us to distinguish "music" from "sound," discards nearly all of it, and then starts over again from scratch.
Drone legends Stars of the Lid find their music drifting toward this rarefied place on their first album after an almost six-year absence. On first listen, And Their Refinement of the Decline seems a continuation of its beloved precursor, 2001's The Tired Sounds of... It is again a double CD with about two hours of music; it uses a similar palette of violin, cello, and Stuart Dempster-inspired horns to augment the electronically generated drones. Song titles again refer to brain chemistry ("Dopamine Clouds Over Craven Cottage"), altered states ("Another Ballad for Heavy Lids"), and the nuts and bolts of the music's creation (Apreludes (in C sharp major)"). And yet, upon putting on Tired Sounds of... again for comparison, I see Adam Wiltzie and Brian McBride have actually come some distance in the last half-decade. And the place they're moving to is starker, quieter, somehow even more subtle, where the tiniest amount of sound information is put upon to do the greatest amount of work. Where Tired Sounds of... sounded genteel and stately next to the raw four-track feedback fests they'd started with ("Tape Hiss Makes Me Happy" summed up their debut nicely), it now sounds about halfway between their genesis and this album; "refinement" turns out to be the perfect word.
The first thing that becomes apparent is that there's less discernible guitar here. The acoustic instruments once served as foils to the channeled electricity, but now they've taken center stage, and the horns and strings are often used in a curious way. Rather than being stretched out to push against silence with drone music proper, on tracks like "Dungtitled (in A Major)" and "The Evil that Never Arrived", flugelhorn, cello, and violin are used in short, slowly decaying bursts, keeping skeletal tunes aloft by bumping them with a chord every few seconds. The added space between the notes makes the pieces seem less forward and pervasive, like they might vanish into the air at any moment. It also cuts the drama and leaves the music more open to interpretation.
While SOTL will always be tagged as "cinematic," the music here rarely leads. You get the sense that this it could be used to color a wide array of images. The brief "Hiberner Toujours" on the second disc is a three-note phrase played on a cello with an intense vibrato and heavy reverb, first alone, then doubled, with muted electronic treatments lurking just behind. I could just as easily see it soundtracking a morning-after newsreel of a WWII firebombing or a stop-motion blooming of a flower. And then "Humectez La Mouture" extends an idea developed by the sorely missed Labradford and perfected by the Books: A deceptively simple and spacious bit of music with a neutral emotional cast is presented without additional cues and allowed to live or die on its own. Here SOTL take a couple of piano chords lightly kissed with electronics and let the progression play with small bits of shading, including what sounds like manipulated pedal steel and the dialog track from a French film. It doesn't "go" anywhere, really, and it's hard to say what it projects; the music could be crushingly sad, lightly melancholic, or even uplifting, depending on the state of mind of the hearer. It becomes a sound divorced from intention and its ambiguity is its strength.
This stripping down and moving away from easily definable mood makes And Their Refinement of the Decline a bit harder to grasp initially than any previous SOTL record. The less pronounced changes and more sparing use of dynamic range means that the music can easily slip into the background when something else requires attention. That's par for the course with ambient music, of course, but I get the sense this music is shortchanged by being functional. There's too much focus on the careful layering of sounds, and too many small but still important tweaks happening from moment to moment to let everything slide by in an undifferentiated blob of sound.
It's the rare moment when SOTL tip their hand and let more expressionistic feelings seep into the music that you understand how well the album works as a whole. The brilliant "Even if You're Never Awake (Deuxième)" is one such place, as its surges of strings are gradually cut with curled shavings of backward guitar, and some almost sub-sonic bass halfway through its 9 minutes announces an even wearier turn into the lament's final section. It "develops" in the conventional sense, as does "December Hunting for Vegetarian Fuckface", the album's final track.
After almost two hours we arrive at perhaps the most playful title ever from a band known for playful titles, and also what could be SOTL's defining statement. "December Hunting" is like the band's entire history playing out in a single piece, all the tensions in their music-- acoustic vs. electric, cryptic vs. obvious, joyous vs. sorrowful-- are articulated and probed in 17 heavenly minutes of drone without a tedious moment. It's the final and greatest example of that special thing that happens, with all due respect to their fine solo material, only when these two get together. | 2007-04-03T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2007-04-03T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Electronic | Kranky | April 3, 2007 | 8.6 | 223d4c09-a00e-40bf-a843-3cd70132c8ec | Mark Richardson | https://pitchfork.com/staff/mark-richardson/ | null |
The jazz-folk group blends acoustic guitar and percussion with dub echo and washes of synth on a mellow, intricate EP inspired by the natural world and its Bristol, England hometown. | The jazz-folk group blends acoustic guitar and percussion with dub echo and washes of synth on a mellow, intricate EP inspired by the natural world and its Bristol, England hometown. | Tara Clerkin Trio: On the Turning Ground EP | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/tara-clerkin-trio-on-the-turning-ground-ep/ | On the Turning Ground EP | Bristol’s Tara Clerkin Band once had eight members, until five of them “un-joined,” leaving the eponymous Clerkin and brothers Sunny-Joe Paradiso and Patrick Benjamin as the Tara Clerkin Trio. Listening to the trio’s instrumental puzzles, it’s hard to imagine where you’d wedge five more pieces: This is slow, airy music that nonetheless teems with life, the jazz-folk equivalent of a Kelly Reichardt movie. Their new EP, On the Turning Ground, ambles through blissful psych-pop and washed-out breakbeats, harpsichord interludes and dubby balladry. Every new idea seems like a natural progression, as if you’d slowly wandered deeper into a verdant reserve.
Tara Clerkin Trio’s self-titled 2020 debut was chic, nonchalant city music: The sinister gem “I Know He Will” felt like a live recording captured in a jazz club that shared a thin wall with a takeaway kitchen. Throughout the record, disparate sounds garbled and interweaved, capturing a sense of higgledy-piggledy beauty. On the Turning Ground is clearly still inspired by Bristol—the opening song is called “Brigstow,” an earlier form of the city’s name, and “The Turning Ground” is animated by the kind of breakbeat usually found in its famed d’n’b clubs—but it’s more wide-ranging, too, using synthetic sounds to mimic the slowness and stillness of the natural world. Paradiso’s snare brushes on “Brigstow” sound like leaves crunching underfoot; stabs of cello and melodica are like distant bird calls. On “World in Delay,” crackling dub production becomes a mirror of Clerkin’s lyrics, which look to botanic renewal as a sign of hope: “Only flowers on the tree/A remedy/Waiting for the new copy/Does it feel nearly real?”
Clerkin’s words tend toward abstraction, but certain motifs recur. On “The Turning Ground,” she again seems to find solace in the passing seasons (“In another time/I’m new again”); on “Marble Walls” she sings of finding comfort in the echoing sounds of a church choir. Clerkin has a sweet, hard-to-pin-down voice: She’s prone to slowly, steadily drawing out syllables, like a less urbane Anna Domino, and sometimes sings with a Trish Keenan-esque sing-song quality.
Mostly, Clerkin’s voice is an essential textural element; despite its chilly production, On The Turning Ground feels profoundly hopeful, and Clerkin’s high, resonant voice, when it pops up, feels like spring blooms cropping up between patches of frost. But even in its sparsest moments, On the Turning Ground seems to nod to a universe that’s constantly growing and expanding, even when things might feel static. On closer “Once Around,” a loop of Clerkin’s guitar is slowly surrounded by more and more echo, with such subtlety that at first you might not even notice it. Eventually, washes of synth spread underneath, and cello and harpsichord eventually subsume the guitar entirely. It’s the most melancholy song on the EP, and the most beautiful—incremental change and renewal, happening before your very ears. | 2023-12-13T00:00:00.000-05:00 | 2023-12-13T00:00:00.000-05:00 | Jazz / Experimental | World of Echo | December 13, 2023 | 7.3 | 223eedae-6f10-4c61-9396-2f68805d08ae | Shaad D’Souza | https://pitchfork.com/staff/shaad-d’souza/ | |
The Worcester, Massachusetts, emotive rock band the Hotelier’s sophomore record, Home, Like Noplace Is There, burns with a five-alarm intensity. If there isn’t an intervention or a 3 a.m. phone call that must be answered, a funeral is likely to follow. These emergencies are related with rousing group chants, call-and-response hooks, and collegiate jangle. | The Worcester, Massachusetts, emotive rock band the Hotelier’s sophomore record, Home, Like Noplace Is There, burns with a five-alarm intensity. If there isn’t an intervention or a 3 a.m. phone call that must be answered, a funeral is likely to follow. These emergencies are related with rousing group chants, call-and-response hooks, and collegiate jangle. | The Hotelier: Home, Like Noplace Is There | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/18963-the-hotelier-home-like-noplace-is-there/ | Home, Like Noplace Is There | On the opening track of the Hotelier’s sophomore record, Home, Like Noplace Is There, Christian Holden is a man of many words: 288 of them, to be exact. And they’re all secondary to two crucial, non-verbal moments that are nowhere to be found on the lyric sheet. Heraldic horns pipe up over a waltz of cyclic, clean guitars and sustained electric organ, right before Holden sings to a friend on the ledge, “Just remember when you’d call me to come/Take a deep breath and then jump.” And the rest of the band punctuates it with a perverse, celebratory “whoa-oh-oh!” This brief moment of release dies down and after three and a half minutes of Holden twisting the same melody until it’s about to snap, his last words are “the pills that you gave didn’t do anything/I just slept for years on end” and then he gasps. What comes next is the agony of defeat, and the full-band crash is inevitable and knee-buckling every time. For the final minute, Holden is inconsolable in his failure, barely intelligible as he yells, “Grab a hold/I know I said to not/But what the fuck do I know?” and seconds later, the track cuts out abruptly. The name of this song is “An Introduction to the Album,” and is it fucking ever.
Home, Like Noplace Is There burns with the same five-alarm intensity throughout its nine songs, and the few times where the Worcester band are at a loss for words, they have no trouble expressing themselves. There isn’t a single moment of passive listening here because the relationships that fill Holden’s songs require 24/7-surveillance; they’re toxic and codependent, with people who “try to make chaos external” and are “killing the self to protect it from harm.” If there isn’t an emergency intervention or a 3 a.m. phone call that must be answered, a funeral is likely to follow. The specifics are removed, but there are lockdowns, pills, fleeting glimmers of hope, broken promises, and people who are just plain fucked to give you an idea of what’s at stake.
This all makes for common subject matter in rock music, especially within the Hotelier’s emotive punk rock. Home derives its gut-wrenching power from Holden’s narrator being someone who’s barely escaped the same tragedies, speaks the language of its victims, and is pulled between knowing that his friends and family may be beyond help and the moral and spiritual drive to be the better man. In “The Scope of All of This Rebuilding,” kinship and resentment are inseparable as Holden spits over barbed, clashing guitars, “You cut your ropes, left the umbilical.” Not caring and caring too much hurt equally, and these songs ache with guilt and real remorse. During “Your Deep Rest,” Holden can’t bring himself to attend the subject’s funeral; in the first chorus he’s merely uncomfortable, the second time around, “the sight of your family made me feel responsible.”
And yet, if you ignore the lyrics, “Your Deep Rest” is a shambling, shuffling piece of soaring pop-rock that could sneak onto any Clear Channel playlist. Home, Like Noplace Is There is emotionally relentless, but a relentlessly catchy record as well. Holden’s voice holds true to emo’s standards—passionate enough to aspire to the high notes, lacking the training and polish to hit them—though it’s malleable enough to fit within just about every variant of punk that’s gone overground. You get rousing group chants, call-and-response hooks, and collegiate jangle sliced and diced with Fugazi’s precision (“The Scope of All of This Rebuilding”) and an abrupt turn towards double-time, folkish punk of Against Me! or the Weakerthans (“In Framing”), and that’s just within five minutes.
For all of its song-by-song diversity, Home, Like Noplace Is There is constructed as a whole to mirror the endless cycle of abuse and relapse—a key lyric from “In Framing” puts it it right out there, “You retraced the same shape/Cut up and resewn/When you felt abandoned, when you felt alone.” It’s not a narrative, though each stylistic shift can serve as a plot twist. Holden manages some sense of composure during the stately first half of “An Introduction to the Album” and “In Framing,” and loses it during “The Scope of All of This Rebuilding” and the impulsively raging “Life in Drag.” The most desperate choruses are the most anthemic, as on near power-ballads “Discomfort Revisited’ and “Among the Wildflowers,” Holden recognizes what his suffering friends never do: the futility of trying to get through this alone.
Theatrical closer “Dendron” takes its title from the Greek word for “tree” and ties back to the arboreal imagery of “Your Deep Rest,” as well as its chorus with a gut-wrenching admission (“Part of your charm is the way you would push me from/All of the traps that I just couldn’t see/Figures the one that would trip you up/Would be the one that was set there by me”). Home ends with a transposed version of the melody from “An Introduction to the Album,” and it’s a brief respite, not a happy ending or even an ending. It just puts you right back where you started, prepared to fight another day.
Home, Like Noplace Is There is very much an album that works its ass off; it can’t afford to do otherwise, as the Hotelier battle addiction, ignorance, and their own past. The first line finds a flock of singing birds telling Holden to “tear the buildings down,” perhaps referring to their auspicious debut as the Hotel Year, which was beset by scene politics and industry bullshit to the point where they’re writing it out of their history to an extent. And the Hotelier are fighting against the real possibility of this record failing to reach its intended audience. Towards the end of that missive, Holden shrugs at being “emo now," knowing that word could scare away self-identifying indie rock and punk fans even though this is where you’ll find nearly all of the passionate, lyrical and hooky guitar bands on independent labels with personality, basement-show ethics and big-tent ambitions these days.
But sonically, politically, and ethically, the Hotelier are punk as fuck and perhaps in turn, Home, Like Noplace There Is can occasionally sound more exciting and unstable than “masterful.” There are slip-ups—“Housebroken” is overwrought with metaphor, and there are times when the muddy production can’t quite support their arrangements—but ones that let you know they’re only beginning to realize what they’re capable of. So this might be the sound of the Hotelier tearing the building down, but they’re working towards something monumental. | 2014-02-28T01:00:01.000-05:00 | 2014-02-28T01:00:01.000-05:00 | Rock | Tiny Engines | February 28, 2014 | 8.2 | 223ff07c-ac4a-41cb-92f4-0e2e72e44fe5 | Ian Cohen | https://pitchfork.com/staff/ian-cohen/ | |
After numerous, soul-crushing comeback albums-- see, for example, this year's Stooges LP-- this reunited trio had little business releasing a record as eerily faithful to their own past as this one, but here it is, in all its low-key glory. | After numerous, soul-crushing comeback albums-- see, for example, this year's Stooges LP-- this reunited trio had little business releasing a record as eerily faithful to their own past as this one, but here it is, in all its low-key glory. | Dinosaur Jr.: Beyond | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/10127-beyond/ | Beyond | A straight shot west out of Boston on I-90 will carry you, in two hours or less, to Western Massachusetts, where the country still looks like it did twenty or even 40 years ago: college towns, I-91 tracing the same lazy ladder from Springfield up through Holyoke and Northampton, Amherst and Deerfield. Out there it's taken for granted that the houses will be drafty, the winters uniformly long, and that, on any given trip to the local supermarket, one might spot Thurston or Lou or Kim or J, on-and-off locals for more than twenty years. This is the quiet corner of the American indie elite, alive and well, where the long sleep between 1983 and 2007 feels more like a light daydream, and where the gap between a record then and a record now is no bigger than the label change from Homestead and SST to Geffen or Fat Possum. Dinosaur Jr., Amherst's native sons, have no business releasing a record as eerily faithful to their own past as this one, but here it is, in all its low-key glory.
The nostalgia this thing exudes is hard to pin down. Jess Harvell's generational invocation in 2005 at the reissue of the three records the original Dinosaur lineup made in 1985, 1987, and 1988 is as good as any representation of the utter and complete solidarity and identification a certain enormous group of fans of Alternative Rock (read: everybody of music-listening age in the nineties) had-- has-- with this band. Just throw on anything from Dinosaur to Without a Sound and watch your elders go slack-jawed. Imagine our surprise when we finally became old enough and realized that the battered weariness that was always there in their music and in J Mascis' ever-thinning voice was perfectly suited to actually being a little bit old.
Beyond, the band's first record as the selfsame trio since 1988's Bug, benefits enormously-- more so even than fellow MA-veterans Mission of Burma or latter-day Sonic Youth-- from the years, experiences, successes, and disappointments elapsed between then and now. It's been an eternity since the sludgy Jurassic ooze of their debut, Dinosaur, the light-bursting-through-trees melody of You're Living All Over Me, the clean lines of Bug and Mascis' subsequent solo expeditions, under his own name and that of his old band. But none of the three ever stopped making music, whether Lou (Sebadoh, Sentridoh, Folk Implosion, and solo), J (Witch, the Fog) or otherwise (Murph?). Their music aged naturally along with them.
Beneath Beyond's crystalline production is the sublime result: years and years of weariness and aging and conflict put back into the bottle (with the same label no less-- the cover is as precise a rendering of that late-eighties SST aesthetic as anything from the actual era). Less a theme park of the past and more of an actual trip there-- think Coney Island-- Beyond is nostalgic for everything but the band's own glory days. If anything, it's an exercise in making their entire twenty-year output sound contemporary again.
It's easy to spot parallels ("Crumble" smacks of "Repulsion" to me; the guitar-work in "Pick Me Up" cribs vaguely from "Feel the Pain") but what struck me about Beyond is how little time I've spent thinking about any of their old songs since I got a copy. And I can't be the only one whose blood-pressure went up a bit when the first single, "Almost Ready", dropped-- the obvious return of Murph, picking out on the snare all the melodic nuance of J's return-to-the-big-time riff, the sanded-down and low-pitched reverie of Mascis' voice, an almost platonic ideal of a Dinosaur Jr. song. Add the follow up, "Been There All The Time", the crusading guitar line and signature self-doubt-- "Can I be there all the time?"-- and the inevitable solo and the revelation dawns: they are the exact same band they were.
Lack of a certain kind of ambition has always been Dinosaur Jr.'s style, and songs like "Crumble"-- which is built like and plays like every other slacker mope couch-song these guys have written-- reconstruct their ancient, ever-present atmosphere of escapism. The two Lou Barlow songs, "Back to Your Heart" and "Lightning Bulb", are keystones here, as well as the latest ambiguous entries into a now-infinite history of hatred and reconciliation between the band's two songwriters-- ironically, both new songs are reminiscent of nothing so much as Mascis' solo work. Mascis returns the favor on "I Got Lost", which is not recommended listening for moments of extreme emotional vulnerability, and on "We're Not Alone". The false ending on that song halfway in, its tired collapse and tentative resurrection, is either a great metaphor or just a beautiful thing-- maybe both.
The lyrics aren't the primary focus here-- and they never were for these guys-- but it's hard to argue with the generic uplift of "This Is All I Came to Do" and "Pick Me Up", throwbacks to a certain era where we all sang along to songs made up of nothing but platitudes. The record brings back the kind of push alt-rock would later turn into shove, a call to arms short of the usual pressgang.
Invert everything I just said and you get the critique: same-old things, one song seeping into another, tired nostalgia, nostalgic tiredness, ear-bleeding country-for-old-men. But for all the ubiquity of Dinosaur then and now, I can't think of one band but Dinosaur Jr. able to do what they do. If it's nothing special, perennially under-dogged and wasted, who doesn't want more of it? | 2007-05-01T02:00:01.000-04:00 | 2007-05-01T02:00:01.000-04:00 | Rock | Fat Possum | May 1, 2007 | 8.4 | 2242fa13-0a97-49db-84ac-b108627a79d6 | Pitchfork | null |
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Tom Krell's third album as How to Dress Well is a bolder, more accomplished version of what came before in his catalog. The stylistic range of “What Is This Heart?” lends credence to Krell’s “pop, but not populist” ambitions—if he was to make a superproducer-per-song, blockbuster album, this is how it would likely turn out. | Tom Krell's third album as How to Dress Well is a bolder, more accomplished version of what came before in his catalog. The stylistic range of “What Is This Heart?” lends credence to Krell’s “pop, but not populist” ambitions—if he was to make a superproducer-per-song, blockbuster album, this is how it would likely turn out. | How to Dress Well: "What Is This Heart?" | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19433-how-to-dress-well-what-is-this-heart/ | "What Is This Heart?" | How to Dress Well is a project that Tom Krell conducts with a particularly modern transparency: the music he shares is meant to illuminate the music that he makes. His most recent Soundcloud mixtapes, No Words to Say and I Think Life Might Be Elsewhere (Hungover Mix), were heavy on what we’ve come to expect from him—along with his own work in progress, we’d hear a very specific set of influences, mostly R&B and hip-hop, high/lowbrow dichotomies accepted by indie culture such as Lou Reed and Miley Cyrus, Young Thug, and GG Allin. But late last year, early 2000s emo acts like the Starting Line, Taking Back Sunday and Saves the Day started to infiltrate, and surely he was trying to tell us why these bands speak to him. Whether it’s Chief Keef or Chris Conley, Krell is informed by genre but driven by expression; in his mind, pop music is anything that aspires for the most immediate and impactful connection, even if it risks embarrassment in the process. As a result, his transcendent third LP "What Is This Heart?" is a pop album of the highest caliber.
It’s easy to be skeptical, as he once treated mainstream music like an academic—pop rendered as ambient and insular experiences. His 2010 debut Love Remains didn't sound like anything else and still doesn’t, as if William Basinski’s The Disintegration Loops were filled with cuts from early '90s R&B. Its follow-up Total Loss was sleek and solemn salon-soul, interpolating Ashanti but still modeled by outré, experimental artists ranging from Proem to Forest Swords to Steve Reich. The dubious term “indie R&B” already projected a degree of otherness on a white man in a primary black genre, and Krell’s egghead influences and agamous lyrics gave his detractors plenty of additional dirt.
But even in 2010, it should’ve been fairly obvious that grad students and grade schoolers alike can dream of being Michael Jackson, Bobby Brown or Beyoncé. Krell told us recently, “I want my music to be pop, but not populist—I want to be #1 on Billboard, but I want to do it on my own terms.” Previously, that might’ve smacked of indie defeatism, of wanting to be admired for sticking to his guns by contrasting it against an impossible scenario. But in 2014, unique and truly weird polyglot R&B/pop records like Beyoncé, Channel Orange and Kaleidoscope Dream have achieved runaway commercial, critical, and artistic success. It’s completely within Krell’s rights to ask, “why not me?”
So, here, Krell lets the music catch up with his extroverted candor, combining emotional risk and artistic confidence to figure out just how far How to Dress Well can go while retaining the project's essence. In retrospect, Krell’s albums sound as tentative and sketchbook as his mixtapes, as nearly everything on “What Is This Heart?” is a bolder, more accomplished version of what came before. "2 Years On (Shame Dream)” reiterates Krell's taste for unseemly reverie, as a car ride with his family turns both surreal and hyperreal, its ache presented in startling clarity—Tracy Chapman may have been on his mind as a starting point for bare, acoustic folk, but he needed to cover the uber-emo “At Your Funeral” over a Crash of Rhinos instrumental on his Hungover Mix to realize he was capable of doing it. “What You Wanted” pressurizes the subdued militance and tension of “Cold Nites” and releases it in the monstrous, pitch-shifted vocals that deface “Face Again”. The orchestral ambitions of the Just Once EP and the redlining distortion of Love Remains are removed from their headphone-intended origins and given concert hall ambience on “Pour Cyril".
The stylistic range of “What Is This Heart?” lends credence to Krell’s “pop, but not populist” ambitions—if he was to make a superproducer-per-song, blockbuster album, this is how it would likely turn out. However, Rodaidh McDonald returns to produce and retains the stained glass sound of Total Loss: bright, translucent, and nowhere near as brittle as it may first appear. More importantly, Krell’s voice is made the focal point rather than a texture. His singing can be parodied at this point, meaning that it's something established as clearly his own: demonstrative and inclusive as good karaoke, not performative in a way that’s meant to be judged. It’s spiritual, though more borne of a monastic purity than a specific religion. And now, it’s only distorted as a signature punctuation rather than using the effect as a white-out slather.
Krell makes it known that he's got chops, the kind that can handle the physical challenges of “What Is This Heart?”’s pop rites of passage—“Words I Don’t Remember” aspires for the “Purple Rain” extended coda, Krell’s wavering, breathless coo reverbed and distended to emulate an emotive, showstopping guitar solo. L.A. Reid should’ve desperately tried to smuggle the effervescent disco-pop of “Repeat Pleasure” onto Xscape and if there was every a doubt that a HTDW song could be a legitimate smash hit rather than a deconstruction of one, there’s the arena-R&B of “Precious Love”, which tags on a gorgeous, unexpected key change that lasts about ten seconds just to stunt.
In the true spirit of How to Dress Well, “What Is This Heart?” is comprehensive and referential, littered with bits and pieces of the music that’s moved him over the years. “Words I Don’t Remember” teases its lyrical cold war with the milky chords of Diana Ross’ “Missing You”; Beyoncé's declaratory “to the left” cadence from “Irreplaceable” is utilized to express Krell’s apposite desire “to relate, to relate” on "Precious Love". Meanwhile, the spirit of “Very Best Friend” is so plainspoken and eternal that it has to be some roller rink obscurity from his youth, the source of which Krell is keeping from us all.
For the duration of How to Dress Well’s existence, Krell’s obsessive devotion to pop music has served as a connection he can trust, as he lowers himself into the depths of unanswerable questions about spirituality and death. While that love remains, Krell’s breakthrough on "What Is This Heart?" is a staggering paradox: as long as he holds onto that tether, he’ll probably never get to the bottom.
While Krell is sometimes still that college freshman listening to Jimmy Eat World with a “Childhood Faith in Love”, he writes about love like the philosophy Ph.D. student that he is—much of this album recognizes a pop cultural paradigm where love is presented as a panacea, the single most important thing a person can acquire. But the problem is that it’s so often conveyed through consumer products that love becomes one itself—something meant to be obtained, consumed, and replaced, a simple prop to occupy one’s time.
Krell recognizes his own complicitly in this situation both as a human and as someone who makes pop songs in How to Dress Well. The first words of “Words I Don’t Remember” are, distressingly, “You know that I love you, baby”, and he confesses with palpable guilt, "Said 'it was you' for the rest of our lives", referring to the joyous centerpiece of Total Loss. “& It Was U” was indicative of how the brief flickers of happiness on past HTDW albums only served to remind you of the surrounding, oppressive presence of death and depression. Though "What Is This Heart?" is by far Krell’s lightest, most melodic album, his lyrics are constantly prodding at a pervasive societal problem: a mistrust of intimacy, fear of legitimate connection, the idea of romance as a competitive sport.
But if you think this is some kind of grad-level treatise, remember that the title of this album is phrased as a question. Krell’s pain and pleasure is borne of in situ struggle—do you say just what you want and when you want it in pursuit of an honest relationship, knowing that your most honest moments can be wicked? That’s the cruel irony at the center of “Repeat Pleasure”, where the title doesn't instantly reveal its cynical view of sex. What initially sounds like a glittery valentine becomes a "Dear John"-in-waiting, as Krell realizes our tendencies to get caught up in routine:"I say there's no one above you/ But now there's a new place above that line.…Even if you're holding on for something unchanging/ And once you got it you'll want something else." “What You Wanted” similarly provokes people who see others' hot love and emotion fade rather than continuing endlessly and assume that the same won't happen to them: "Said I know that I want it/ Know that as soon as I've got it/ It'll change, I'll hate it." Later, on "A Power", Krell seeks sympathy and serenity rather than carnality; during a tribal, percussive breakdown and his most intense vocal performance, he sings with desperate joy, that if he doesn't share his desire to "loved and lost in all directions", he'll be sucked into, "dark, silence and the void".
Similar to Ezra Koenig, Krell can be the smartest guy in the room by having the best questions and the least amount of answers, and "What is This Heart?" does share important commonalities with the intellectually sound spiritual awakening of *Modern Vampires of the City—*their creators have always met their dull accusations of appropriation head on, and on their resepective third albums, they make them a moot point by completely upstaging the iffy subgenre they’re largely responsible for. Yes, “indie R&B” was always a condescending genre tag for unclassifiable music, but it did help focus attention on the increasing interaction between big-budget pop and the sort of recording tactics that almost always resulted in would-be Guided By Voices and Ariel Pinks. Krell asserts that Love Remains does deserve credit for changing the trajectory of indie music in the new decade, still noting that, “while everyone was praising the underground and the overground coming together, somehow that turned into there not being any underground music."
And he’s right: “indie R&B” ended up being just as stylized, hyped and victim to fashion as the big league stuff. This hasn’t been the direct cause of so many listeners rediscovering things like Sun Kil Moon in 2014, but it sure isn’t a fucking coincidence. Nor are the major influences of “What Is This Heart?”, an album that shames most of its peers musically and reveals that what the game’s been missing is, y’know, heart. Know damn well, if you love this album, you will be mocked for it, and soon—because one of its singles crests on a falsetto cry of, “even broken my heart will go on!”, and because there’s a song called “Childhood Faith in Love (Everything Must Change, Everything Must Stay the Same)”.
And it’s because like any vaccine to a ubiquitous illness, "What Is This Heart?" makes you initially susceptible and vulnerable, and that’s risky when modern discourse seeks metaphorical blood, allowing people to disclose more than ever without actually revealing anything. So make no mistake, the title of this album is a challenge as well, as How to Dress Well’s modern masterpiece is conducted with the most eternal transparency—Krell asks “what is this heart” and lets you look right into his own. | 2014-06-23T02:00:00.000-04:00 | 2014-06-23T02:00:00.000-04:00 | Pop/R&B | Domino / Weird World | June 23, 2014 | 8.8 | 22431290-f900-444d-9eb0-04e5aeaaebdb | Ian Cohen | https://pitchfork.com/staff/ian-cohen/ | null |
The veteran avant-garde composer’s third album in two years places him alongside a new generation of collage artists, tying a dizzying array of stylistic signifiers into complex knots. | The veteran avant-garde composer’s third album in two years places him alongside a new generation of collage artists, tying a dizzying array of stylistic signifiers into complex knots. | Carl Stone: Stolen Car | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/carl-stone-stolen-car/ | Stolen Car | For the past 40 years, Carl Stone has been atomizing recordings of ubiquitous and obscure music alike, transforming his source material into kaleidoscopic fantasies. His electronic compositions, stuttering and illusory, repurpose minute sonic elements from a wide variety of different genres, splicing, looping, and contorting them beyond recognition. They are referential but speak entirely with their own vocabulary, liberating Stone’s sounds from the dual constraints of expectation and commodification. Steve Reich’s “Come Out” and Terry Riley’s “You’re No Good” are antecedents, but Stone’s music is less appropriative and more celebratory. When he started experimenting in the 1970s, he was primarily splicing magnetic tape; in the ’80s, he became an early adopter of digital sampling and delay, using early Macintosh computers to manipulate recordings via MIDI. He now uses a laptop and the audio programming language Max/MSP to mince sounds and paste them back together again in shapes that only tangentially reference their original form. Regardless of the technology used, his process of weirding the dominant ways we experience different styles of music remains consistent.
After two compilations of pieces from between 1973 and 1993, Stone’s early work has recently reached a wider audience beyond the Los Angeles avant-garde scene that nurtured it. The techniques he pioneered have become increasingly relevant in the music of artists like Angel Marcloid (aka Fire-Toolz and Nonlocal Forecast) and labels like Orange Milk, where disparate stylistic elements are collaged at breakneck speeds, pushing back against the streaming era’s algorithmically derived systems of genre formation. Stolen Car, Stone’s third full-length in two years (a notable acceleration for him), sits easily alongside albums by this new wave of omnivorous experimentalists. While many of his early compositions unfolded over entire album sides, these pieces are closer to pop music in structure and length, and seem mastered to do battle in the loudness war. These are more likely sly references to contemporary pop than a capitulation to accessibility; Stolen Car is a dizzying array of stylistic signifiers virtuosically tied into complex knots.
At times it feels like Stone’s music is a secret decoder ring unlocking the infinite possibilities hidden within other recordings. “Figli” and “Ganci” were constructed using the same sample, but listening to each is a radically different experience. “Ganci” is slow and deliberate, an elongated vocal line stretched over an oozing mosaic of shadowy voices and electronic tones. It feels mournful, the repeated wordless phrase a mantra of indecipherable discontent. From there, “Figli” charges forth, frenzied and euphoric. A voice that once seemed pitiful flutters about in miniature snippets at the speed of hummingbird wings, pinging between the left and right channels in euphoric bursts. For over three minutes, its chopped melodies float weightless before a long awaited drop of steady four-on-the-floor kick transforms it into what could be (only semi-ironically) referred to as a “banger.” The track works just as well as a club-ready pop song as it does a thoroughly baffling avant-garde composition.
That deft manipulation and recreation of pop music’s emotional impact out of apparent chaos is a substantial part of what makes much of the music on Stolen Car the most fully realized of Stone’s career. On many of his early experiments the focus was on process, and he often let the loops he created unfold according to systems that weren’t necessarily reflective of the sample’s original form. Tracks like “Bojuk,” however, have distinct sections that recur, almost like a song, and the magic is in the melody itself rather than the glitchy cuts that have become his hallmark. In a recent interview with Tone Glow, Stone discussed having until recently “tuned out popular culture” after discovering avant-garde music and other forms from around the world. But even as he revels in the prismatic decimation of his source material, he seems more appreciative of song craft and rhythmic consistency than ever. It’s telling that the album’s least engaging piece, “Saaris,” is also its longest: Lacking the gleeful builds or dynamic structures that define the rest of the record, it consists of a simple muted chord progression looped for over 10 minutes.
One of Stone’s major accomplishments with Stolen Car, as in the best of his earlier work, is his ability to highlight unique sonic elements of music from around the world—pop from Asia and the U.S., European classical, folk traditions from pretty much everywhere—while simultaneously unifying them under one aesthetic framework. Listening to his music, it can be nearly impossible to determine where he may have sourced any given sound; the joy comes from abandoning any quest for provenance and listening instead with unbiased ears. Stolen Car celebrates the universality of music while acknowledging the singular attributes that make styles and traditions appealing, bringing us closer to a unified understanding of the power of listening. Better still, it does it not as an academic exercise, but with excitement and reverence.
Catch up every Saturday with 10 of our best-reviewed albums of the week. Sign up for the 10 to Hear newsletter here. | 2020-11-17T01:00:00.000-05:00 | 2020-11-17T01:00:00.000-05:00 | Electronic | Unseen Worlds | November 17, 2020 | 7.8 | 2246636c-8824-4a30-b2d7-5c6ceadc51a6 | Jonathan Williger | https://pitchfork.com/staff/jonathan-williger/ | |
Calexico have always been restless experimenters, juxtaposers and journeymen, crafting a unique fusion of\n\ bluesy Mariachi, desert-rock and jazz ... | Calexico have always been restless experimenters, juxtaposers and journeymen, crafting a unique fusion of\n\ bluesy Mariachi, desert-rock and jazz ... | Calexico: Feast of Wire | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/1230-feast-of-wire/ | Feast of Wire | Calexico have always been restless experimenters, juxtaposers and journeymen, crafting a unique fusion of bluesy Mariachi, desert-rock and jazz, and injecting healthy doses of experimentation into the otherwise straightforward records on which they've made guest appearances. Yet, for their innovation and distinctive sound, their albums have always had their weak spots-- moments in which their ideas seemed to be running away with the band's ability to execute them. That time has passed. All of Calexico's previous strengths come home to roost on Feast of Wire, the band pushing their experiments further than ever before and pulling each of them off unfalteringly. In short, Calexico have created their first genuinely masterful full-length, crammed with immediate songcraft, shifting moods and open-ended exploration.
A brief acoustic guitar figure and pounding waltz beat open things at a crisp gait. Joey Burns quickly intones with the lines, "Washed my face in the rivers of empire/ Made my bed with a cardboard crate," immediately establishing the tension of the borderline that pulls Calexico's music in its many directions. Burns is suddenly a singer-- he's always made do with what he had, but the limitations that were once so apparent have developed into a strong and confident tenor, assertive and emotive. The music behind him feels bolder and more courageous, too, as the veil of obscurity that guarded so much of their previous releases has vanished. The detail of this album is utterly stunning, as melodies rise against countermelodies, subtle electronic processing seals guitars in amber, and instruments blend in fascinating and unpredictable ways.
The band keeps things tight and concise across sixteen tracks, and John Convertino's drums corral the rush of sound into all the right spaces, pushing the steel guitar motifs that color the background of "Quattro (World Drifts In)" up to meet Burns' vocals and beating back the bombastic strings that cascade over "Black Heart" like a desert thunderstorm. "Not Even Stevie Nicks" is pristine pop that makes me wish Burns would find more occasions to use his falsetto. It also makes me wish he'd print his lyrics, even if lines like, "With a head like a vulture and a heart full of hornets/ He drives off the cliff into the blue," convey such a rush of emotions that they virtually fill in the blanks by themselves.
He's still full of border stories, too, with narratives like "Across the Wire" packing up tales of dodging the border patrol and leaving everything you know for the abstraction of hope. "Woven Birds" is a hushed reverie for an abandoned mission that even the swallows have left to the ghosts, building to spine-tingling moments where the vocals, Melodica and vibes all meet on the same note and coalesce into a single sound. The piano and strings of "The Book and the Canal" serve as a moody pivot into the album's mostly instrumental second half, though the darkness of that piece is largely swept aside by "Attack El Robot! Attack!", which mashes Pharaoh Sanders, Portuguese guitar and German IDM into a beautiful stew of sci-fi strangeness.
"Dub Latina" and "Crumble" show Calexico burrowing deeper into jazz than ever before, with the latter featuring fluid guitar, trombone and trumpet solos squaring off against each other over a white-hot groove. "Güero Canelo" is a curious flamenco strut built around what sounds like a distorted Speak-n-Spell sample and sliding sound effects, while "Whipping the Horse's Eyes" and the closer, "No Doze", each examine big skies and desert stillness-- one with steel guitar and bowed bass, the other with bowed vibes, nylon strings, static, percussion and steel. Burns is back to a whisper on the closer, but here it strikes as though he's trying not to wake someone sleeping in the room rather than shielding the listener from his limitations.
Calexico have always threatened to make a spectacular record, and even came close on 1998's The Black Light, but having spent the last three years honing their skills has paid off for them in ways no one could have predicted. Feast of Wire calls on a stunning, finely kept arsenal of genres, textures and images to transport you to the Southwest's forgotten places and put you in the shoes of the people who stare across the border in both directions. It is the album we always knew they had in them but feared they would never make. | 2003-02-23T01:00:03.000-05:00 | 2003-02-23T01:00:03.000-05:00 | Rock | Touch and Go / Quarterstick | February 23, 2003 | 8.9 | 22468fd5-d73f-4c20-9955-29884303e7cf | Joe Tangari | https://pitchfork.com/staff/joe-tangari/ | null |
Himanshu Suri, aka rapper Heems, always felt like Das Racist's breakout star, if the crew had such a thing. They were all funny, but Heems was also quietly charismatic and occasionally vulnerable. His new solo album finds him summoning all of these qualities, some of the time. | Himanshu Suri, aka rapper Heems, always felt like Das Racist's breakout star, if the crew had such a thing. They were all funny, but Heems was also quietly charismatic and occasionally vulnerable. His new solo album finds him summoning all of these qualities, some of the time. | Heems: Eat Pray Thug | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20307-eat-pray-thug/ | Eat Pray Thug | What does the future look like for former members of a joke-rap group? What if things blew apart just as you stopped joking? Das Racist’s career arc was never an obvious one—sometimes it was hard to tell if they were shrugging or lunging at us—and its solo members are now puzzling their way through the aftermath of an ambiguous legacy. Himanshu Suri, aka Heems, always felt like the breakout star, if the crew had such a thing. They were all funny, but Heems was also quietly charismatic and occasionally vulnerable: On Das Racist tracks like "Amazing" or "You Can Sell Anything", he was all three at once. Eat Pray Thug, Heems’ new solo album, finds him summoning all of these qualities, some of the time, but the album as a whole isn’t vivid or well-realized enough to banish the sense that something is missing.
Heems has said in interviews that Eat Pray Thug is his most personal project. A handful of songs draw directly on his experiences as an Indian-American in a post–9/11 world, and they are sharply observed, painful, emotional, and deeply quotable. On "Flag Shopping", he offers vivid images in a halting, tom-roll cadence: "Your dad mad, cuz he lost all clients/ Dad, why you crying? I thought that we had the spirit of the lion/ He take it out on you, his belt big like Orion’s." On the album closer "Patriot Act", he adopts a short, bellowing delivery, nicked from Rick Ross at his imaginary-crime-boss peak, to spit a tangle of contradictions: "Product of Partition/ Dripped in Prada for the stitchin', proud of superstitions/ Got powder in the kitchen." Heems talked to the New York Times about his desire to reclaim rap language from the inside, and songs like "Patriot Act" show him doing just that, applying a lifelong love of hip-hop to the gritty particulars of a specific life.
Eat Pray Thug isn’t lacking in ideas, just focus, and there are long stretches where it’s much harder to connect to Heems’ persona. "Sometimes", the opening track, produced by longtime collaborator Gordon Voidwell, is about "dualities," as the rapper told both NPR and the Times, but here is an example of how that plays out in the song: "Sometimes I’m like this, sometimes I’m like that/ Sometimes I’m pretty thin, sometimes I’m pretty fat." Tossed-off lines like these lack the smart-dumb zing of his Das Racist writing or, really, any zing at all. Heems drones the word "clarity, clarity" for a few bars on the song, then deadpans: "Sometimes I write hard, sometimes I’m mad lazy/ I just repeat words like ‘clarity,’ fucking crazy." It’s DOA as a punchline, and reminds me of Encore-era Eminem, where he’d fill up entire verses with the lamest jokes he could think of simply because he could.
The most uncomfortable moments on Eat Pray Thug are like this, watching a guy try for ironic laughs and failing, and they feel like unwelcome holdovers from Heems’ previous life. Wordplay like "The great gats be the TEC-9 and AK" (from "Hubba Hubba") only remind us how good he used to be at this sort of high/low culture switch-up. "Made enough friends, like I play in the Wrens," he raps on "Sometimes", and as one of the people who actually gets that joke, I find myself unaccountably saddened that it exists outside of a chat window.
Elsewhere, Heems reaches for styles that are simply beyond his grasp as a musician. "Pop Song (Games)", "Damn, Girl", and "Home" are stabs at accessibility that fail for a more prosaic and difficult-to-circumvent reason: Heems’ voice. Landing somewhere between pained groan and mocking whine, it lacks expressive range, and it points to the biggest problem facing Heems and his fellow former members: They were, from the beginning, a fragile musical equation. None of them were naturally appealing on the mic, but the three of them together, projecting camaraderie, sent a specific message: We might not be very good at this, but we’re way better at it than you realize. They hung together, in a hangdog sort of way.
Without that camaraderie, a lot of those obvious flaws, which were built into the DNA of the group, float to the surface, and 11 tracks of solo Heems proves to be a lot to take. Together, they were a bunch of bored, antic college kids, smarter than they seemed and maybe, sneakily, smarter than everyone you knew, masking some complex feelings behind jokes. Alone, they are three adult post-wiseasses, in search of a story as good as their last one. | 2015-03-11T02:00:00.000-04:00 | 2015-03-11T02:00:00.000-04:00 | Rap | Megaforce | March 11, 2015 | 6.3 | 224a2a71-2b5f-44c2-b83a-13b0ce807d8d | Jayson Greene | https://pitchfork.com/staff/jayson-greene/ | null |
The companion piece to his 2021 self-titled record diverges from the innovation and technical proficiency in favor of introspection and contemplation. It is a richly detailed, deadpan elegy for his stolen youth. | The companion piece to his 2021 self-titled record diverges from the innovation and technical proficiency in favor of introspection and contemplation. It is a richly detailed, deadpan elegy for his stolen youth. | Vince Staples: Ramona Park Broke My Heart | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/vince-staples-ramona-park-broke-my-heart/ | Ramona Park Broke My Heart | Vince Staples has long sought to take the shine off gangster culture. Much like a military veteran can sniff out stolen valor, he can tell which rappers romanticizing life on the street are full of shit. None of this shit is fun; it’s stressful. You don’t sign up to see your friends get killed; you survive it, or you don’t. More than a few have painted Staples as a nihilist devoid of hope, but he’s closer to a hard-earned cynic, someone who’s seen too much to believe any empty platitudes.
Staples’ new album, Ramona Park Broke My Heart, is an elegy for his stolen youth—a subtle lament for the life he’s led that also pines for the one he never did. It shares the clarity he’s exhibited since the start of his career, a perspective aged by the streets he was raised on. There are no solutions here, no grand epiphany. His home just no longer provides the same comfort that it once did. A companion piece to his 2021 self-titled LP, Ramona Park Broke My Heart diverges from the innovation and technical proficiency of earlier records, in favor of introspection and contemplation.
If Vince Staples was muted by its grayscale palette, Ramona Park Broke My Heart is colored with vivid nostalgia for the sounds of his youth. “DJ Quik” flips the G-Funk spirit of the titular artist’s classic cut “Dollaz + Sense,” drowning a vintage drum machine in gauzy atmospherics; the bass line’s electronic twang on “Magic” draws from the sound of that era more directly. “East Point Prayer” is the lone departure from Southern California, melting into melancholy chords evocative of Atlanta’s emo-trap sing-raps that guest rapper Lil Baby is best known for. Despite this, Staples manages to synthesize the work of more than a dozen different producers—many virtual unknowns—with a persistent ennui shared by all the cooks in the kitchen.
Much of that can be attributed to Staples’ delivery of lyrics that belie an existential exhaustion. The detail-rich raps serve less as a tour guide than they do a memory map. When he raps bars like, “Nowhere to go when we in the cage/Sometimes life tastes bittersweet,” as he does on “Lemonade,” who is that for? It may be a given that these lyrics about this specific neighborhood in Long Beach, California aren’t meant to be universal. But the unvarnished portraits that he paints of his hometown connect with people around the world not because those experiences feel shared, but because they feel honest, and worn with pride. The difference here is that those portraits seem to have lost some of their luster, even for him.
If there’s a single set piece that can speak to each of the disparate corners of Staples’ audience, it’s “When Sparks Fly,” the album’s most complete standalone statement. On its surface, it’s a standard street love song, built atop a sample of Lyves’s ethereal ballad “No Love,” before a different, more surprising voice emerges. This is a lover’s lament told from the perspective of a personified firearm, bemoaning his capture by the police from its hiding place. It captures a sense of longing that Staples is typically unwilling to reveal in the first person, reaching beyond the standard refrain of “free the homies” to depict how those on the outside can often feel just as trapped.
Staples’ disillusionment comes into sharp focus on “The Spirit of Monster Kody,” a 45-second skit that’s voiced by Sanyika Shakur, fka “Monster” Kody Scott, an infamously violent member of the Eight Tray Gangster Crips who wrote an autobiography about his troubled life. In his speech, Kody speaks of defying expectations and drawing inspiration from the legendary rebel Joseph Cinqué. Free of additional context, it’s powerful, even inspiring. But what Staples leaves unsaid is that despite his triumphs, Kody’s end was as tragic as his beginning—last summer, his body was found decomposing in a tent at a homeless encampment near San Diego.
Staples has been consistently clear about the distinction between his work and what an “entertainer” like Drake does. To call this album entertainment would almost feel disrespectful. This is a document of a young man’s pain, a chronicle of his disillusionment barely disguised by his deadpan voice. Even the things that once grounded him—the people and places that shaped him into who he is—look different now. Ten years into a career of recounting the decisions he made to get here, he has more available options than ever—and he finally appears ready to move on.
“I feel like a lot of my work has been an anthology of my neighborhood and my past, and I think this is kinda the end of that for me,” Staples recently told New York radio station Hot 97. This contextual clue offers some clarity to his weary tone on Ramona Park Broke My Heart, one worthy of an epilogue to what’s been a compelling depiction of an overlooked corner of the world. It might not meet the extremely high bar set by his best work, but it’s almost certainly him at his most emotionally vulnerable. | 2022-04-14T00:00:00.000-04:00 | 2022-04-14T00:00:00.000-04:00 | Rap | Blacksmith / Motown | April 14, 2022 | 8 | 224d5e44-c374-40f6-b489-c295382ae996 | Matthew Ismael Ruiz | https://pitchfork.com/staff/matthew-ismael ruiz/ | |
The New York-based electronic musician has done everything from shoegaze to pop to film scores, but her first solo album in 14 years is distinguished less by her range than by her ability to focus. | The New York-based electronic musician has done everything from shoegaze to pop to film scores, but her first solo album in 14 years is distinguished less by her range than by her ability to focus. | Lori Scacco: Desire Loop | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/lori-scacco-desire-loop/ | Desire Loop | The electronic musician Lori Scacco has contributed scores and sound design to films, video games, dance performances, and art installations; she has played in Savath y Savalas’ and Helado Negro’s live ensembles; and she has worked with clients as diverse as Doctors Without Borders and Salvatore Ferragamo. In the 1990s, she was a member of Seely, a shoegaze act with the distinction of being the first American band signed to the British independent label Too Pure, and more recently, she has made lopsided electro pop in the duo Storms. That’s a lot of ground to have covered. But Desire Loop, Scacco’s first solo album in 14 years, is distinguished less by the New York artist’s versatility than by her ability to focus.
Desire Loop is an album of synthesizer music that puts the study of color and texture at the forefront. At its core are luminous tones surrounded by a faint halo of distortion, like the high-pitched buzz fluorescent bulbs make, yet the play of timbres is constantly shifting. To close your eyes and concentrate on the feel of her sounds is to be like a child at the science museum, fingertips tracing across a scrap of fur, a polished stone, a feather, a nubby sea urchin shell.
Despite the album’s generally relaxed atmosphere and often ethereal sounds, this isn’t ambient music, exactly: Scacco’s melodies feel too prominent, her compositional impulses too strong. Repetitive figures form the foundation of these songs—“Strange Cities” glides atop a pulsing arpeggio reminiscent of Steve Reich, and “Cosmographia” opens with low, clipped tones that suggest a conversation between two lighthouses—but they are driven by a lyrical sensibility that is unusual for this kind of music. A bright, confident melody runs through the bucolic landscapes of “Strange Cities”; out of “Cosmographia”’s drone fantasia grows the kind of soft riffing associated with Boards of Canada, along with a key change of an unmistakably narrative bent. Where many synthesizer musicians are primarily concerned with mood-setting, Scacco seems just as interested in storytelling.
Her palette and her melodic choices play with déjà vu, while her synth patches briefly reveal acoustic roots before morphing into something else entirely. On “Coloring Book,” the synths sound like pipe organs might after another millennium of evolution. “Interactivity in Plastic Space” transmutes harpsichords into silvery streamers. “Back to Electric” revolves around what might be a plucked acoustic bass melody while the sounds of a fast-forwarding cassette tape squeal away in the high end. There are hints of very old traditions buried deep in Scacco’s otherwise futuristic sounds: Both “Coloring Book” and “Interactivity in Plastic Space” are in waltz time, and her consonant harmonies and simple melodies are often evocative of European folk music.
Along with tone and texture, Desire Loop draws attention to the way multiple layers of sound can be combined into a whole that suggests more than the sum of its parts. It is frequently difficult to discern exactly how many elements a given track incorporates; the mechanics of Scacco’s music are unusually veiled. In “Red Then Blue,” a base of what might be backmasked synth commingles with tones that scatter like raindrops on concrete. But peeling apart the album’s layers can help illuminate some surprising influences: At the heart of “Cosmographia” runs an optimistic melody suggestive of both Laurie Spiegel and Stereolab. The almost naïve refrain in “Tiger Song” evokes Kraftwerk, while the same song’s burbling interplay nods to Mouse on Mars. And “Strange Cities,” perhaps the album’s most satisfying track, fuses American minimalism with the cosmic soundscapes of Berlin in the 1970s. Even at its most focused, Desire Loop is proof of Scacco’s range. | 2018-08-22T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2018-08-22T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Experimental | Mysteries of the Deep | August 22, 2018 | 7.3 | 224e5bf7-41ff-429a-abc3-3170ee1e4526 | Philip Sherburne | https://pitchfork.com/staff/philip-sherburne/ | |
Animal Collective's transitional 2003 album, recorded in one long take on a porch in the Maryland woods, is reissued on their Paw Tracks imprint. | Animal Collective's transitional 2003 album, recorded in one long take on a porch in the Maryland woods, is reissued on their Paw Tracks imprint. | Animal Collective: Campfire Songs | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/13818-campfire-songs/ | Campfire Songs | When the newly reissued Campfire Songs first came out in 2003, there was no such thing as Animal Collective. After releasing two albums of warped noise-pop under different combinations of weird names, Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Deakin, and Geologist were still learning how to integrate their distinct electro-acoustic preoccupations. The "Animal Collective" brand was later affixed to it, but Campfire Songs was originally intended to be the album's eponymous title. In truth, it's more appropriate. It's not simply that they hadn't picked a name; they really weren't Animal Collective yet. This was before the "Letterman" appearances and spectrum-wide media interest; before they became the object of hit pieces and big-picture rants in the trenches of online journalism; before Deakin wanted you to help him play Mali-- basically, before Animal Collective got about as formidable, culturally and aesthetically, as a modern indie band can be. This release retroactively stresses how hard they must have had to push to get there.
It was the only time they used the name "Campfire Songs", and the album has other peculiarities. It's the only one featuring this exact line-up (Geologist didn't play, only ran the MiniDisc recorders, on the Maryland porch where the five songs were captured in one long take.) It's much more acoustic than electro, made chiefly of intertwined voices, softly droning guitars, and light natural ambiance. It's an uncommonly easeful entry into their catalog, and an important pivot. The feeling of discovery that attends it is not incidental. "Congregate," they moan portentously on "Moo Rah Rah Rain". The album sounds like a careful group of musicians on the verge of figuring out what they are.
As such, it lacks the authoritative veneer and durability of later records, from Sung Tongs onward. If you'd have said, based on this album, that these guys would be a cultural bellwether in a few years, people would have thought you were nuts (or at least massively stoned). It's difficult now to conceive of Animal Collective without vigorous rhythms, vibrant electronics, and a certain formality to their arrangements of chaos. But in retrospect, Campfire Songs already contains many essential elements that would come to define the band: Glowing vocal harmonies, the fearless use of negative space, the little snips and grafts that always temper their naturalism. The music also illustrates the drift away from masculine beats and toward sensual waves that has been indie music's prevailing current in recent years, as rock influences have lost ground. The ghosts of 1960s psychedelia and British folk haunt the vocal and guitar techniques at times, but this sound was in no way trembling on the verge of broad accessibility. They would take it there with sheer resolve, by broadening their ambition and stretching their comfort zone.
Beyond its canonical interest, Campfire Songs has its own charms. Though rigorously composed, it feels deceptively spontaneous. The atmosphere is both inviting and severe, and startlingly vivid. It's difficult to argue that it's among their best, but it could easily be your favorite, because its allure is so simple and pure. You can feel the crisp air outside where they are recording, and it feels inescapably like nighttime. It's very much like sitting by a campfire, with a hot face and freezing back. While the album's impact is limited on a song-by-song basis, it has a powerful cumulative effect.
It plays out with all the surges of inspiration and subtle modulations of mood of a mushroom trip or whatever kind of spiritual journey you favor, through the scraps of Spanish guitar of "Two Corvettes" and the shimmering "Moo Rah Rah Rain". The trip is beautifully completed with full-bore pastoral "De Soto De Son", where day breaks at last. It's the perfect cap to the record, not just aesthetically, but symbolically. Birds twitter, waking up with everything else, and the tape hiss really does seem to brighten. There's a total sense of calm, renewal, a journey completed, knowledge refreshed. Normal time resumes, and for the conglomerate creature now known as Animal Collective, it's time to get to work. | 2010-01-14T01:00:00.000-05:00 | 2010-01-14T01:00:00.000-05:00 | Experimental | Paw Tracks | January 14, 2010 | 7.2 | 22524173-34ab-4adb-8abd-b7e814dd4e0b | Brian Howe | https://pitchfork.com/staff/brian-howe/ | null |
These vinyl reissues of the Scottish power-pop luminaries’ outstanding Creation Records output showcase a band whose music captures the feeling of living with the music you love. | These vinyl reissues of the Scottish power-pop luminaries’ outstanding Creation Records output showcase a band whose music captures the feeling of living with the music you love. | Teenage Fanclub: Bandwagonesque / Thirteen / Grand Prix / Songs from Northern Britain / Howdy! | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/teenage-fanclub-bandwagonesque-thirteen-grand-prix-songs-from-northern-britain-howdy/ | Bandwagonesque / Thirteen / Grand Prix / Songs from Northern Britain / Howdy! | Earlier this year, a New York Times study suggested that the music of our teenage years becomes the music we love throughout our lives. The Scottish power-pop group Teenage Fanclub have spent their career testing a similar theory. Their preference for familiar sounds is not just a result of their improbable band name or the fact that the connection between their brand of lovesick, harmony-coated, major-key rock’n’roll and adolescence goes back to “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” Since rising out of Glasgow’s C86 scene in the late 1980s, Teenage Fanclub have been fascinated by how our formative influences grow with us, how simple sounds can carry a lifetime of associations. Like no other band, their music captures the feeling of living with the music you love, in all its permutations of euphoria and complacency and companionship.
As trends have come and gone, the members of Teenage Fanclub have maintained a preternatural knack for blocking out the world. To listen to their deeply consistent catalog is to hear a band that never grew tired of its pet sounds: the melodic precision of Big Star; the tight-knit harmonies of the Byrds; the plainspoken hum of Neil Young; the lite psychedelia of the British Invasion. Occasionally, one influence rises above the others. The group banded together and set off to record their debut, 1990’s A Catholic Education, after attending a Dinosaur Jr. concert, and it shows in the music—bathed in feedback and noise, wary toward life outside the studio. But as Teenage Fanclub grew up, they let more light in.
A new series of vinyl reissues, each paired with two hand-selected bonus tracks, expertly showcases this beautiful evolution. Kicking off with 1991’s breakthrough Bandwagonesque and spanning the following decade, each of these records (with the possible exception of 2000’s Howdy!) has its superfans. So simple and immediate is this music that it’s always been easy to slip into hyperbole discussing it. Oft-repeated legends about Teenage Fanclub involve more famous contemporaries cosigning them at the peak of their influence: Nirvana, Radiohead, and Sonic Youth bringing them on as a support act; Liam Gallagher, in his coke-addled Be Here Now-era megalomania, calling them the “second best band in the world” (after Oasis, of course). In 1991, SPIN hailed Bandwagonesque as the year’s best album, beating out Nevermind, Achtung Baby, and Loveless. It should surprise no one that this band’s biggest partisans have always been critics and fellow musicians.
For all the talk of their perfect melodies and pristine harmonies, part of Teenage Fanclub’s appeal lies in their humility. The early word around Glasgow was that they were nothing special: fun guys to hang out with and talk music, but lacking the ambition to really go anywhere. They seemed satisfied with being underdogs. But they also harbored a singular commitment that made them uncommonly self-aware and sustainable. “We take the music and the actual performances very seriously,” Gerard Love pointed out in a 1990 interview. “It’s the idea of being a pop star that we don’t take seriously.… We don’t see ourselves having the answers to anything. We’re not…”
Bandmate Norman Blake finished the thought: “... visionaries of a generation.”
The only three permanent members of Teenage Fanclub are their vocalists and songwriters: Blake, Love, and Raymond McGinley. Unlike the bands they drew inspiration from, the leaders of TFC never seemed to be at war with one another. They never made their White Album or Tusk, to prove their records came from tortured, conflicting perspectives. Instead, their music seems to blossom out of unity, with each songwriter doing his best to further explore the feelings described by his bandmates. On any given album, you might hear each of them singing a variation of “I’m in love with you.” It’s a dynamic that seems almost pre-rock’n’roll, a team of craftsmen laboring, beyond ego, for the sake of the song.
If Bandwagonesque has stood the test of time as TFC’s masterpiece, it might be largely because it came first. Following A Catholic Education and its mostly instrumental follow-up The King, this was their first release for Alan McGee’s Creation Records and their introduction to the wider world, especially U.S. audiences. It’s crucial that the first things we hear on the record are a burst of feedback and a description of a character’s taste in clothes and music. “She wears denim wherever she goes/Says she’s gonna get some records by the Status Quo,” Blake sings in “The Concept.” It’s an iconic opener—not just because the melody is so enrapturing, but also because it sets up the reverie that this band and their fans would inhabit. If the music you love is your means of identification—how you introduce yourself at a party, how you get through the day—then this band was speaking directly to you.
As its comically literal music video demonstrates, “The Concept” works better as a foggy daydream than as an actual character study. This is part of the charm of Bandwagonesque: Its love songs, like the swooning “What You Do to Me,” seem more inspired by the genre of love songs than by actual love. Just as “Metal Baby” or the controlled chaos of “Satan” won’t convince you that anyone in this band has ever actually been to a metal show, the love songs sound like the result of long nights spent alone, listening to Double Fantasy on repeat and imagining what it might feel like to confess your soul to someone you really care about. Real devotion came later in their music—for now, just the idea was enthralling enough.
This is why it’s not Blake’s lyrics in the first half of “The Concept” that make the song come alive so much as the the wordless, weightless coda that follows: A heaven-bound guitar solo wraps around Brendan O’Hare’s slow-motion, lighter-waving drums, as three-part harmonies crash like waves against rocks. When the coda arrives in the music video, the protagonist, without lyrics to guide her actions, starts wreaking havoc in the record store, tearing down posters and knocking over shelves. A better visualization might be starting her own shop. Bandwagonesque is the sound of discovery—of finding your voice and naming your mission.
1993’s Thirteen, its gnarlier, sloppier follow-up, had the disadvantage of coming next. To this day, its reputation is far worse than the actual music. After the whirlwind of Bandwagonesque, critics hated this record, calling it derivative (the title was taken from a Big Star song; the closing track was named after Gene Clark) and brainless (“Norman 3” finds Blake repeating the actual sentence “I’m in love with you” more than 20 times). In the press, Blake came across as bitter and hurt and hilarious, mocking flashier bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers and Stone Temple Pilots, and pointing toward the comparative integrity of his music. “We’re the opposite of ‘muscles and crap tattoos’ music, sweaty music. We’re not sweaty, not on purpose, anyway,” he argued to NME. “We write honest tunes, man… Songs.”
Judged on the strength of its songwriting, and not by its inability to live up to expectations or by its production (this new vinyl edition certainly sounds less muddy than the original release), the album remains an ambitious step forward. Love’s contributions in particular are pivotal. “Gene Clark” is one of the band’s great experiments and one of their finest performances—a “Down by the River” jam that evolves into something as sweet and cyclical as springtime. Other tracks, like the patchwork epic “Hang On” and the defiant “Song to the Cynic,” lack the endearing immediacy of Bandwagonesque but make up for it in confidence. “No offense,” Blake told the NME about the album’s bad press, “But I don’t worry about journalists because we know more about music than most journalists anyway.” Thirteen is the last time they played dumb; they would never sound so young or reckless again.
The albums that followed adopted a more controlled, subdued palate—less denim, more cardigans. Gone are any traces of grunge guitars or ’90s angst; McGinley’s guitar solos become more fluid and melodic, like a flute filtered through a distortion pedal; occasionally explosive drummer O’Hare is replaced by the more sedate Paul Quinn. Arriving as the the Britpop boom brought their set of retro influences back into style, 1995’s Grand Prix is every bit as inspired and stacked with hooks as Bandwagonesque—they’re just prioritized differently. “It’s not music for when you’re about to go out,” Love said. “It’s music for when you get back in.”
If Teenage Fanclub once seemed like a ceaseless rush of endorphins, their new sound was a small plane taking off: It seemed to glide on its own, and, before you knew it, was airborne. “Don’t Look Back,” a highlight from Grand Prix, finds Love admitting there’s little he can say to change someone’s mood; with Blake and McGinley’s harmonies aiding him through the final, triumphant chorus, though, he becomes a hero—stealing cars, lighting up the city. In “Sparky’s Dream,” one of their greatest songs, Love sings about someone just out of reach. “Always tried to keep the feeling alive,” he muses. On Grand Prix, TFC take on the same task: Sometimes they soar, sometimes they volley, and, more times than not, they land straight on the heart.
Two years later, in 1997, they returned with Songs From Northern Britain, a wise and ornate record about domestic life. By now, Blake had gotten married and become a father, and he could write brilliantly unguarded love songs like “I Don’t Want Control of You” and “Start Again,” with lyrics as poignant as his melodies. McGinley’s ballad “Your Love Is the Place Where I Come From” paints a similar portrait, as still and persistent as the fireplace in your living room. In both its thematic concerns and its gentle, pastoral tone, Songs From Northern Britain is an embrace of native terrain. Their contentment sounds radiant.
After 2000’s Howdy!, an album of quiet triumphs—the off-kilter rhythm of “Dumb Dumb Dumb,” “Cul De Sac”’s otherworldly drift—Teenage Fanclub started taking longer between records, retreating even further from the spotlight. They now seemed more willing to put the band on hold to gather new energy from collaborations and side projects. Some of the material on the bonus 7''s included with these reissues points toward later gems, like 2005’s electric Man-Made and 2016’s hushed, autumnal Here. Chosen mostly from their deep well of B-sides, these tracks highlight some of the band’s charming experiments (“Country Song,” “Thaw Me”) and unsung gems (“Some People Try to Fuck With You” “One Thousand Lights”). In these ten rarities, you can hear a succinct summary of all the ground they have conquered, as well as what they have left to explore.
For all their subtle evolutions, Teenage Fanclub have devoted themselves to making records that still feel steadfast and timeless—never going out of style, never losing the feeling. It’s a path they set out upon with their first single, “Everything Flows.” “We get older every year/But you don’t change,” Blake observed, then added a caveat: “Or I don’t notice you’re changing.” Lose yourself in something long enough and it becomes its own marker of time, with all its own sunrises and shadows. | 2018-08-11T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2018-08-11T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Rock | null | August 11, 2018 | 8.7 | 2252b1aa-febd-463e-8b4d-b187d14433d4 | Sam Sodomsky | https://pitchfork.com/staff/sam-sodomsky/ | null |
Sarah Howells’ latest project is simple and sweet; its lower stakes fit an album about finding peace of mind amid sensory overload. | Sarah Howells’ latest project is simple and sweet; its lower stakes fit an album about finding peace of mind amid sensory overload. | Bryde: The Volume of Things | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/bryde-the-volume-of-things/ | The Volume of Things | This is not the first time Sarah Howells has been on the brink of larger success with a smartly written, well-arranged pop record. The Volume of Things, her second album as Bryde, is the latest in a line of projects stretching back to the early 2000s, all constantly on the verge of stardom before a change in course feels necessary. Her previous band, Paper Aeroplanes, released the kind of friendly, folksy records that rarely find critical acclaim or commercial success, but manage to develop a modest fanbase anyway via niche folk blogs and rotation on BBC’s adult contemporary station Radio 2 next to Bear’s Den and Billie Marten. The praise still came with caveats like “old-fashioned” and “hardly in vogue”. Howells’ work in Bryde was darker, culminating in the moody breakup album Like An Island in 2018. Bryde. But The Volume of Things once again embraces the sweetness of her Paper Aeroplanes work. It feels smaller, but the lower stakes fit an album about finding peace of mind amid sensory overload.
It’s not a groundbreaking album (this is a record that rhymes “fire” with “desire” within its first 30 seconds, then does it again several songs later), but on an album that feels designed to be accessible, that’s the point. The best lyrics on the record narrow the scope to a search for connection, viewing love as a way to be unburdened: “Another Word for Free” repeats, “Would you be the weight off my shoulders?” while on “Paper Cups,” Howells wants to “Sip on your sympathy” to free herself. The words are about feeling free, but the music is restrained and straightforward.
Thomas Mitchener’s production rarely involves more than a basic band setup, and even when the occasional synth makes an appearance it’s more often the focal point of a song than window dressing. By design, the album rarely gets too ambitious, but the songwriting is strong enough to make every moment distinct. The best hint at something denser; lead single “The Trouble Is” follows its chorus with a wordless, dreamy collection of “heyayayayayahs.” “Handing it Over,” the lone song helmed by Teenage Fanclub and Mogwai engineer Paul Savage, is a glimpse of something bigger.
Having an edge is largely unnecessary on an album like this, but the album could take some risks. The arrangement for “Outsiders” feels like it’s working through a checklist for Haunting Indie Ballad instead of building with the song’s love story. When a song like “Flies” actually aims for a dramatic crescendo, the brightness of the production mutes the impact. For better or worse, anything more dramatic would ruin the album’s aesthetic; the closer is a “Blue Bucket of Gold”-style ballad without the discomfiting ambience of Sufjan’s music, yet “discomfiting” was never the intention.
There’s barely space for albums with modest ambitions like The Volume of Things anymore, given the actual volume of music currently available. Pop-rock like this doesn’t have the same success it did even a few years ago when someone like Ingrid Michaelson crossed over to the Hot 100. It’s accessible, but for a market that may not exist beyond the same stomping grounds as Paper Aeroplanes, barring a Spotify playlist or two. In a crowded industry, being well-written and smart isn’t enough to stand out, even if ideally it should be. Especially right now, it’s difficult for even relatively successful bands to make music full time, so if there was any leeway for Halflight in 2004 or Paper Aeroplanes in 2010, there’s almost none for Bryde in 2020. But there should be an avenue for albums like this to be successful—an unstable industry has made a record this unshowy difficult to make, but if one person connects, Howells has accomplished her mission. | 2020-06-03T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2020-06-03T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Rock | Easy Life | June 3, 2020 | 6.5 | 226b48c3-a2d2-49ff-a32b-74d940d79b0f | Hannah Jocelyn | https://pitchfork.com/staff/hannah-jocelyn/ | |
The New York singer-songwriter infuses aesthetics of indie pop with the rigor of his opera training. Sung by a small crew of friends, his cryptic lyrics feel like a snapshot of his social circle. | The New York singer-songwriter infuses aesthetics of indie pop with the rigor of his opera training. Sung by a small crew of friends, his cryptic lyrics feel like a snapshot of his social circle. | Kolb: *Tyrannical Vibes * | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/kolb-tyrannical-vibes/ | Tyrannical Vibes | Mike Kolb moved to New York City in 2012 to study opera at Brooklyn College, but it wasn’t until he became immersed in the borough’s DIY scene that the singer-songwriter found an outlet for the feelings he sought to express. In 2017, he began home-recording songs under his own name, infusing the quaint, bare-bones aesthetic of classic indie pop with the rigor of his classical training. While these two elements of his style might seem like opposing forces on paper, in practice they form a delicate symbiosis. On early efforts like 2018’s Making Moves EP, Kolb emoted with the ease of a marathon runner’s warm-up jog, offsetting his theatrical, Morrissey-esque instincts on the mic with a muted, warbly instrumental palette.
On his latest LP, Tyrannical Vibes, Kolb broadens his once insular creative scope, enlisting a small crew of friends and former collaborators to provide lead vocals in his place. Though he does sing on a few tracks, Kolb slips into the background for the majority of the album’s runtime, meticulously arranging vocal harmonies around his own lyrics to draw out hidden flavors, or weaving jazzier instrumental threads into the fold. Performed by an ensemble cast, his signature lyrics, volleying cryptic questions back and forth, feel less like an internal monologue and more like a surreal peek into Kolb’s real-life social circle.
It’s Kolb’s unaccompanied voice, however, that kicks off opener “Cruising” with a cheeky “hello” before he lays down a staccato acoustic guitar riff—the sort of plunking phrase you’d hear on an early Beat Happening record. When the verse arrives, his vocals feel more understated than in the past, slipping into a faint, high-pitched register that allows them to quiver and yelp without dominating the mix. On the hook, Kolb’s guitar plucks ripple out into chords, while gleaming keys and intricately braided backing vocal rounds performed by Ani Ivry-Block and Carolyn Hietter fill in the interstitial space. You may not notice all these details in passing, but there’s a bustling network of tiny harmonic interactions operating beneath the surface, informed by the years he spent in a Catholic church choir.
These components emulsify even better when Kolb works around Hietter’s lead vocals. Though she is primarily a saxophonist, her voice’s cordial yet slightly deadpan timbre suits the gently sardonic tone of Kolb’s writing. On “I Guess I’m Lucky,” she plays a character whose partner has yet to show up to dinner: I’ll give you ‘til a quarter to six/To make your way through the door/I’ll bet that they kept you late/To go and mop up the floor,” she lilts, sounding resigned. The saxophone solo she wedges into a brief interlude bolsters the scene, winding around peppy guitar chords and frail, chiming keys as if scoring a ’70s sitcom’s opening credits.
Her sax briefly appears again on the record’s best track, “I Love to Play the Game,” this time in a supporting role, bookending each verse with a swift melodic flourish. Kolb has said that Tyrannical Vibes was inspired by karaoke sessions, and it shows: The prevailing mood is downright celebratory, cowbell clinking like a toast as Hietter, Kolb, and his roommate Max Brown lay down criss-crossing vocal takes that overlap at strange, revelatory angles. Even the guitar solo is perfectly in tune with the raucous, sloppy energy, hammering on a pair of notes before it sputters out in a maniacal daze. It’s easy to get caught up in the reverie.
Kolb’s momentum only falters when he slows the brisk pace on “Jean-Luc,” a floaty tune that staggers on a half-formed groove. Though its individual elements—a feathery drone played on an electric guitar’s highest strings, handclaps, a gentle bassline to nudge things along—don’t quite gel, the track’s still not without potential. Invoking the late New Wave auteur, it playfully revels in espionage and grayscale paranoia (“birds chirping in code”), but, as the only true solo outing here, it lacks the record’s unifying sense of camaraderie.
Tyrannical Vibes is an idyllic escape for both performers and listeners. Like the after-work karaoke that brought Kolb’s band together, it’s a temporary reprieve from headier ventures like opera or avant-garde jazz: low-stakes and a bit silly, but tinged with just enough academic expertise to set it apart from the indie landscape’s ubiquitous bedroom pop. At a compact 25 minutes, the record is a cozy indulgence, like a rerun of that imaginary ’70s sitcom. The cast feels strangely familiar, its jazzy intonations warm and comforting. Despite Tyrannical Vibes’ title, its atmosphere is inviting—never oppressive. | 2022-09-28T00:00:00.000-04:00 | 2022-09-28T00:00:00.000-04:00 | Experimental / Rock | Ramp Local | September 28, 2022 | 7.4 | 226e6d80-effc-4429-8ac2-65e2db4b15e7 | Jude Noel | https://pitchfork.com/staff/jude-noel/ | |
These whimsical, at times absurdist songs from the former Lounge Lizard’s gently quixotic HBO series seem designed to channel the beautiful weirdness at the heart of the human experience. | These whimsical, at times absurdist songs from the former Lounge Lizard’s gently quixotic HBO series seem designed to channel the beautiful weirdness at the heart of the human experience. | John Lurie: Painting With John (Music From the Original TV Series) | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/john-lurie-painting-with-john-music-from-the-original-tv-series/ | Painting With John (Music From the Original TV Series) | “Old Man Dancing,” number 18 on the 56-track double album Painting With John: Music from the Series by John Lurie, opens with John Lurie exhorting listeners to get moving. “Dance like no one is watching,” he beseeches over funk guitar and saucy horns, winking at the inspirational adage. “Even if you have a show on HBO!”
“Old Man Dancing” shares its title with an episode of Painting With John, a meditative and beautiful series that blended Lurie’s exceptional talent for storytelling with close-ups of his brushstrokes as he painted watercolors, along with the occasional surrealist skit. On the show, the song accompanies images of Lurie in basketball shorts and a tank top, dancing on a rock in the sun, flapping his arms between camera pans to his black sneakers. (In the same episode, he tells a story about scoring a Barney’s commercial for Glenn O’Brien, while drawing a bird with a fountain pen.) Was the song born first, or the scene? It doesn’t matter—the meta nature of the whole project underscores that to Lurie, the lines between each medium are porous. This might lend the album a self-referential quality for devotees of the show, but on its own it translates to a lovely and sprawling collection of intrepid banjo and deep-groove polyrhythms full of the spontaneity and deadpan humor that have defined Lurie’s work since he taught himself to play harmonica in the late 1960s.
Lurie is perhaps best known as the saxophonist of the Lounge Lizards, the experimental group that was active from 1978 to the end of the 20th century, and which he forged in downtown New York when living downtown in New York still meant something. Lurie has also, simultaneously, been an actor, visual artist, film scorer, and author—his 2021 book, The History of Bones, is one of the best-written musical memoirs I’ve read—and in 1991 created Fishing With John, the cult show in which Lurie took guests like Tom Waits and Dennis Hopper out on the water. Painting With John, which unfortunately ended in 2023, after just three seasons, was a slightly more hermetic show than its predecessor, though no less generous or ingenious. Much of its appeal was its fluent, often surprising soundtrack, and its portrayal of the way Lurie's life has shifted in recent years. Diagnosed with Lyme disease and then cancer, Lurie relocated to an undisclosed island in the Caribbean to reconstitute. He was unable to play music for a time. Now 72, he seems to think of this release as punctuation: In press materials, he said that the Painting With John music “may be the last thing I do. I want it to be beautiful.”
It certainly is beautiful, both a retrospective and temperature check of his current artistic yen. Lurie has traded his alto saxophone for banjo and guitar, shifting his melodies to a lower register. The album includes a handful of tracks from prior projects that were featured on the show—the melancholy clarinet melody “Goodbye to Peach” and a few others from the 1998 film scores African Swim and Manny & Lo; and “Small Car” from a 1999 album by the Legendary Marvin Pontiac, a fictional blues outsider that Lurie invented. The resurfaced songs thread Lurie’s earlier musical ideas—full of whimsy and acted-upon impulse, “first thought/best thought” in motion—into those he cultivates now, which can be simpler, sweeter, and funnier. On “Pygmy With Dog Barks,” a song as absurdist and literal as his paintings, a recording of a dog barking acts as a kind of rhythm section behind Lurie’s lightly plucked guitars—perhaps a reference to the music of the Central African Pygmies, one of his many musical passions. “Boomba!” is a 30-second vocal spurt that layers his distinct basso rasp with a wee-ooh-wee-ooh-we sound, invoking both Tuvan throat singers and a speeding toy ambulance. “Cowboy Beckett Jaunty Guitar With Hoo-Hahs” is exactly that—an Ennio Morricone-style guitar gallop with “hoo-hah” shouts on top. His penchant for naming these songs literally is as delightful as the songs themselves, though how a “song” should even be defined seems to be part of the question they pose; the latter is 18 seconds long, perhaps a gag on Morricone’s long spaghetti sagas, yet just as hypnotic, the abbreviated point still made.
Always a fulcrum for a dynamic cast of collaborators, Lurie’s curation here includes former Lounge Lizards—Steven Bernstein on trumpet, the late Curtis Fowlkes on trombone, Doug Wieselman on guitar, Michael Blake on tenor sax and Calvin Weston on drums—as well as cellist Jane Scarpantoni and trombonist Clark Gayton, among others. The instrumentation might suggest jazz—“fake jazz” being a designation Lurie invented and then regretted throughout his career—but what transcends genre is just the pureness of the jam, not to get too woo-woo. There’s a playfulness in these songs, and a purity of intent, that seems to channel the human experience in all its beautiful weirdness. “A Goat Says Fuck” invites the listener to comtemplate whether goats’ bleats are hidden curses; its corresponding painting implies said goat is wracked with indecision between, maybe, hieroglyphics and inedible plants.
"I Don’t Like to Stand on Line,” from Marvin Pontiac’s Greatest Hits, is a dirge or a death knell, Lurie wailing the title sentiment over an ominous and frenetic banjo twang. Alongside his painting of the same name, he reframes an everyday frustration as an existential question, a kind of black hole of time and the futility of the mundane. But, as with much of his music, it might also just be a lark. Painting With John’s final song, “The Invention of Animals,” is over 18 minutes long—the longest song here by six—and full of abandon, its percussion going ham in a mesmerizing fugue until the group collapses into a sweet flutter of sax and builds back up again. It’s brash and cacophonous, but there’s a tenderness to it, a fullness in the moment. The heart and the absurdity catch up with you. | 2024-03-21T00:02:00.000-04:00 | 2024-03-21T00:02:00.000-04:00 | Experimental / Jazz | Strange and Beautiful Music | March 21, 2024 | 8 | 22782c96-9f96-4547-9bd1-dd5dc16ede05 | Julianne Escobedo Shepherd | https://pitchfork.com/staff/julianne-escobedo shepherd/ | |
The Buffalo trio’s Shady Records debut doesn’t sacrifice an ounce of their gritty and ruthless throwback aesthetic. | The Buffalo trio’s Shady Records debut doesn’t sacrifice an ounce of their gritty and ruthless throwback aesthetic. | Griselda: WWCD | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/griselda-wwcd/ | WWCD | Give Eminem credit: As a label head, he learns from his mistakes. It’s been eight years since Shady Records stopped Yelawolf’s career cold with Radioactive, a misguided bid to repackage the rough-edged rapper as a crossover star, and since then Marshall Mathers has stopped treating his signees as lottery tickets. He’s taken an especially hands-off approach with Griselda, the bloody-knuckled Buffalo trio whose Shady Records debut never veers from the hardcore hip-hop of their self-released solo projects and mixtapes. While their mastery of mid-’90s-worshipping East Coast rap has earned them a devoted following, Shady has bowed to the reality that the gritty trio is an inherently niche act. No Skylar Grey feature or Alex da Kid production is going to broaden their appeal.
Brothers Conway and Westside Gunn and first cousin Benny the Butcher don’t even bother with choruses, stitching their coke-dusted, bullet-riddled crime tales together with ad-libbed gun sounds instead. Griselda’s first full group outing, WWCD offers something their solo efforts only featured intermittently: interplay. On “Chef Dreds” and “Scotties,” the relatives trade bars and finish each other’s thoughts, playing Westside Gunn’s nasally shit talk against Conway’s cold slur and Benny the Butcher’s bruiser swagger. These three are at their best at their most untamed, and WWCD is the crew’s most unrelentingly raucous showcase yet.
In keeping with its predecessors, the project was produced by Griselda’s house beat makers Daringer and Beat Butcha, Wu-Tang evangelists who serve the same dependable meal again and again, never offering a twist. On the crew’s solo projects, that monotony could begin to tire, but here it keeps the focus where it belongs, on the trio’s brutal wordplay and sour back-and-forth. These three have no problem sustaining intrigue on their own.
Griselda is hardly the only crew nailing the feel of ’90s hip-hop, but they also conjure the heightened reality of the era in a way few of its imitators do. Without succumbing to silliness, they push the violence to fantastical extremes, half horrific, half cartoonish (the interlude “Kennedy” is just 42 seconds of Westside Gunn repeating “blow your fucking face off” and making boom noises). They don’t skimp on the punchlines, either, especially Benny: “I’m 5’8” but 6’11” if I stand on my bricks,” he boasts on “Moselle.”
Most of the album’s guests slot themselves seamlessly into the mood, including Raekwon, who offers a symbolic cosign of the crew on the spoken opener “Marchello,” and 50 Cent, who relishes rolling around in the mud on “City on the Map.” The glaring exception is the most high-profile one: Eminem, who does his equivalent of Diddy dancing in Bad Boy videos on the album-closing remix of the Conway track “Bang.” For 46 showy bars it’s all about Shady as Eminem runs through his greatest hits, spitting hyper-technical dick jokes and reminiscing about the great beefs of his TRL heyday. It’s not ideal—the verse feels pumped in from another plane of existence, and it undoes the grimy mood the rest of the record sets so meticulously—but it’s easy enough to skip. And if Eminem’s star power is what it takes to introduce this trio to a slightly wider audience, then so be it. | 2019-12-04T01:00:00.000-05:00 | 2019-12-04T01:00:00.000-05:00 | Rap | Shady | December 4, 2019 | 7.7 | 22793211-3f64-4765-99db-0a71ad3c3b8d | Evan Rytlewski | https://pitchfork.com/staff/evan-rytlewski/ | |
Kevin Shields did a live online interview on AOL in February 1997. The obvious question was asked first: When can ... | Kevin Shields did a live online interview on AOL in February 1997. The obvious question was asked first: When can ... | Various Artists: Lost in Translation | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/7714-lost-in-translation/ | Lost in Translation | Kevin Shields did a live online interview on AOL in February 1997. The obvious question was asked first: When can we hear some new material? Shields responded, "Definitely sometime this year or I'm dead," and then later, "I really am dead if I don't get my record out this year." Six and a half years after that interview there's still no follow-up to the landmark Loveless, but Shields is very much alive, working with Primal Scream and doing the occasional remix. He recently admitted that the pressure of following what many consider to be a perfect record is what did him in. He couldn't bear to put the My Bloody Valentine name on something inferior to Loveless, and so he kept his tapes in the vault. There was no next chapter and probably never will be; life continues.
Perhaps the enormous weight Kevin Shields has been living under has been lifted. My Bloody Valentine exists only as history and now, on the soundtrack to Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation, Shields gives his own name a try. Lost in Translation contains four new Shields tracks, his first original work in more than a decade, and though there are eleven other songs here, the Shields material is the drawing card.
He first appears on the second track, "City Girl", his lone new vocal song. On first listen it sounds like a demo of a pre-Loveless track, possibly from the You Made Me Realise era. It's mid-tempo, with an unusual repeating melody and a two-note chorus. The guitar is simple and rough, a bit garage-rock, bouncing over characteristically buried drums that seem an afterthought. This is Kevin Shields the pop songwriter, the guy with a collection of rare Beatles bootlegs who puts on "Strawberry Fields" when he's feeling down. The sound of the thing could be anybody-- no exploration on that front-- but the melody and voice are familiar and welcome.
The next two Shields tracks are pretty instrumentals that feel more like film cues (which they are) than proper songs. "Goodbye" has a wispy synth texture and a vaguely Celtic bent, and sounds somewhat Eno-esque but more emotionally manipulative, like it must play in a scene geared to leave a lump in your throat. The faint glide guitar textures gently snaking through the drone offer evidence of its maker, but the signature is subtle. Then there's the 98-second "Ikebana", which consists of lightly plucked electric guitar over gentle synth washes. It's not boring, exactly, just nondescript. If you Invisible Jukeboxed me, I might guess I might guess Mark Knopfler's soundtrack to The Princess Bride.
Finally, there's the odd "Are You Awake?" The most sonically interesting of Shields' tracks, "Are You Awake?" combines the steady pulse of a cheap Casio drum machine with some echoing, dubby guitar effects. It reminds a little of pre-Autobahn Kraftwerk and the surprising motorik rhythm combines wonderfully with his gauzy guitar texture, but it's painfully short at a minute and a half. I get the sense that Shields is on the verge of tapping into something deeper here, some combination of his guitar depth and cheap instrumental overlays, but "Are You Awake?" doesn't give much to go on.
As to the rest of the soundtrack, Shields' presence extends beyond his new songs. Maybe I'm just filling in blanks, but aspects of the sound he perfected can be felt throughout. There's a My Bloody Valentine track ("Sometimes"), a My Bloody Valentine forbear (Jesus and Mary Chain's "Just Like Honey" closes), and an unexpectedly great My Bloody Valentine impression (Death in Vegas' ethereal "Girls"). Squarepusher's short ambient ditty "Tommib" even seems vaguely connected somehow.
Other highlights include Air's mostly acoustic (guitar and piano) "Alone in Kyoto", which echoes the competent mood music of their recent collaboration with Italian author Alessandro Baricco (sans the narration), and Kaze Wo Atsumete's "Happy End", which sounds like a fine Aluminum Group AM radio tribute sung in Japanese. There are odd selections (Phoenix's "Too Young" sounds like an 80s power-pop track that might have soundtracked a Michael J. Fox flick), but for the most part, the tracks hang together and flow relatively well, orbiting the shimmering dreampop mass that serves as the record's unstated inspiration. The man at the center of that universe sounds unsteady, but a tentative first step back into the songwriting world is better than nothing. Here's hoping he makes it a bit further next time. | 2003-10-01T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2003-10-01T01:00:00.000-04:00 | null | Emperor Norton | October 1, 2003 | 6.3 | 227a7416-dfc0-485d-be1b-b0aed064d353 | Mark Richardson | https://pitchfork.com/staff/mark-richardson/ | null |
The work of classically trained electronic composer Suzanne Ciani effortlessly bridges the commercial and the avant garde. This compilation, spanning 1968-1985, is a perfect introduction to the far-reaching nature of her talents. | The work of classically trained electronic composer Suzanne Ciani effortlessly bridges the commercial and the avant garde. This compilation, spanning 1968-1985, is a perfect introduction to the far-reaching nature of her talents. | Suzanne Ciani: Lixiviation | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/16284-lixiviation/ | Lixiviation | The music of electronic composer Suzanne Ciani has quietly crept into many people's lives at some point. Her work effortlessly bridges the realms of the commercial and the avant garde, barely recognizing the distinction between the two. Ciani is a classically trained composer who studied with computer music trailblazer Max Mathews and worked with Don Buchla, the latter being the inventor of a frequently used tool in her musical armory, the Buchla 200 synthesizer. In the early 1970s she formed Ciani Musica, Inc. in New York, through which she produced soundtrack work for commercials by Merrill-Lynch, Clairol, Skittles, and GE among others (go here for some examples). Ciani's sound-effects work on Meco's platinum-selling disco version of the Star Wars soundtrack brought her unannounced to a wider audience, while her own career has positioned her as a proto-synth guru, a doyen of the new age musical movement, and, in more recent times, a noted classical musician.
Anyone looking for an entry point into Ciani's elastic career will be well served by Lixiviation, a compilation spanning 1968-85 from the always intriguing B-Music label. Here, the vaults of Ciani Musica have been plundered, with her peppy compositions for companies including PBS, Atari, and Coca-Cola documented, alongside ahead-of-their-time electronic pieces that hint at her later drift into new age. It's a perfect introduction to the far-reaching nature of her talents, but it's also useful for illustrating how music notionally thought to be "underground" often happily floats into family homes every evening. Through her commercial work, Ciani was prying open a door that led to unlikely collaborations further down the line, including Aphex Twin's work with Pirelli and music lent to a jeans ad by Sunn O))). In the sleeve notes, she indicates how her commercial work helped fund her creative pursuits-- another harbinger of how the music industry would ultimately evolve.
What binds Ciani's eclectic pieces on this album is the lucidity of her vision, which is emphasized further in those comprehensive sleeve notes. She talks of never using the word synthesizer ("it had strange and inappropriate connotations"), of spending "weeks just living with the machine, always on," when using her Buchla. It's not hard to romanticize her existence back then, buried under a deluge of wires and circuitry. This is a whole world she created, where brightly blinking synth noise flowed into fracturing swells of bass ("Lixiviation"), where a piece created as a choreography ("Princess with Orange Feet") sounded like great bursts of light collapsing into one another. The closing "Second Breath", recorded during Ciani's time at UC Berkeley circa 1968-70, is a precursor to the harsher, ever-repeating drones krautrock legends Cluster would appropriate as their central stylistic thrust a few years later.
It's easy to hear the hallmarks of that darker sound in some of Ciani's commercial work-- the "Clean Room" ITT TV spot has the same kind of density as John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 score, with sturdy prods of bass synth and a sparse, ricocheting beat providing the grounding for her to layer sunnier parts over the top. But Ciani was also enamored with the playful side of the instruments at her disposal. On the dainty clicks and whirrs of "Sound of a Dream Kissing", there are traces of the frivolous zing of Pierre Henry's classic "Psyché Rock". Her work for Atari and Coca-Cola are similarly buoyant, with the four seconds of bubbles, pop, and fizz she created for Coke forming a delightful piece of fluffy, synthesized mimicry.
It's telling that Ciani's music was deemed suitable for commercials and TV spots all over the world just as the public was getting to grips with a possible forthcoming computer age. Not just because of the obvious sci-fi components, but also because it bears a perfect blend of urgency, anxiety, and technological utopianism, straddling contrasting feelings of slack-jawed optimism about the future and all the Cold War-era jitters prevalent at the time. Her work for the PBS show "Inside Story" sounds like a dramatic precursor to receiving an impossibly bleak news update on our impending armageddon, while her corporate tag for Atari rushes assuredly into the future, embracing all the innovation around it. That ability to flit back and forth between styles and feelings no doubt made Ciani an attractive client to her corporate employers. But Lixiviation also goes some way to forming links between her disparate worlds, showing off more reflective work through what she describes as her "very feminine" synthesized waveforms, and demonstrating how such material bled through to the mainstream in unexpected ways. | 2012-02-15T01:00:02.000-05:00 | 2012-02-15T01:00:02.000-05:00 | Experimental | Finders Keepers / B-Music | February 15, 2012 | 7.4 | 227ae1e6-0c32-4eba-beb8-4f895600ef56 | Nick Neyland | https://pitchfork.com/staff/nick-neyland/ | null |
The Charlotte, North Carolina rapper's debut finds him in his sweet spot—alone and rapping with the anarchic energy of a tasmanian devil. | The Charlotte, North Carolina rapper's debut finds him in his sweet spot—alone and rapping with the anarchic energy of a tasmanian devil. | DaBaby: KIRK | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/dababy-kirk/ | KIRK | DaBaby hasn’t turned down a check since the Fourth of July. On that night, Dreamville debuted “Under the Sun,” a record that features the Charlotte, North Carolina rapper sounding like a local drug dealer that found God. Since that moment, nearly every pop-rap hit has gotten the DaBaby touch. This summer alone, the 27-year-old landed on tracks from Chance The Rapper, Lizzo, Lil Nas X, and Post Malone. In return, DaBaby, who a year ago was stuck in regional-rap-star purgatory, has become one of rap’s most visible stars.
With that visibility has come slight DaBaby fatigue; constant exposure to his breathless, high-energy flow will do that. Beginning with March’s Baby on Baby, DaBaby has flooded the internet with different iterations of the same song—you know the one. But it’s important that we note: DaBaby is really good at making that one song.
In DaBaby’s six months or so as a pop-culture figure, one thing that we know for sure is that he likes to rap. Like, really rap. He’s not spitting traditional lyrical-miracle 16s, but he is joyfully filling up every inch of available space, and on KIRK, R&B hooks and sing-rap harmonies are an afterthought. His rapping is relentless, and he doesn’t ride a beat so much as he steamrolls it.
KIRK offers some moments of unexpected depth. On “Intro,” he reveals that he learned “Suge” went No. 1 on Billboard’s mainstream R&B/hip-hop charts the same day he learned of his father’s sudden death. “Same time I got the news, my shit went number one, that’s fucked up,” he says, over a warm instrumental that sounds like it was made in a hip church’s Sunday school. For the first time, he effectively works an emotion besides “I will punch you in the face” into his formula, and it fits him surprisingly well.
DaBaby doesn’t stay in the reflective mindstate for long, though. After he pays respects to his father and comes to terms with his own trauma, he’s back making the sort of music that I imagine plays in his head while he punches a showgoer mid-bar and throws hands at the mall. On “Off The Rip,” DaBaby raps about eating at a restaurant with his kids and mother with the same chaotic spirit he brings to verses about robbing local drug dealers. DaBaby is self-aware, which goes a long way in hip-hop. He goes in over bass-heavy beats that are similar, but not the same, most notably from homegrown Carolina producer Jetsonmade. “Straight off the rip, you know I don’t wait for the drop,” he says, commenting on his penchant for rapping at the 0:01 timestamp.
KIRK’s momentum is disrupted by the number of guests that can’t hang with DaBaby (See: Nicki Minaj and Migos). DaBaby’s similarly anarchic long-time partner Stunna 4 Vegas and Kevin Gates are the lone guests that sound at home—which makes sense considering that Gates’ deadpan delivery has probably influenced DaBaby. But much of KIRK is DaBaby in his sweet spot: alone and rapping with the untamed aggression of a tasmanian devil, on a beat that could destroy a 2001 Toyota Corolla from the inside out if played too loud. Change is overrated. | 2019-10-02T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2019-10-02T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Rap | South Coast Music Group / Interscope | October 2, 2019 | 7.6 | 227b9873-ece9-45ec-83dd-da849082106a | Alphonse Pierre | https://pitchfork.com/staff/alphonse-pierre/ | |
The singer-songwriter’s latest album features a sweeping backstory about supernatural queer lovers on the run and a lurid, cinematic new sound. | The singer-songwriter’s latest album features a sweeping backstory about supernatural queer lovers on the run and a lurid, cinematic new sound. | Ezra Furman: Transangelic Exodus | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/ezra-furman-transangelic-exodus/ | Transangelic Exodus | For the past decade and then some, Chicago-raised songwriter Ezra Furman has burrowed his way into the seams of Americana and inflamed the genre with his crackling, tenacious voice. He’s not content to simply reenact the work of titanic American songwriters like Woody Guthrie and Bruce Springsteen, though he uses plenty of the same tools—saxophone, harmonica, fiddle, nylon-stringed guitar, sing-along melodies, a healthy distrust of authority. It’s more like he’s digging up what those big names left behind in the dust. Furman, a queer, Jewish artist with a tenor like a blowtorch, likes to pick at the scabs of the identities that cast him out from the mythos of all-American masculinity, wailing about God, love and mental illness with unhinged fervor. His fourth solo album, Transangelic Exodus, is his most thematically cohesive work to date: a loose narrative about supernatural queer lovers on the run from the law. The misfit feelings surging through his back catalog crystallize here into detailed imagery, giving the album a lurid, cinematic sheen.
Of all the lovers Furman has sung to across his songs, the vampires and the slackers and the zeroes, none appears more vividly than this album’s Angel. He’s introduced on the first track, “Suck the Blood From My Wound,” as a hospital escapee, tearing bandages from his broken wings and bleeding all over the passenger seat of a flashy red Camaro while a guitar riff borrowed from “Baba O’Riley” announces his triumphant jailbreak. “I’m in love with an angel, and a government is after us, and we have to leave home because angels are illegal,” Furman explains in a statement accompanying the album. Ultimately, though, knowledge of that fictional backstory is more or less superfluous to understanding the paranoid thrust of the lyrics. The personal pronouns he uses throughout the album are enough to communicate the urgency of this escape, as is the lust for unmitigated freedom in Furman’s voice as he belts, “Angel, don’t fight it/To them you know we’ll always be freaks.”
The sentiment behind these words, sung in a tone of liberatory joy and not shame, splashes across the album like a glitter bomb. Furman’s freak flag flies directly in the face of the relentlessly heterosexual and unflappably masculine American outcast rendered in John Wayne movies and Elvis Presley songs. If he invokes the trope of a rebel cruising west in a muscle car, it’s only so he can hollow it out and fill it back up with enough lipstick and sequins to supply a season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” But all that color and shine is about more than what we call “pride”; Furman is well aware of the price tag attached to his freedom. On the haltingly upbeat, synth-squiggled “Maraschino-Red Dress $8.99 at Goodwill,” he glances furtively at a thrift store’s cashier while weighing the decision to buy or not to buy. “Sometimes you go through hell and you never get to heaven,” he muses later in the song, entertaining a strain of fatalism common to artists who dart outside heteronormative paradigms. “This whole world is no place at all/No place for a creature like me,” he reiterates on “No Place.” Being openly queer can earn you weird looks at best and a death sentence if you’re unlucky, but forcing it down and pretending it’s not there is a death in itself. Better to choose the path that offers a shot at life. Better to be a creature without a home than not to be a creature at all.
“I don’t mind if I lose my limbs or die/I’ve built a home inside his eyes and I ain’t leaving,” Furman howls on the album’s second track, “Driving Down to L.A.” New production elements bolster the abandon in his words: huge, apocalyptic drums clatter behind him, buoyed on by swells of electronic bass. Transangelic Exodus folds an industrial edge into Furman’s all-American rock palette, deepening the darkness that closes in around his lyrics. So there’s some release at the very end of the album, when the gloom peels away and Furman starts singing about an early sexual encounter with a boy on “I Lost My Innocence.” He doesn’t sound ashamed or even burdened; it’s a light song with a silly melody, a postscript to the album’s narrative, sung as easily and with as much humor as “Jessie’s Girl” or “Cecilia.” He could have left it off the album, could have kept the tracklist focused on its core drama, but he didn’t. After that long, dark drive away from the world, Furman’s earned the right to a jingle about falling for a boy in a leather jacket. He’s kept his spark of wild hope burning so long it’s finally starting to look like a firework. | 2018-02-12T01:00:00.000-05:00 | 2018-02-12T01:00:00.000-05:00 | Rock | Bella Union | February 12, 2018 | 7.4 | 2281e93a-26a3-4258-857a-7a0d6eba0d72 | Sasha Geffen | https://pitchfork.com/staff/sasha-geffen/ | |
Matthew Dear’s contribution to the DJ-Kicks series is his most engaging commercial mix yet. Intricately and intuitively mixed, it incorporates a handful of his own unreleased tracks. | Matthew Dear’s contribution to the DJ-Kicks series is his most engaging commercial mix yet. Intricately and intuitively mixed, it incorporates a handful of his own unreleased tracks. | Matthew Dear: DJ-Kicks | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22736-dj-kicks/ | DJ-Kicks | Multiple identities are common in dance music, but Matthew Dear has taken his ego-altering further than most. In the early years, his aliases—False, Jabberjaw, and Audion, along with his real name—served as proving grounds for subtle tweaks on a single, overarching vision of techno in which texture, groove, and hook all held equal weight. But the gulf between the different aspects of his personality has steadily widened, particularly as he has settled on two main projects situated at opposite poles. As Audion, he makes cavernous, big-room techno that trades in weaponized euphoria and supersized sensation. Under his own name, he has become a singer/songwriter of knotty, nuanced electronic pop—the possessor of a sultry, Bowie-indebted baritone and a bandleader with the swaggering stance to match.
His DJ-Kicks mix is credited simply to Matthew Dear, but it actually represents a third aspect of his musical persona: the DJ. It is not his first commercial mix CD. As Audion, he recorded Fabric 27 in 2006, and as Dear, he delivered the seventh installment in Get Physical’s Body Language series in 2008. Like those mixes, DJ-Kicks focuses heavily on the present moment: Nothing is more than two years old, with the exception of a 1980 synth-pop rarity that turns up in a newly edited form. Given the ways that dance music has changed in the past decade, there’s a temptation to read the new mix as survey of its moment, much in the same way that Fabric 27 represented the minimal scene at its mid-’00s peak and Body Language Volume 7 captured a snapshot of the EasyJet-set—the tech-house axis of London, Berlin, and Ibiza—at the end of the decade. But Dear’s DJ-Kicks feels less like a cross-section of a scene or a snapshot of a moment in time than a core sample of his own idiosyncratic sensibility. There’s more character in this mix than in the previous two; it’s weirder and more engaging. The others could sometimes get tripped up by their own linearity, but this one is more charged, more unhinged, and riskier; it’s also more intricately and intuitively mixed. It’s a vision of house and techno that’s sleazy, druggy, and disorienting—also sneaky, whip-smart, and fun.
Dear’s specialty is the controlled urgency of the peak time, and that’s precisely where the bulk of the set dwells: deep in the chugging, roiling murk, with blunt machine grooves stirring up melodies the color of bruise blood. He opens on a more contemplative note, though, with an elegiac solo-piano piece from Nils Frahm that launches us into a new, previously unreleased song of his own: “Wrong With Us,” a bittersweet, Koze-like vocal number that neatly captures the weariness of a relationship going off the rails. It’s the only time we’re treated to Dear’s singing voice in the mix, but voices actually constitute a crucial through-line. Across the set he has scattered snippets of dialogue with his friends and family—off-the-cuff fragments, slowed to a narcotic (and largely incomprehensible) crawl, that serve as sinewy connective tissue from track to track. They lend the impression of moving through a crowded dancefloor where scraps of truncated conversations whip around your head as you move—a kind of Nightclub of Babel.
While few songs here foreground sung melodies, nearly every track uses vocals as a textural or rhythmic element: the cut-up, head-turning double entendres of Markus Enochson’s “Hot Juice Box”; the choppy, panned, and filtered gurgles of Kreon’s “Silo Sol”; the booming, crowd-stoking commandments of Italojohnson’s “ITJ10B1.” As a singer, Dear has always been as interested in the heft of the voice as he is in lyrical meaning, so it makes sense that he’d gravitate toward club cuts that work in the same way. And for listeners, his varied selections—juggling high voices and low, rough and smooth, garbled and clean—carve out an unusual space in between vocal and instrumental dance music. These aren’t voices we sing along with, necessarily; they aren’t the garish “toplines” garnishing commercial EDM. But they add nuance and mystery, drawing you in past the stern, occasionally forbidding contours of the rhythms Dear favors—snapping, mechanical vortexes full of sharp edges and jutting angles.
Dear’s mixing is a treat. Unless you know the tracks inside and out, it’s virtually impossible to tell where they begin and end; he favors long, careful blends, and rarely leaves a given track to play out by itself for long. His selections benefit from the hands-on style. Pay attention to the way energy pulses between two cuts running in parallel, and you imagine the motion of a pinball as it ricochets off bouncers and flippers: wildly kinetic and keenly controlled.
The smartly paced set switchbacks between minimalist drum tracks and deeper, more atmospheric house, and it climaxes with two previously unreleased Audion cuts and an interlude. Following the “Flat Eric”-like bassline of Soulphiction’s “Sky So High,” “Live Breakdown” wipes the slate clean with an extended stretch of granular vocal processing drawn out into a gravelly fit of pique. “Starfucker” rebuilds momentum with a rolling groove and a sharply syncopated hook, and it all comes to a head with the unhinged “Brines,” an improvised modular-synth workout playing rapid-fire snare rolls off dial-tone squeal. The set’s real highpoint, though, comes a few tracks earlier, when Dear mixes Simian Mobile Disco’s “Staring at All This Handle” into Pearson Sound’s “XLB,” one of 2016’s biggest techno tracks. As Resident Advisor’s No. 2 track of the year, it’s by far the highest-profile selection in the mix, but its notoriety isn’t the operating factor here; it’s the way Dear plays the two tracks’ hooks off each other.
Each one is considerably powerful on its own. Simian Mobile Disco’s sounds like a Foley artist’s thunder sheet being suddenly liquefied, as if by some arcane chemical process; Pearson Sound’s is a barrage of neon tracers cutting through darkness. Together, they evoke an image like something out of a John Woo film—a hail of bullets in an actual hailstorm. It’s such an intuitive pairing that you wonder why all DJs don’t always play these two tunes together. But it goes deeper than that. With the two descending sequences snapped into a kind of double helix formation, we’re presented with a schema of what Dear listens for when he’s putting together a mix: an X-ray of the structural underpinnings of his DJ sets. DJing is often characterized as an active, even athletic undertaking, whether that means rapid cross-cutting or vulgar fist-pumping. But in Dear’s hands, it can also be a more contemplative one: a case of setting up two tracks and letting them play out in a way that allows us to hear them anew. Locked into his listening, we let his ears guide ours. | 2017-01-24T01:00:00.000-05:00 | 2017-01-24T01:00:00.000-05:00 | Electronic | !K7 | January 24, 2017 | 7.4 | 2286a4a8-a23f-4ac4-b37a-c8a60b365ec1 | Philip Sherburne | https://pitchfork.com/staff/philip-sherburne/ | null |
The xx producer and percussionist Jamie Smith takes a stab at recontextualizing Gil Scott-Heron's excellent 2010 album, I'm New Here. | The xx producer and percussionist Jamie Smith takes a stab at recontextualizing Gil Scott-Heron's excellent 2010 album, I'm New Here. | Gil Scott-Heron / Jamie xx: We're New Here | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15140-were-new-here/ | We're New Here | Gil Scott-Heron's 2010 album, I'm New Here, was his first of original material in 16 years and best in three decades. But though it was a joyful return to the living for the once-homeless recovering addict and pivotal figure of pre-South Bronx talking blues, the album is defined by pallor. It's grim stuff, built around Scott-Heron's ashes-to-ashes baritone and XL founder Richard Russell's skeletal production, caked in grime and rust. It's essentially a podium for Scott-Heron's remarkable voice, ever-wheezing and cracking, that both supports and condemns his life choices with its grippingly dark magnitude.
Jamie Smith, percussionist and producer of the xx, has become a minor celebrity of the post-dubstep Brixton scene, earning a reputation as a DJ with his MPC mastery and as an ace remixer, crafting memorable, expansive edits of songs by Adele and Glasser in recent months. Smith, like many liners-scanning millennial sound nerds, is a massive Scott-Heron fan, and at Russell's suggestion has taken a stab at recontextualizing I'm New Here in service of changing sounds-- you can practically hear him cycling through subgenres track-to-track.
It's too dangerous to question either the necessity or the motivation behind such a project-- 22-year-old wunderkind cinches cred with resurgent iconoclast, perhaps?-- but it will come up. Do your best to ignore the impulse, because the residue of death that lingers on I'm New Here is wiped clean from We're New Here. It's replaced with brightness, an energy, and a historical milieu. Smith samples older Scott-Heron songs and works them into these newer songs. He takes a rare moment of singing, recorded for but not included on the initial album, and turns it into the Kieran Hebden-indebted "My Cloud", a gorgeous and redolent centerpiece. He turns a broken man into a recombinant diva.
Smith recently cited the likes of Rjd2 as both a pillar of influence, and the music of his youth-- and you can hear turn-of-the-century collagists like Rj, DJ Shadow, and El-P all over his constructions. Smith also samples and chops unlikely vocal sources, notably a snatch from Justine "Baby" Washington's lone hit, 1963's "That's How Heartaches Are Made", for the intro to "The Crutch", before it erupts into a drum'n'bass burst. Here, Smith's finicky, hard-charging production trumps Scott-Heron's voice, overpowering it with ideas, if not focus. But there's a go-for-it quality to Smith's production that suggests fearlessness over reverence. On the opener, "I'm New Here", he lifts a quickened dash of Gloria Gaynor's "Casanova Brown", giving the voice some shape and depth, and slyly nodding to a polar contemporary of Scott-Heron's. This feels like quite a distance from disco, and yet Smith shortens the gap between Scott-Heron's proud missives and exuberant dance music.
Each experiment is a gamble; some of these spoken-word recitations were meant to be without a speed or brightened exterior-- a reconsideration of I'm New Here standout "Me and the Devil" is noticeably absent here. And this isn't a simple "Is it better?" proposition. The sonorous, Bernard Hermann-esque "NY Is Killing Me" is such a far cry from the hand-clapping original that there's hardly any comparison at all. Only rarely does something like "I'll Take Care of U" happen. That song, the closer, is the purest distillation of Smith's taste for spacious melodrama and cinematic sweep-- it'd have fit nicely on xx. These two men only discussed the music here, briefly, in handwritten letters. That much shows, though putting them in the same room is the next logical step both for Smith, who claims he has no interest in a solo album, and Scott-Heron, who is now back in the consciousness and ready to be pushed hard. Here's to reunions. | 2011-02-22T01:00:00.000-05:00 | 2011-02-22T01:00:00.000-05:00 | Jazz / Electronic | XL / Young Turks | February 22, 2011 | 7.8 | 2287491d-ad82-490d-acf9-5ad7e5833f48 | Sean Fennessey | https://pitchfork.com/staff/sean-fennessey/ | null |
Recorded using only plastic material, the concept of the latest Matmos album is undergirded by the compositional integrity, the quality of the sound, and the sickeningly beautiful idea of it all. | Recorded using only plastic material, the concept of the latest Matmos album is undergirded by the compositional integrity, the quality of the sound, and the sickeningly beautiful idea of it all. | Matmos: Plastic Anniversary | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/matmos-plastic-anniversary/ | Plastic Anniversary | Each Matmos album has a concept of some kind—music paying tribute to queer icons, music made from the sounds of an operating room, music made through telepathy. It’s easy to get caught up in the audacity of it all and marvel at how formal limitations can lead to such emotional work. The knowledge that, say, a deeply moving piece of drone music was sourced from the sound of a bow drawn across the wires of a rat’s cage—empty, because the rat had recently died—has several layers of poignancy. You can enjoy the shriek as sound, enjoy it as concept, enjoy it for the pictures the contextual information, like its title “For Felix (And All the Rats),” puts into your head. And on top of that, Matmos make you hear—really hear—the materials used for their music’s creation. Beyond how they are transformed into music, there is a sense that objects and ideas have sonic properties as distinctive as fingerprints.
For their new album, Plastic Anniversary, Matmos tackle the ubiquitous material named in the title. We already know that plastic has a sound. On the one hand, “plastic” means “fake,” and music described as such is thought to be cheap, artificial. And yet creative uses of plastic are everywhere. The sound of plastic makes me think of a familiar sound of the city—kids on the street who play drums on buckets. I think of Ornette Coleman, who played a plastic saxophone throughout his rise in the 1950s and ’60s, at first because it was more affordable, and later because he came to prefer its harsher tone, which he felt made it sound closer to the human voice. Plastic leaves space for ingenuity, because it’s constantly being repurposed, and it’s constantly being repurposed because it never goes away. Plastic objects will retain their structural integrity long after our bodies have withered into dust.
So the material is a natural fit for a Matmos album, and Plastic Anniversary makes you realize that the sound of plastic is wider than you might have imagined. It is bouncy, percussion-heavy, and tuneful, with the group’s playful rhythmic sense in the foreground. On “Fanfare for Polyethylene Waste Containers,” they enlisted the drumline from Montana’s Whitefish High School Marching Band for a rolling beat on garbage cans, while a cast of musicians plays an ominous descending theme on plastic horns. The album’s gorgeous title track also includes plastic wind instruments but goes from a bittersweet lament to a rollicking overture. These tracks hint at orchestral music, while “Silicone Gel Implant” and “Extending the Plastisphere to GJ237b” both have elements of early electro, with percolating sequencers and squelchy lead melodies.
With the help of Catalonia Institute of Space Studies, a version of the latter track was beamed from a high-power radio tower in the direction of the named star system. The liner notes spelling out the how and why of Plastic Anniversary show gestures that range from simply playful (the sounds on “Breaking Bread” were recorded as the group destroyed records made by the easy listening group of the same name) to the pointed (“Thermoplastic Riot Shield” was sourced from recordings of a device used by the Albuquerque Police Department, and includes links to information about how to make riot shields inoperable), and as the sounds and references pile up the album becomes a mass of possibilities, each pointing toward ideas to explore in more detail later.
There’s always a risk that an album like this one will be received as novelty music, but the compositional integrity is there, and the music is engaging purely on the level of sound. But Plastic Anniversary’s ultimate resonance comes when you take in everything—ideas, sounds, images, links. On the album’s back cover is a heartbreaking photograph of a sea bird decaying on a beach, its body almost gone while the plastic material that had been in its stomach—and presumably had caused its death—remains. The colors are sickeningly beautiful, like this album at its best. | 2019-03-19T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2019-03-19T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Experimental | Thrill Jockey | March 19, 2019 | 7.6 | 22899187-ffc2-4d30-b93b-e41e58bc810a | Mark Richardson | https://pitchfork.com/staff/mark-richardson/ | |
The Brooklyn singer-songwriter’s music is measured, slow, and focused, allowing space for complex emotions to bloom. | The Brooklyn singer-songwriter’s music is measured, slow, and focused, allowing space for complex emotions to bloom. | Caitlin Pasko: Greenhouse | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/caitlin-pasko-greenhouse/ | Greenhouse | Any digital native worth their salt knows that the most effective tool for checking up on one’s ex is not Facebook or Insta or even finsta. It’s Venmo, where unguarded users drop emoji-riddled breadcrumb trails to who they’re spending time with. On “Horrible Person,” a highlight of her new record, Greenhouse, the 32-year-old Brooklynite Caitlin Pasko finds herself on the receiving end of such unwanted scrutiny. “Please stop texting me...When you see that I’ve moved on/After looking me up on Venmo,” she sings.
There is a certain grim humor in the idea of human relationships being distilled to a string of mundane transactions, but if this lyric sounds like a droll punch line, it’s one delivered with an exceptionally straight face. So is the blunt assertion that gives the song its title: “You know you are a horrible person/I shouldn’t have to explain it to you.” Across Greenhouse, Pasko rejects and moves on from the emotional labor demanded by a manipulative partner—the sort of person who prefers digging up painful memories to being forgotten, who feigns innocence when confronted with their faults.
Pasko’s delivery minimizes her words’ humorous potential; rather than make a quick joke of someone else’s awfulness, she holds space for a more vulnerable response, letting her words linger without disrupting their tension. “Walking is hard/When you have to lift your legs, your quadriceps,” she sings on “Unwell,” a song about fighting to meet a baseline of human functionality. Songwriting is also hard. Pasko’s lyrics call attention to the procedure of taking a step; meanwhile, her sparse arrangement invites us to consider the mechanics of every chord change. Right foot, left foot, right foot. A major, E minor, D major.
Measured and effortful, with minimal instrumentation—piano chords and drones, largely—Greenhouse is a record that rewards patience and focus. Pasko tends to interrupt herself by breathing mid-phrase, to let her sentiments balloon out across many measures, requiring listeners to lock in for extended periods of time in order to derive meaning from her words. But in spite of their slow speed—and sometimes even because of it—her sharpest lines can induce whiplash. On “Quiet Weather,” she sings, “When I think of you, I take a sho–,” drawing out the vowel. Your brain might autofill a “t” to finish the protracted word, thinking she’s reaching for a liquid cure for heartache. But the real lyric is much more gruesome, and startling when she gets to it: “I take a sho–vel to my chest, and dig as deep as I can get.” There’s much talk about diaristic songwriters who self-excavate; usually, they aren’t quite so literal about it.
The shovel is a fitting tool for Pasko. Greenhouse is named for a structure that preserves plant life; on “To the Leaves,” she imagines one erected inside her body to protect her mind. Pasko’s affinity for the natural world is laced into the imagery she often reaches for: A peach in the leaves, a lake, the sun, snowfall. But even more than nature’s symbols, she invokes its processes of recovery and replenishment. “Today I thought about how it must feel to give birth/And to look in the eyes of yourself,” she muses, her own voice twinning itself, drawing out the idea of regeneration. Elsewhere, she realizes that “that growth and letting go are so complexly intertwined.” As any gardener knows, you have to prune away dead leaves to make room for new buds.
This emphasis on growth is particularly pronounced on the back half of Greenhouse, giving it a narrative arc even while many of the specifics remain out of focus. “Ooo Happy,” a brief interlude on which Pasko’s light soprano bobs like a kite catching a breeze, proves pivotal in this respect: It serves as a bridge between the record’s more somber opening and more generative conclusions. Remember Pasko’s struggle with her legs? On the second half of the album, a version of the same scene recurs. “Today I spent my time/Walking around a neighborhood that's not mine,” she sings in the earlier iteration; “Today I remembered/What it feels like to go walking/… In a city that's not my city,” in the later one. Feeling separates the second instance from the first; it signals an opening up to the possibility of sensation and discovery, where before she was just miserably marking minutes. It’s a quiet sort of progress that doesn’t call attention to itself—but meaningful, all the same.
Catch up every Saturday with 10 of our best-reviewed albums of the week. Sign up for the 10 to Hear newsletter here. | 2020-09-03T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2020-09-03T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Experimental | Whatever’s Clever | September 3, 2020 | 7.7 | 228eeefa-877b-4292-975f-971e3f3a0bf0 | Olivia Horn | https://pitchfork.com/staff/olivia-horn / | |
Woods' latest is another solid record that finds them returning in spots to the experimental vein explored on earlier records and in their live show. | Woods' latest is another solid record that finds them returning in spots to the experimental vein explored on earlier records and in their live show. | Woods: Sun and Shade | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15499-sun-and-shade/ | Sun and Shade | When I first caught on to Woods with 2009's Songs of Shame, they'd already been around for a few years, releasing albums in limited editions, sometimes under the name Woods Family Creeps. Songs of Shame was immediately enjoyable, as it spun together strands of folk-rock, ramshackle indie, and sunshine pop into something that felt handmade and fresh. But listening to it, I didn't peg Woods as the kind of band that would keep turning out remarkably well-realized and consistent albums on a yearly basis. Maybe it was the casual nature of their time-keeping, where all the songs amble at a loose, oblong gait. Or maybe it was the general nature of their lo-fi pedigree, where quantity of output is often prized over quality. But nothing about Woods at that time said "consistent album band" to me.
Two years and two full-lengths later, "consistent album band" describes Woods very well. Last year's At Echo Lake didn't have a weak song on it and showcased the strength of their songwriting on the most fundamental terms. I still find myself humming tunes from it at weird times, even when I haven't listened to it in months. Now they return with Sun and Shade, another very solid record that finds them returning in spots to the experimental vein explored on earlier records and in their live show. They haven't changed their sound in the least, but they're demonstrating that there's a lot more to be done with it than might have been expected.
The experimentation comes in the form of two longer instrumentals that take up about 17 of the album's 44 minutes. "Out of the Eye" is a Krautrock homage constructed from the basic ingredients of Neu!'s "Hallogallo", but slowed down by a third and with a Middle Eastern tinge in the guitars. Where bands like Stereolab built something driving and forceful around the iconic motorik groove of the Neu! original, Woods' rickety aesthetic can't help but keep human imperfection in the mix. These guys don't do "robotic," and no one will ever mistake the laid-back percussion on a Woods record for a drum machine. Which means that the shadowy steady-state psych of "Out of the Eye" unfolds patiently and isn't afraid to meander a little. But when it closes abruptly with a quick drum roll seven minutes in, it gives the impression that the preceding was more of a sketch or one-take jam rather than anything designed for a specific effect, which slightly undercuts its power.
The nearly 10-minute "Sol y Sombra" is the other long track, and it features spare hand percussion, acoustic guitars, and some distant electric guitar leads. It still scans as "1970s Germany," but here the basic model is the pastoral psych of Popol Vuh from the middle of that decade. They both manage to capture a mood and wring feeling out of them, but "Sol y Sombra" and "Out of the Eye" sometimes have me reaching for the "skip" button. That's partly because Woods continue to craft such memorable tunes when working in guitar-pop mode.
Like "Pushing Onlys", the early single from Sun and Shade, which has chiming guitars and a classic pop melody catchy enough to hang with 60s confections by the Turtles or the Hollies. While Jeremy Earl's cracking voice is in the long line of "sounds kinda like Neil Young" high tenors, Woods' Aquarian Age references often lean toward the bouncy and optimistic bubblegum of the era. Here, that spirit comes to the fore on the elegant shuffle "Who Do I Think I Am?" and "What Faces the Sheet", which is built around a guitar riff vaguely reminiscent of "Then He Kissed Me". Folkier songs like "Be All Be Easy" and "Wouldn't Waste" bring to mind the sound of folk-pop heroes growing into singer-songwriters, a spirit best exemplified by Graham Nash, whom Woods covered on Songs of Shame. In whatever mode they're working, the take-away is that Woods are good at all these sounds, and they seem to be striving to get even better. Despite their ultra-slack style and prodigious output, nothing about them says "half-assed," so it's another year, another fine Woods album. | 2011-06-02T02:00:00.000-04:00 | 2011-06-02T02:00:00.000-04:00 | Rock | Woodsist | June 2, 2011 | 7.9 | 229cf1be-f4da-46ed-a284-daa6b2e19d90 | Mark Richardson | https://pitchfork.com/staff/mark-richardson/ | null |
Iron Reagan are a Richmond band composed of members from notable crossover thrash groups like Municipal Waste and Darkest Hour. Their latest album is a thirty-two minute blitzkrieg that fires off short, potent riffs at a workmanlike pace, letting the listener sort out the mess for themselves. | Iron Reagan are a Richmond band composed of members from notable crossover thrash groups like Municipal Waste and Darkest Hour. Their latest album is a thirty-two minute blitzkrieg that fires off short, potent riffs at a workmanlike pace, letting the listener sort out the mess for themselves. | Iron Reagan: The Tyranny of Will | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19620-iron-reagan-the-tyranny-of-will/ | The Tyranny of Will | A decade after his death (two since he left office), former president Ronald Reagan continues to be a subject of many a musical effigy, but it's been a while since the hardcore community had him as its muse. Enter Iron Reagan, a Richmond band composed of members from notable crossover thrash groups like Municipal Waste and Darkest Hour, who are the jellybean cowboy's latest invokers. While their sound places them as political punk in the vein of Wasted Youth or the Crucifucks, Iron Reagan's lyrical tendencies skew nihilstic and violent with a dash of odd humor. Where Black Flag once instructed the crowd to “Rise Above”, Iron Reagan proudly declare, "I Ripped That Testament a New Asshole”. It’s a shock-driven approach, sure, but when it comes to expressing displeasure with the status quo, have punks ever bothered to clean up nicely and say “please”?
The quintet's latest, The Tyranny of Will, is a thirty-two minute blitzkrieg that surges forth like the blood spurting from the politician's neck on the album cover. Iron Reagan stick to what they know best: firing off short, potent riffs at a workmanlike pace, and letting the listener sort out the mess for themselves. In interviews, frontman Tony Foresta hasn’t tried to hide the fact that he and the rest of the guys are, largely, winging it: “We suffer from A.D.D. pretty hard—almost everyone in the band,” he revealed recently to one reporter with a laugh, “so we make music that comes across faster, and more to the point."
In other words, they’ve got the punk mindset already hard-wired, and so it naturally follows that nine of the album’s songs blow by in under a minute. On the album's most immediate cut, “Eyeball Gore”,power chords stamp and stomp as the band make their impassionately sadistic demands: “All we want is eyeball gore RIGHT NOW!” Think of the song as the album's elevator pitch: the violent fervor of protest music used to incite social change and knife parties. Of course, there are jabs at the cops and the one-percenters (see the hilarious “U Lock the Bike Cop”, in which Foresta warns a policeman that his fixie’s going to get jacked). Most of the time, however, Iron Reagan simply release their furor with no target in particular. “Broken Bottles”, a twisted take on Adolescents-style skate punk, captures the sentiment of that band’s essential cut “Bloodstains” and leaves it to simmer, resulting in a chugging frenzy topped off with a tottering solo. Sometimes, they can’t seem to tell exactly who or what they’re mad at; “Your Kid’s an Asshole”, short and pointless, might as well be the musical equivalent of a typo-laden insult from an email exchange between two soccer moms.
A significant portion of The Tyranny of Will was written while Iron Reagan toured with GWAR, not too long before Dave Brockie (aka Oderus Ungurus) passed. According to the band, the late frontman lent Iron Reagan some inspiration, going as far to contribute gory gross-out ideas for the album, and listening to The Tyranny of Will, a number of similarities emerge between the two entities. Foresta’s podium-side barking bears kinship to Brockie’s theatrical delivery, and while the former has yet to perform in blood-soaked costumes exposing prosthetic genitalia, he plays a comedic villain with aplomb. “I’d rather just set fire/ Than be left to die,” he threatens on “Miserable Failure”, his energy essential in keeping the group's bare-bones, repetitive fretwork fresh.
For diehard thrash heads who possess patience and a sick sense of humor, The Tyranny of Will should prove satisfying; most listeners, though, will probably find the record's attention-challenged songwriting grating by the fifteen-minute mark, and as the album plays on, the pummeling punchlines don’t hit as hard as they're intended to. As is the case with most overstuffed hardcore albums, The Tyranny of Will lends itself well to a cherry-picking approach; keep some riffs and ideas, and toss the ones that don’t stick. Essentially, it's ample license to take part in some musical mudslinging—and The Man could always stand to take a good mud-and-blood pie to the face. | 2014-09-16T02:00:04.000-04:00 | 2014-09-16T02:00:04.000-04:00 | Metal | Relapse | September 16, 2014 | 6.2 | 22a31886-3369-4d51-bae6-021653f450d7 | Zoe Camp | https://pitchfork.com/staff/zoe-camp/ | null |
Haley Fohr's newest songwriting persona doesn't mince words–but she also leaves her full potential unknown. | Haley Fohr's newest songwriting persona doesn't mince words–but she also leaves her full potential unknown. | Jackie Lynn: Jackie Lynn | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/21882-jackie-lynn/ | Jackie Lynn | Haley Fohr is a dramatic storyteller. The music she makes as Circuit Des Yeux channels complex narratives and emotions, fueled by slow-burning arrangements and her dark, evocative voice. With all the scenes and characters she conjures, taking on a new persona–especially one with an intensely detailed backstory–could be overkill. Why add another layer to a musician who already has so many?
Fohr’s new solo project, Jackie Lynn, answers that question pretty clearly. Inventing this character has emboldened her storytelling, producing more direct rock songs with sharper plots. Jackie Lynn is a woman on the run, perhaps even an outlaw. We often encounter her in the middle of a trip–Fohr continually mentions highways, locales, and means of travel–and watch her take decisive action at every step. She confronts obstacles without flinching in Fohr’s most tough-minded lyrics to date.
Two songs are particularly vivid, as our heroine exacts revenge for wrongdoings. On “Franklin, TN,” Lynn’s hometown punishes her outspokenness with three lashes (including one "to make sure I never came back”); she vows to return with three bullets and a gun. An even harsher comeuppance emerges in “Smile,” as Lynn gets so fed up with men’s comments–“I’m so sick of these jocks with their little tiny cocks/Thinking I’d shine my shoes and show my pearly whites”–that she imagines immolating one of them as he sleeps. But Fohr’s protagonist can be vulnerable, too: in “Alien Love,” she falls for a guy in the span of a bus ride. Later, in “Jackie,” she regrets being “a pawn in his foolish game” over the plaintive electric guitar of Marisa Anderson.
Fohr imbues Lynn’s travelogues with melodies that constantly move. Circuit Des Yeux songs usually build gradually with pauses, but most of Jackie Lynn progresses at a steady clip. Adding synths and drum machines, Fohr gives these songs a bright catchiness. Still, this isn’t a sunny record; it’s music of many hues, and most of them tend toward darkness. So does Fohr’s suggestive voice, which remains impressive in shorter, pithier doses than the average Circuit Des Yeux track.
In fact, *Jackie Lynn’*s only significant weakness is that, even though individual songs benefit from brevity, the record is too short. Its eight tracks take up only 22 minutes, and two of those tracks are micro-length instrumentals; it’s half an album at most. Perhaps Fohr has exhausted Jackie Lynn’s potential already, or maybe she’s holding back. Considering her track record of rich, compelling art, I’d bet on the latter. | 2016-06-14T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2016-06-14T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Experimental | Thrill Jockey | June 14, 2016 | 6.9 | 22a5a441-5b5c-48dd-9fa1-de36ef8d3075 | Marc Masters | https://pitchfork.com/staff/marc-masters/ | null |
The first song on guitar wunderkind Ryley Walker’s fourth album might be the best thing he’s ever done. Then there are the other seven songs. | The first song on guitar wunderkind Ryley Walker’s fourth album might be the best thing he’s ever done. Then there are the other seven songs. | Ryley Walker: Golden Sings That Have Been Sung | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22198-golden-sings-that-have-been-sung/ | Golden Sings That Have Been Sung | It’s always risky when a young artist opens an album with an unexpected gambit that either sounds remarkably better or different than the rest of the songs that follow. Going for the shock of the new is understandable, but there’s the danger that listeners could fall in love with that first moment and then become disappointed when the rest of the record fails to stack up. Such is the case with Golden Sings That Have Been Sung, the third studio album by Illinois guitar wunderkind Ryley Walker.
On his past two records, Walker fetishized the sounds and aesthetics of quasi-mystical British folk of the late 1960s and early ’70s; everything about 2015’s Primrose Green, from the songs, to Walker’s vocals, to even the photography and font on the album cover screamed “revivalist.” However, on Golden Sings opener “The Halfwit in Me,” Walker tones down those influences while shifting things back home to the late ’90s baroque folk of Chicago artists like Gastr del Sol and Jim O’Rourke. The song pulls from the successful elements of Walker’s previous work while embracing these newer (albeit still “retro”) influences and melding it all into a beautiful, pensive six-minute suite that seems to declare the official arrival of an artist who’s on his own path.
Unfortunately, none of the other seven songs on Golden Sings sound anything like “The Halfwit in Me.” Part of what makes that track successful is the way Walker uses his spindling guitar melodies to carry it forward at a brisk clip, showcasing delicate instrumental interplay and allowing his serviceable voice to complement rather than dominate the song. Disappointingly, four of Golden Sings’s eight cuts slow things down to a dirge-like pace that de-emphasizes the value of his playing. These songs also put his voice and lyrics front and center—like he’s hoping to dazzle us with the strength and passion of his pipes and the inspired poetry they sing, a la Van Morrison. But while Walker’s vocals are considerably improved from Primrose Green, they’re still more equipped to serve as an accompaniment rather than the star of his music.
Also, considering Walker’s rep as a guitar savant, the decision to minimize the fancy playing is a bit of a head scratcher. On the piano-driven “Funny Thing She Said,” the weakness is especially apparent as the song just crawls and bores. Additionally, the languidness draws undue attention to Walker’s occasionally overwrought lyrics, which often just hang and die in the air awkwardly. In light of these glacial jeremiads, the buoyant, saccharine folk-pop of “I Will Ask You Twice” feels almost desperately welcome, despite the fact that it more or less sounds like an outtake from Jewel’s Pieces of You.
It’s not all glum though. Golden Sings offers one other winning track with the bright and beautiful “The Roundabout.” Setting the stage with a warm, slightly droning guitar riff, the song succeeds at advancing Walker’s desire to position himself as a successor to the British folk legends he so obviously loves. Relating a tale of the comforting time spent at reliable local bar, the repeating guitar line emphasizes the sort of hypnotic brainlock that a powerful moment of nostalgia can offer. He succeeds lyrically as well, with amusing lines like, “I want to buy you a drink, but my credit is quit shit/We can all laugh and have tap water.”
It’s evident that Walker is talented and brimming with ideas—and there are moments on this record that mark the best music he’s ever made. But he needs to get a better understanding of his strengths if he wants to become more than just another nifty live-guitar throwback. | 2016-08-13T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2016-08-13T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Folk/Country | Dead Oceans | August 13, 2016 | 6.5 | 22a6c687-fd5c-4345-a38b-d1e58558b034 | Benjamin Scheim | https://pitchfork.com/staff/benjamin-scheim/ | null |
Committing to a bit that isn’t entirely convincing, the actor and singer-songwriter takes performative pleasure in the broke-down love affairs and ritzy sound of 1980s and ’90s country pop. | Committing to a bit that isn’t entirely convincing, the actor and singer-songwriter takes performative pleasure in the broke-down love affairs and ritzy sound of 1980s and ’90s country pop. | Lola Kirke: Lady for Sale | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/lola-kirke-lady-for-sale/ | Lady for Sale | At the start of last year, Lola Kirke was struggling to find work as an actor or a musician. The star of Mistress America was told that her body and age would be a problem—explanations she understandably found to be “crazy-making.” There’s some irony in the fact that she turned to country music to find creative freedom: In the genre’s mainstream incarnation, at any rate, the standards imposed on women performers are hardly less punitive or limiting than those of Hollywood or pop. But then everything about Kirke’s second album, Lady for Sale, is a bit of an anachronism.
Kirke has written off her debut, 2018’s stately Americana effort Heart Head West, as “dour,” and said that the joy of ’80s and ’90s country is where her heart really lies. We may be in the midst of a Shania-aissance, but on Lady for Sale, Kirke leaps back further to the era of Wynonna Judd, Pam Tillis, and Real Love-era Dolly Parton. This is big, blousy, country pop that buffs its pedal steel to a chrome gleam, offsets snappy production with misty-eyed longing, and doesn’t ever quite feel complete until it’s soundtracking a big-city movie full of promise and power-walking. It’s a sound full of nostalgia and with it a built-in sense of comfort.
While Kirke didn’t approach traditional country labels with the album, she found that most indies weren’t interested, either: Lady for Sale falls between the cracks of the capital-R Realness of guys singing about trucks/beer/fishing/etc. and the small-r realness of songwriters who stake their work on earthier types of autobiography. Although her lyrics about misaligned relationships feel hard won, Kirke sees the magic in the performative pleasures of this ritzy sound, how its AM glory brings a little heroism to a domestic life, making pain you should have dodged and longing you should have got over feel spotlight-worthy for a few minutes. It makes sense, too, that she found a home at Third Man, a label built on the urge to embody an aesthetic to its fullest extent.
And Kirke goes for it on Lady for Sale’s great opening run. “Broken Families” encompasses steady disco-ball sparkle, pedal steel curlicues that feel as though they should trace condensation love hearts in the sky, and a chorus that could be an anthem. A duet with Courtney Marie Andrews, it’s an emphatic, bruised account of two lovers trying to use one another to heal their broken pasts: “We’re two wrongs trying to make it right,” Kirke observes, beautifully, through a mouthful of pathos and twang. The pace peps up: “If I Win” practically saunters, in thrall to Belinda Carlisle’s saltwater-fresh pop and Cyndi Lauper’s strut, but it’s lonely, too. Laying out her desires for a lost opportunity, Kirke dials up the suggestive side of her voice until it becomes slightly pinched: She’s made weary by the limitations of the fantasy, “drunk enough to think you think of me too/But not drunk enough to believe it’s true.” She pivots again with “Better Than Any Drug,” a saucy, sparky, straightforward come-on full of Dolly coquettishness and the supreme confidence of a last look in the mirror before heading out. It’s pure pastiche, right down to the cheesecake spoken-word admission of infatuation in the middle eight, and pure delight.
But Kirke’s wholehearted commitment to the bit doesn’t always work. She does a nice line in vocals that are beseeching or cheeky, yet often lurches towards a degree of Dolly cosplay that feels egregious for a woman who grew up in New York City, especially the distractingly affected warble of the title track. Although its lyrics about the need for women to self-commodify lest someone else take advantage are sharp, it’s hard not to think of Parton’s own “9 to 5,” a song on the same subject that has endured for 42 years, while Kirke dates hers with references to TikTok and OnlyFans. A few lovely choruses aside—the dusky twinkle of “Pink Sky” lives up to its name; the raucously glass-all-empty “Stay Drunk” would get a bar full of strangers singing along within a minute—Kirke and producer Austin Jenkins’ genre-first approach is diluting. “The Crime” buries her in bizarre zydeco production; the concluding power ballad one-two of “No Secrets” and “By Your Side” becomes digressive and wan. Despite real moments of fun, the project ends up feeling shy of its influences, stopping short of a full buy-in. | 2022-05-02T00:00:00.000-04:00 | 2022-05-02T00:00:00.000-04:00 | Rock | Third Man | May 2, 2022 | 6.4 | 22a83a38-1d3c-4e19-bd4e-c2a13f0419b9 | Laura Snapes | https://pitchfork.com/staff/laura-snapes/ | |
Using just a bass and a drum machine, Eva Moolchan's punk is bare and hypnotic. On her first record on Merge, she maintains her raw sound in the powerful space she built for herself. | Using just a bass and a drum machine, Eva Moolchan's punk is bare and hypnotic. On her first record on Merge, she maintains her raw sound in the powerful space she built for herself. | Sneaks: It's a Myth | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/23020-its-a-myth/ | It's a Myth | Brevity defines the music that Washington, D.C.’s Eva Moolchan makes as Sneaks. On her new album It's a Myth, Moolchan logs ten tracks across 18 minutes. On her debut Gymnastics, she didn't pass 14 minutes. Her take on post-punk is minimalist and sparse—music that proves there's a virtue in being concise. These details suggest that it would be unnatural for Moolchan to accommodate anything beyond 20 minutes, and the transient nature of her work means there is little to compare her to both past or present.
It's a Myth represents the first Sneaks record for Merge since the label signed Moolchan eight months ago. Sneaks was born out of the desire for full creative control after playing in the short-lived Shit Stains whose first performance to five people included Katie Alice Greer of Priests. Greer introduced Moolchan into the capital's DIY scene, becoming a fixture in the community, while coming up with Priests themselves, Flasher, and Downtown Boys.
For It's a Myth, Sneaks recorded the album with Mary Timony (Helium, Ex Hex) and Jonah Takagi, with Timony producing it at her D.C. studio. Extra hands mean more instrumentation and allow for exploring new textures to create a more fluid album. It's a Myth is not a huge leap in sound because Moolchan opts for refinement rather than repurposing the roughness of Gymnastics. According to her Bandcamp tags, they fall within “cold cut,”(?) “zing zong” (??), and “violent vibes.” These descriptors allow Moolchan's music to be flexible in her expression and secure her experimentalism.
The Sneaks template is no more than bass, a drum machine, and vocals. Despite the minimal approach, Moolchan’s voice extends beyond the half-rapping, half-singing approach on Gymnastics. On “Inside Edition,” she delivers a hypnotic mantra that becomes the song’s groove and uses her voice as a melodic tool. That new feature of her work enables the creation of “PBNJ,” in which Moolchan’s voice sounds distant, and the music behind her sounds like it’s in a trance state. Moolchan’s lyrics are elliptical and playful, suggesting that she writes them in line with a song’s rhythm or to her voice’s melodic sensibilities.
Moolchan’s music may not appear to be as overtly political as the acts around her, but that’s not to say she is apolitical. On “Hair Slick Back,” Moolchan sings, “You think you’ve got a lot to say/No you think you need a bigger stage/You think I can’t contain my rage.” The words could be a taunt at the males that dominate DIY scenes. “When you go to a show, and it’s filled with all these punk bros,” Moolchan told The Media in 2015. “We should be taking up the space, and not these guys.” Moolchan’s presence alone is an act of protest, but with “Hair Slick Back” she offers a statement to rebut those with privilege who think they need more visibility.
Because of Moolchan’s devotion to concision, a three-minute song like “Look Like That” is a rare example of when Sneaks expands beyond her realms. It’s unfamiliar territory, and as a result, the song is less taut and impactful. It’s a Myth is the natural progression from Gymnastics, and so across the record, Moolchan refines her sound within these limits. Inside and outside of the music, she embraces the self-built space that she crafted for herself.
Correction: A previous version of the review misidentified label on which Gynmastics was released. | 2017-03-27T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2017-03-27T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Rock | Merge | March 27, 2017 | 7.3 | 22ab95c9-e599-4ab0-b40c-a3fcf38990b0 | Sean Murray | https://pitchfork.com/staff/sean-murray/ | null |
Kompakt's annual, too-overlooked ambient series picks up where it left off last year, with 10 of the same artists represented-- including the Field, Wolfgang Voigt, Markus Guentner, and Thomas Fehlmann. | Kompakt's annual, too-overlooked ambient series picks up where it left off last year, with 10 of the same artists represented-- including the Field, Wolfgang Voigt, Markus Guentner, and Thomas Fehlmann. | Various Artists: Pop Ambient 2008 | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/11279-pop-ambient-2008/ | Pop Ambient 2008 | Kompakt's Pop Ambient series is in some kind of impressive stasis. The label's prominence and a growing critical reputation have yet to elevate the awareness of the series to those not predisposed to German electronic music. But Pop Ambient 2007 offered the previously unthinkable: a breakout star. The Field's "Kappsta" was the standout track on PA07, nominally the album's least ambient tune but its most pop. "Kappsta" helped kick-start the Field's impressive 2007, a year highlighted by as much crossover indie success as a low-key sound architect could ever expect. If ever there were a year for the Pop Ambient series to stake a bigger foothold in the experimental and pop music consciousness, 2007 would've been it.
It's perhaps with this missed opportunity in mind that Kompakt constructed Pop Ambient's 2008 edition, which with 10 of its 12 tracks provided by artists featured on last year's model (including, no joke, "Kappsta 2") is as much Pop Ambient 2007: II as an entirely new entry into the series. It's clear, though, that Pop Ambient is less a showcase for new talents and more an annual hello from the draftiest corners of Kompakt's roster. Pretty flowers, pretty tones, etc.: Pop Ambient volumes have always benefited from an homogeneity of tempo and wordless sprawl, such that they have always felt very "album-y."
PA08* is no different, though if it differs from the other volumes-- even PA07-- it is due to an ever so slight shift towards rhythm and beats. The warm, sunrise tones that so many of Pop Ambient's tracks have employed are still present, but they more often congeal into patterns that suggest a throbbing or pulsing, if not propulsion or percussion. All (Wolfgang Voigt)'s "Sag Alles Ab" is a sly, hypnotic break; Thomas Fehlmann's "Camilla" bandies about before finally welcoming in a shallow bass pounding. Markus Guentner's "Oceans Day" is all treated guitar brushing against a long drone, but the lapping click that sits under the surface sets it apart. "Kappsta 2" improves on its predecessor by sharpening the lines of the vocal loop and adding a muffled kick drum sound to further distinguish the track's linear movement.
Elsewhere, the composers play with the seasons and sort of generally make good on the ornate foliage that adorns the cover: Klimek's "The Ice Storm" is the most aptly named track here, and perhaps the most dynamic as well. A string section waxes in and out of focus as a sharp, high-pitched melody plays over the top producing an effect not unlike William Basinski's looped orchestrations. DJ Koze provides a summery counterpoint with "Nymphe Und Schäfer", using a similar loop but placing it under vinyl crackle and an unobtrusive field recording of insects.
Still, though, with the weight of seven preceding volumes on its shoulders, PA08 can't afford the uninspired soundwash of Ulf Lohman's "My Pazifik" or Popnoname's "Fembria". Pop Ambient has grown into a bit of institution, a haven for listeners dipping their toes into accessible ambient music or for dedicated electronic fans seeking calm water. PA08 does nothing to distract from this purpose, nor does it expand upon it. Stasis, right: Pop Ambient's glacial progression as a series mimics the "nothing to see here folks, move along" rallying cry of the artists it houses. | 2008-03-18T01:00:04.000-04:00 | 2008-03-18T01:00:04.000-04:00 | null | Kompakt | March 18, 2008 | 6.8 | 22abf63d-87f5-4546-825d-2fe798c25181 | Andrew Gaerig | https://pitchfork.com/staff/andrew-gaerig/ | null |
Roly Porter used to be a member of Vex'd, a duo known for its abrasive, industrial approach to dubstep. His solo music remains loud and visceral, full of seismic sub-bass and metallic shudders and black-hole reverb that swallows up everything around it. | Roly Porter used to be a member of Vex'd, a duo known for its abrasive, industrial approach to dubstep. His solo music remains loud and visceral, full of seismic sub-bass and metallic shudders and black-hole reverb that swallows up everything around it. | Roly Porter: Third Law | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/21335-third-law/ | Third Law | Roly Porter used to be a member of Vex'd, a duo known for its abrasive, industrial approach to dubstep. While it's been a number of years since Porter abandoned not only the dancefloor but beats altogether, his music remains loud and visceral, full of seismic sub-bass and metallic shudders and black-hole reverb that swallows up everything around it. It's also head music, with stark post-classical elements—a somber scrap of strings, a mangled choir—hinting at a narrative lurking beneath the abstraction. Since the beginning of his solo career, Porter has nodded toward big themes: The 10 tracks on his 2011 debut, Aftertime, each referenced a different celestial body from Frank Herbert's Dune; his 2013 album Life Cycle of a Massive Star aimed squarely at the sublime, on a truly cosmic scale.
Porter's new album, Third Law, is his headiest yet; it also punches harder than anything he's done, contrasting waves of charred, overdriven texture with high, lonesome tones drifting across inky emptiness. Force and stillness are its twin poles. Its title references Newton's third law of motion (for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction), while the cover art pictures the profile of an eyeball in extreme close-up, so close that the play of shadow across its glassy surface looks like the broad sweep of the night sky. Is it a coincidence that the image so closely resembles certain shots from Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity—both Clooney in his space helmet and the glinting curve of the earth itself? That film, with its violent chain reactions of exploding debris, was a harrowing case study in Newton's third law, and Porter's album similarly revels in both the kinetics of destruction and the ecstasy of weightlessness.
Just as he avoids repetitive beats, Porter rarely repeats musical elements as the album winds through its 52-minute run time, aside from the sub-bass rumble and elegiac strings. "Mass," a study for bouncing-ball kick drums and plucked synthesizers, plays out like a series of explosions in reverse, clouds of shrapnel snapping back into their shells over and over again. "Blind Blackening" swings the pendulum back toward the suffocating overdrive and wordless choral samples of the opener, "4001." "High Places," the album's quietest track—either headphones or a very good, very loud home stereo are recommended— shows off Porter's dynamic range while exploring the texture of scraped strings. "In Flight," the most obviously "electronic" thing here, plays with trembling pulses, while the final two cuts, "Departure Stage" and "Known Space," veer back into soundtrack territory.
To make music this abstract work, pacing is key, and Porter's proves masterful throughout—that's as true of individual tracks, which heave like massive bellows, as of the shape of the album as a whole. It seems significant that the first real melody we hear, a clarion synthesizer reminiscent of mid-'70s Tangerine Dream, appears only in the album's final five minutes—a reward, perhaps, for having made it through nearly an hour of edge-of-your-seat intensity. Third Law suggests that big-budget sci-fi directors who ignore Porter's work are seriously missing out. But he doesn’t need the silver screen to get his ideas across; this album has all the drama you could ask for on its own. | 2016-01-27T01:00:02.000-05:00 | 2016-01-27T01:00:02.000-05:00 | Experimental | Tri Angle | January 27, 2016 | 8 | 22af4a63-a2e9-493e-8b67-16e8784d803a | Philip Sherburne | https://pitchfork.com/staff/philip-sherburne/ | null |
Topaz Jones is a young, positive-thinking New York-based rapper with an affinity for soul and a likable and fully formed personality, and Arcade reveals quirks and depths with repeated listens. | Topaz Jones is a young, positive-thinking New York-based rapper with an affinity for soul and a likable and fully formed personality, and Arcade reveals quirks and depths with repeated listens. | Topaz Jones: Arcade | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22604-arcade/ | Arcade | At first, Topaz Jones sounds like the sort of young, positive-thinking emcee who should pay tithes to Chance the Rapper on an annual basis. But repeated listens to the 23-year-old New York rapper’s Arcade reveal the intricacy and subtleties of Jones—he’s not the earnest pup sniffing around your ankles, but a fully formed personality, an approachable everyman rapper who’s more Oddisee and Open Mike Eagle than Vic Mensa.
Jones’ persona is enriched by a deep love of old funk and soul music (his father Curtis played guitar for the influential band Slave), and he frequently uses live instrumentation. “Grass (Survivor’s Guilt)” transitions from light adult-contemporary guitar to thudding boom-bap, mashing together conflicting thoughts in the same way Jones weaves a love song into a thought about romance as a “great distraction from checking the evening news and staying up on what’s happening.”
“Tropicana” occupies the same fleet-footed space as other intoxicating, breezy singles from this year, like Joey Purp’s “Girls @” and Amine’s “Caroline.” But Jones manages to weave details and asides in the lyrics that require repeated, close listens (it also proves he’s more than capable of double-time raps and old-school flows). “He killing but you still say, ‘free my bro,’ truth be told he should do his time/but hey that’s another song,” he offers casually, hinting at a larger world than he has time to get to inside a two-and-a-half minute toe-tapper. It’s a reminder of the potency that a flighty, sub-three minute rap song can contain, and the depths rap often plunders through beats that fill floors with joyous dancing bodies.
Jones is also an excellent hook writer, transforming the fantasy of the funky “Powerball” with a gospel-hued, reality-crashing bridge of: “What’s going on/nothing but the rent, nothing but the rent, nothing but the rent.” The song's cheeky “what if I won the lottery” concept is fleshed out by his chuckling reminiscence: “I graduated all they gave me was a piece of paper/no ‘good job’/no goodbye/not even ‘see you later.’” The humanity of the moment is telling: How else could you expect to “move up” in life without the aide of the lotto, while dealing with the quotidian reality that education rarely provides a pragmatic leg-up?
The piano ballad “Untitled” showcases his soulful voice, framing the song as a declaration to his mother he’s moving out while sneaking a tender autobiography. He calls back to this “hidden track” a few songs later, trading the piano for guitar (again, no drums) and offering a few more personal details: “My prom date just got engaged, I’m happy for you Marissa/that night in June I was probably just too nervous to kiss you,” he sighs, seconds after noting the colors of his childhood home were painted as the house gets put on the market. These moments are affecting because they are the work of an empathetic writer—he gives everyone in his stories autonomy: Jones has searched himself for the story and held onto the moments he thinks matter, not merely assumed he is the story. With Arcade, he makes you a part of the story, too. | 2016-11-10T01:00:00.000-05:00 | 2016-11-10T01:00:00.000-05:00 | Rap | New Funk Academy | November 10, 2016 | 7.2 | 22b043b1-b5ad-4c64-a4e1-5fe070dd1ef7 | Matthew Ramirez | https://pitchfork.com/staff/matthew-ramirez/ | null |
Using voice and synthesizer, the Shanghai-born, Berlin-based artist channels operatic tropes and controlled explosions of noise into visceral and cathartic forms. | Using voice and synthesizer, the Shanghai-born, Berlin-based artist channels operatic tropes and controlled explosions of noise into visceral and cathartic forms. | Pan Daijing: Lack | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/pan-daijing-lack/ | Lack | Pan Daijing’s first two releases—the 2015 tape Sex & Disease and this year’s A Satin Sight EP—for the most part fell squarely into the realms of noise and techno, respectively. Meanwhile, “Zhao Hua,” her standout collaboration with HVAD from Pan’s MONO NO AWARE compilation, was a cloudy and dreamlike ambient track. Useful as these genres have been as guideposts, the Chinese-born, Berlin-based artist’s practice is more expansive than any one of them, incorporating movement, improvisation, and installation—and also taking an interest in the potential of sound beyond music. Lack, Daijing’s ambitious debut full-length, incorporates all of this as it draws from the past two years of her live performances, accommodating a deeply felt theatrics.
Though Lack collects pieces from different contexts, it follows a well-structured dramatic arc, building from eerie, ominous atmospheres into pulsating industrial fuzz. Daijing has noted that the record is her take on an opera, and this emerges literally on the piercing opener, “Phenomenon,” in which a soprano oscillates between two tones over struck strings and dissonant drones. Moving forward, she turns to a wilder sonic palette: a muted atonal chorus of synthesizers on “A Loving Tongue,” and on “Practice of Hygiene,” the claustrophobic sound of a groaning voice, either ecstatic or tortured—it’s unclear which, and maybe irrelevant.
But amid such explosive aesthetics, there remains a formality to her delivery, a sense of control and even elegance. In “Plate of Order,” for example, Daijing portions out snarls of distortion that act as blistering punctuation underneath her own sustained vocals. Not merely aggressive, her application of crashing percussion or squalls of noise develops a near-meditative quality as Lack progresses. Certain songs may at first have an anxiety-inducing effect on the listener, but this is not anxious music; rather, it transmits an intense sense of presence.
The voice is often the means by which we get to know a performer, and while Daijing’s offers some of the most arresting moments on this album, other elements of her productions are equally expressive: the melodic clanging of “Come to Sit, Come to refuse, Come to Surround,” or the frenzied, arrhythmic sawing of “A Situation of Meat.” Without adopting legibly confessional language or even, for the most part, affectively triggering sonics, Daijing places herself in daring proximity to the listener, linking the production of noise to physical embodiment. In an interview earlier this year, the artist described the sensation of using a Buchla: “I ended up getting stuff that made me feel like part of me and part of this thing I’ve been touching every day for the past two weeks had come together.”
Most distinctive about Lack is the way it moves beyond catharsis—sometimes through the intellectual distance that comes from dramatization, but sometimes simply through an openness to fear. At moments it can seem as if we’re privy to the development of Daijing’s relationship to pain—her respect for it and desire to understand it. Much sharper-edged than the sounds one would usually associate with healing, Daijing’s music still seems to cultivate a space in which one might grow. | 2017-07-31T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2017-07-31T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Experimental | Pan | July 31, 2017 | 7.6 | 22b04d5b-46ef-4ddf-9b23-280aa02b92c7 | Thea Ballard | https://pitchfork.com/staff/thea-ballard/ | null |
Until now, L.A.'s Eddie Ruscha Jr.-- the progeny of the famed pop artist-- has been reticent about letting the bedroom-woven electronica he makes as Secret Circuit see the light. But the analog components, modular synths, and dusty drum machines of Tropical Psychedelics seems to hint at breakout tendencies. | Until now, L.A.'s Eddie Ruscha Jr.-- the progeny of the famed pop artist-- has been reticent about letting the bedroom-woven electronica he makes as Secret Circuit see the light. But the analog components, modular synths, and dusty drum machines of Tropical Psychedelics seems to hint at breakout tendencies. | Secret Circuit: Tropical Psychedelics | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/17442-tropical-psychedelics/ | Tropical Psychedelics | With a name like Secret Circuit, it shouldn't be much of a surprise that the copious amounts of music that L.A.'s Eddie Ruscha, Jr. (yes, he is the progeny of the famed pop artist) has been cranking out in his home studio has not seen that much of California's legendary daylight. Ruscha's previous alternative rock band, Medicine, had spent a decade under-appreciated before getting some due this year with a Captured Tracks-pressed box set. And Ruscha's other notable project, the Laughing Light of Plenty (made with famed UK, SF, and NYC DJ Thomas Bullock), released one of 2008's Stone Rosiest dance singles, but then released a full-length album that I defy you to find, already deemed "lost" even though it dates from 2010. Almost all of Ruscha's music remains secret.
Soon after Medicine achieved mid-level grunge-era success (even landing a cameo in The Crow), Ruscha bowed out of rock altogether to dabble bedroom-woven electronica being crafted by the likes of Aphex Twin. It's that sort of Selected Ambient Works-worthy playfulness that comes to mind in sampling Tropical Psychedelics, released on England's finely attuned Emotional Response imprint. (Their reissue arm-- Emotional Rescue-- has also had a pretty decent year.) The album also caps Secret Circuit's rather overt 2012, wherein his quirky take on homespun electronic music began to gain more exposure via singles on the Beats in Space label and on Prins Thomas' Internasjonal.
Drawing on music dating back to when Ruscha first left Medicine (a quick scan of Secret Circuit's entry on Discogs reveals over a decade of self-released CDs and cassettes), this 12-track collection finds the music hard to peg to any particular era or trend. Analog components, modular synthesizers, and dusty drum machines underpin nearly every track. Opener "White Wish" has a winsome melody flutter about as a beat ticks underneath, but then a plucked nylon-string figure appears, replaced soon after by a warm'n'fuzzy psych guitar flare-up, before returning to its simple components. The cleverly named "Afrobotics" feels both primitive and futuristic, a roiling tom-tom getting topped with multiple layers of spy theme guitar, modular synth gurgles and squalls, even a dash of wordless vocals from Ruscha, the cumulative effect of all these overdubbed tracks never feeling cluttered.
The acoustic guitar foregrounded on "Moon Life" and the swirling noise interlude of "Angel's Eyes" nod back to 1996's Cosmic Sword #1, while the piano recital-meets-Conrad Schnitzler noise of "Psouvenirs" was available on Secret Circuit's 2010 Bandcamp album of the same name (another piano sketch, "Piano Waltz", has similar components). You can just make out that clatter and voices of children in the background of the former, suggesting a sketch rendered with the same sense of play. The most taut rhythm tracks appear on "Winded Up on the Floor" and "Lagoland", the former having the earmarks of early acid tracks while the latter features a buzzing kalimba lick that could come right off of a Congotronics album. Most of the album tracks are mindful to not wear out their welcome, with only three ventures beyond the four-minute mark.
Most of the album's pacing comes at a fugue-like, breezy speed, somewhere between the Balearic sensibilities of a new generation of producers (see the International Feel label and DJ Harvey's Sarcastic Study Masters) as well as the strange sort of punch-drunk exotica evoked by Yellow Magic Orchestra's Haroumi Hosono, with the casual sway of "Foggy Twilights" and "Walkin' on Water" conjuring island sunsets. Ruscha's curious sensibilities remain intact across Tropical Psychedelics, making the album an idiosyncratic yet satisfying listen. And with a new crop of L.A. producers like Suzanne Kraft, Pacific Horizons, and SFV Acid taking cues from Ruscha's peculiar soundworld, Secret Circuit may yet become overt. | 2013-01-04T01:00:02.000-05:00 | 2013-01-04T01:00:02.000-05:00 | Pop/R&B | Emotional Response | January 4, 2013 | 7.6 | 22b0c147-6800-4716-9601-7ac99b7e5b72 | Andy Beta | https://pitchfork.com/staff/andy-beta/ | null |
The 24-year-old Berklee College of Music graduate and former YouTube star Charlie Puth has already had three top 40 singles, all since last February: The Meghan Trainor duet "Marvin Gaye", "See You Again" featuring Wiz Khalifa, and "One Call Away," an ocean of syrup that sounds exactly like "See You Again" and is the first song on Puth's debut LP. | The 24-year-old Berklee College of Music graduate and former YouTube star Charlie Puth has already had three top 40 singles, all since last February: The Meghan Trainor duet "Marvin Gaye", "See You Again" featuring Wiz Khalifa, and "One Call Away," an ocean of syrup that sounds exactly like "See You Again" and is the first song on Puth's debut LP. | Charlie Puth: Nine Track Mind | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/21502-nine-track-mind/ | Nine Track Mind | There are 12 tracks on Charlie Puth’s debut album Nine Track Mind, which is either three or 12 too many. But no matter; the album is a smoothly executed pitch deck of exactly what will perform on pop radio in 2016, and Puth—pronounced "Pooth," and the slice through his right eyebrow is from a childhood canine attack, if you’re wondering—will do just fine. The 24-year-old Berklee College of Music graduate and former YouTube star of the acoustic-cover variety has already had three top 40 singles, all since last February: first, the demonic Meghan Trainor duet "Marvin Gaye," then, the Paul Walker Memorial Beanie Baby track "See You Again" (featuring Wiz Khalifa), then "One Call Away," an ocean of syrup that sounds exactly like "See You Again," and is the first song on the LP.
Charlie Puth is extremely talented, it must be said. There’s that Berklee degree, of course, and the fact that he wrote so many theme songs for famous vloggers before he signed to Atlantic. Puth co-wrote every song on Nine Track Mind and produced much of it solo, and the songwriting and the arrangements and the engineering are shockingly proficient, proficient to the point of insensation. Also, there is Puth’s voice, a beautiful tenor/falsetto soaring out of a throat that never coughs that frog out and as such must be magical. In other words, Charlie Puth is a truly excellent product, the type of artist that inspires wildly confident emails from anyone getting a cut. "Wrote the hook in 10 minutes," you can imagine his A&R tapping out on an iPhone (Puth did, he says, for "See You Again"). "Video’s going to be just Paul Walker clips and the Wiz verse, guaranteed smash, gonna do a billion on YouTube." And it did.
Like the best-selling (i.e. blandest) model home in the up-and-coming suburb, Nine Track Mind is demoralizingly well-constructed as a means to an end, and it’s because of Puth’s considerable abilities, and not in spite of them, that the album induces such despair. It doesn’t help that Nine Track Mind is all ballads except for three tracks, two of which are duets (Trainor, a sleepy Selena Gomez) that somehow still feel like ballads. Puth cannot fill this frame of sentimentality with any genuine sentiment: The album’s emotional range covers the spectrum from light longing to light infatuation, contributing to the overall sense that Nine Track Mind is aimed exclusively at hairlessness: children, prepubescents, the discomfitingly waxed.
As he showed us in "Marvin Gaye," Puth lives for retro flourishes: doo-wop rhythms, sock-hop melodies, finger snaps, arpeggiated singalong piano. The album doesn’t deviate much from this safe spot; when it does, it goes blander ("Up All Night" is completely self-effacing) or, pleasantly, Ryan Tedder-er ("My Gospel" is a nicely rumbling One Republic facsimile), or, even more pleasantly, somewhat close to Justin Timberlake territory. "Suffer" is a credibly lustful piece of pleading, and "Losing My Mind" begins with a lovely, distorted Timbaland-lite riff that rings like a bell over Puth, who gets to take a welcome break from his falsetto. The latter track sounds like the work of an award-winning college acapella group; it is the album’s strongest track.
As for the rest? "Left Right Left," a love-ish song that sounds like accidentally holding hands with a coworker, is a ballad that assumes no one will listen to it. If you did, you’d hear Charlie Puth encouraging his romantic interest—"We’re almost there, baby, one more step"—to bravely overcome the obstacle of Charlie Puth, who is dealing with a set of problems that includes "walls," "long roads," and "climbing." There is a classic track in the So Sweet The Neg Will Be Invisible genre (it’s called "Then There’s You," and the chorus goes "There’s beautiful and then there’s you"). There is also a series of increasingly unnecessary vows scattered throughout the album: Puth promises to save the day, to never sleep alone, to stay perfectly still when the world is on fire, and then, in "My Gospel," he goes nuclear. "I’d stroll into a bank and put a ski mask on and walk out with a million bucks," he blusters. "Then I’d burn it in a pile out on your front lawn, just to prove it didn’t mean that much."
That lyric couplet has the approximate relationship to joy and meaning as the rest of this album does, generally. Later in the same track, Puth promises to "carry your body to the top of the tower to kiss your lips at midnight." What a tempting offer, and a typical one, in which your best case scenario is unconsciousness. You’d have to be completely sensible to pass. | 2016-02-03T01:00:01.000-05:00 | 2016-02-03T01:00:01.000-05:00 | Pop/R&B | Atlantic | February 3, 2016 | 2.5 | 22b58330-be4e-4393-8b9c-8bfaf6b6f678 | Jia Tolentino | https://pitchfork.com/staff/jia-tolentino/ | null |
David Byrne’s first true solo album in 14 years is daring and open-hearted. The risks Byrne takes on these songs, however, too often feel clumsy or gaudy. | David Byrne’s first true solo album in 14 years is daring and open-hearted. The risks Byrne takes on these songs, however, too often feel clumsy or gaudy. | David Byrne: American Utopia | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/david-byrne-american-utopia/ | American Utopia | For legacy musicians in their late-career phrase, there’s a common track to follow. Maybe it’s an album that incentivizes low risk/low reward, a real back-to-basics outing, or a tasteful covers collection followed by some meditations on aging that lead to predetermined takeaways, that sort of thing. But so long as they’re willing to settle for good-enough, everybody wins: The artist keeps creating, Rolling Stone tosses them an extra star as a thank you for their service, and fans get a chance to hear the old hits on tour.
David Byrne isn’t playing along. Rather than subtly downplaying expectations for his latest project, he’s actively drummed them by billing American Utopia as his first solo album in 14 years (technically true, but he’s made plenty of collaborative albums in the interim). More dramatically, he announced it in conjunction with a huge tour behind what he’s called “the most ambitious show I’ve done since the shows that were filmed for Stop Making Sense.” He’s all but daring audiences to compare American Utopia to his Talking Heads heyday, a comparison that doesn’t flatter even his best solo albums—and American Utopia, to be clear, is not one of his best albums. Nonetheless, with his latest, Byrne does what so few of his peers will: He takes some actual risks.
It’s hard to determine how much goodwill that affords him. Beyond American Utopia’s rictus optimism—Byrne’s method of pushing back against the cynical politics of the moment—the album has plenty to commend: It’s bright, daring, and open-hearted, the work of an artist who has thrown himself into his work absolutely. Yet, almost as often, it’s clumsy or gaudy, if not outright grating. It takes less than a minute to realize you’re in store for a rough ride, when the swooning, mannerly “I Dance Like This” is upended by a robotic breakdown—a throwback to a very 1980s notion of coolness that scans as hopelessly dated today.
That’s just the first of American Utopia’s many losing gambits. Byrne has often flirted with silliness as an aesthetic, but the wonky sound effects on “It’s Not Dark Up Here” cross the line into brazen dopiness. Even less tasteful than his indiscriminate knob-twisting is his wordplay. “The brain of a chicken and the dick of a donkey,” Byrne croons on “Every Day Is a Miracle,” a potentially infectious Caribbean party-starter that’s undone by one lyrical face-plant after another. “The pope don’t mean shit to a dog,” he observes on that same song (which, amazingly, is immediately followed by another song about the cognitive limitations of a dog). Despite his reputation as one of rock’s great thinkers, Byrne has never sounded more like a stoned teenager staring at the clouds and spit-balling deep thoughts about the universe.
And yet despite its many misfires—including a truly unfortunate pun on the word “duty” in that dog song—American Utopia manages two unblemished triumphs in its final stretch. “Doing the Right Thing” builds from a twitchy tempo and suave string accompaniment to the album’s greatest thrill, a surprise blast of proggy synths that completely eviscerates the song, a musical ambush on par with Jerry Harrison’s extraterrestrial keyboard abduction on “Stay Hungry” four decades ago. Even better is “Everybody’s Coming to My House,” an absolute jam and Byrne’s sharpest satire of the suburban dream since “Once in a Lifetime.” Here, everything that might have blown up in his face elsewhere on the album pays off beautifully: the overheated post-punk guitars, feverish art-rock horns, and wily drum breaks. He even pulls off a dubby breakdown. These are the kinds of highs a master can achieve when they rediscover a moment of unknown inspiration. It’s just a shame they’re tucked away on an album that’s otherwise littered with cautionary tales. | 2018-03-12T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2018-03-12T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Rock | Nonesuch / Todomundo | March 12, 2018 | 5.8 | 22b6b581-d1f0-467b-b7ba-314bb68c2526 | Evan Rytlewski | https://pitchfork.com/staff/evan-rytlewski/ | |
Released mere months after the Sex Pistols’ infamous implosion, PiL's First Issue was deemed too uncommercial to release in the U.S. This Light in the Attic reissue marks the first time the band's scabrous debut album has been officially available Stateside. It features a prescient BBC interview as bonus material. | Released mere months after the Sex Pistols’ infamous implosion, PiL's First Issue was deemed too uncommercial to release in the U.S. This Light in the Attic reissue marks the first time the band's scabrous debut album has been officially available Stateside. It features a prescient BBC interview as bonus material. | Public Image Ltd: First Issue | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/18200-public-image-ltd-first-issue/ | First Issue | With the Sex Pistols, Johnny “Rotten” Lydon helped define the everlasting image of punk: the spiky hair, the safety-pinned clothes, the wanton disregard for monarchy and the defaced Queen Elizabeth portraits to match. But in doing so, the Pistols also created a caricature, one that could be readily trotted out by sleazy TV talk-show hosts for cheap shock value and easily aped by sketch-comedy troupes. And for all the media outrage and label politicking that surrounded the release of Never Mind the Bollocks, it was ultimately a slickly produced, highly accessible set, its anti-establishment invectives latched onto shout-along hooks crafted by the world’s most ridiculed Beatles fan. Really, the Pistols were just a rock‘n’roll band fronted by a singer who happened to hate rock‘n’roll. And his next move was to show everyone just how much, by redefining punk not as a sound or costume, but as an idea, a liberation philosophy of pan-cultural musical cross-polination and strident non-conformism.
Formed in 1978, mere months after the Pistols’ infamous implosion in San Francisco, Public Image Ltd. were not so much post-punk as meta-punk. Though he’d detest the comparison, PiL initially served precisely the same function for Lydon as the Plastic Ono Band did for another famous John L., a vehicle through which he could exorcise and excoriate the albatross of his former band. Not only was the new group’s very moniker a pointed comment on Malcolm McLaren’s shrewd attempts to commoditize the Pistols as punk-rock puppets (and Lydon's former bandmates’ complicity in the gambit), their self-titled debut single scans as a particularly bitter break-up letter; spiked with barbs like “You never listened to a word that I said/ You only see me for the clothes that I wear,” “Public Image” is essentially a “How Do You Sleep?” you can dance to.
Musically speaking, “Public Image” presented a logical bridge between Lydon’s old and new ventures, retaining the punk-rock drive and agitated vocals, but with a greater sonic expanse highlighting Jah Wobble’s subterranean basslines and Keith Levene’s metallic (in the materiality sense) guitar grind, and hinting at the dub reggae and Krautrock influences that would inform the early PiL's sound. But the album on which it appears, First Issue, presents no convenient gateway, tucking the single onto Side 2 while greeting rubberneckers with “Theme”, a grueling nine-minute dirge-- on which Lydon repeatedly screams “I wish I could diiiieeee” with varying degrees of anguish-- that serves as a litmus test to instantly ward off Pistols fans looking for another excuse to pogo.
Sure, the Sex Pistols could be nasty, but the primordial Public Image was unrepentantly brutal-- punk stripped of its fashion and tabloid-baiting sensationalism and reduced to its noisy, nihilistic essence. Where the Pistols engaged in broad-stroke critiques of British institutions, First Issue’s strikes on the Catholic Church are more like close-range stabbings that gruesomely twist the blade; through the two-part spoken-word churn of “Religion” (a song reportedly rejected by the Pistols) and the relentlessly harrowing “Annalisa” (based on a true story of an exorcism gone horribly wrong), Lydon’s voice is transformed from a mere instrument of provocation to the pure embodiment of sheer terror. (Not surprisingly, Warner Bros. deemed First Issue too uncommercial to release in the U.S.; this Light in the Attic reissue marks the first time the album has been officially available stateside.)
A word-association game with Public Image Ltd. inevitably yields the phrase “death disco,” however, that sound (and the single that coined it) wouldn’t fully flourish until 1980’s Second Edition; rather than proffer a bastardized take on dance music, First Issue works the other way, applying disco production principles-- by boosting Wobble’s bottom end and foregrounding Levene’s tin-foiled guitar refrains-- to its deconstructionist rock attack. But what’s most striking today is the in-the-room immediacy and towering presence of the sound-- Canadian-born drummer Jim Walker may have only stuck around for this one record, but his Bonham-scaled boom leaves behind a career’s worth of craters. While future PiL records would provide easily photocopied blueprints to post-punk progeny like the Rapture, LCD Soundsystem, and Liars, First Issue’s industrial-strength stompers anticipate the scabrous art-punk of the Jesus Lizard and Slint, while Levene’s guitar curlicues on “Public Image” are the stuff Daydream Nations are made of.
Not all of First Issue casts such an imposing shadow-- after completing the album’s first side at Townhouse and Manor Studios, the band had blown its budget, and finished off the album’s closing trifecta in a more affordable, lo-fi studio that specialized in reggae tracks. But the downsized dimensions encouraged the band’s experimental tendencies. “Low Life” and “Attack” succesively follow the “Public Image” single’s tunefully dissonant template but gradually debase it into echo-drenched disorientation, and though the dub-disco doodle “Fodderstompf” essentially amounts to a one-note joke stretched to seven minutes, it’s a significant one, presenting both a test run for the grotty grooves mastered on Second Edition, while paving the way for everything from Ween’s early bong-sucking pranksterism to James Murphy’s self-reflexive irreverence.
Rather than lard up the tracklist with endless outtakes and alternate versions, the First Issue reissue offers but two bonus incentives: beserker, Bonanza-inspired B-side “The Cowboy Song” and, far more intriguingly, a complete unedited 56-minute BBC interview with Lydon (conducted before the album’s release) that is well worth the price of re-admission for those who've already worn out their original vinyl import.. While Lydon has since cultivated a media personality as the consummate crank who gleefully hangs up on journalists, here he seems less surly than cagey and defensive, still stinging from the Pistols’ break-up and the perpetual flogging that band received from the press. It initially results in some painful moments of silence between Lydon and the intensely meek interviewer, but to her credit, she gradually gets him to loosen up and sound off on everything from the Rolling Stones (“they rip off everybody else’s ideas”) and Siouxsie and the Banshees (“I find their record appalling”) to the superiority of dance music over rock‘n’roll, which he’d already declared dead 35 years prior. And just as the album it accompanies set the discordant tone for next three-plus decades of indie rock, the interview yields its own uncanny prophecies-- Lydon stops just short of outing late BBC host Jimmy Saville as a pedophile, an insinuation that wouldn’t go public until an ITV documentary brought the sexual abuse claims to light last year. He may have gotten famous screaming “no future,” but as this reissue makes clear, Lydon’s greatest gift was a known future. | 2013-06-24T02:00:01.000-04:00 | 2013-06-24T02:00:01.000-04:00 | Rock | Light in the Attic | June 24, 2013 | 9 | 22b6cb22-aec0-4be3-be73-2f784fe46a39 | Stuart Berman | https://pitchfork.com/staff/stuart-berman/ | null |
The agony, desire, that none rise above
The sweet aching torture from one that you love
For some shall believe ... | The agony, desire, that none rise above
The sweet aching torture from one that you love
For some shall believe ... | The Faint: Danse Macabre | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/2950-danse-macabre/ | Danse Macabre | The agony, desire, that none rise above
The sweet aching torture from one that you love
For some shall believe, while many find hard
There is nothing quite like, the song of Macabre!
Okay, so I ripped that off some goth chick's "webcave," but short of a tragico-absurdist interpretive dance, it's the best way to sum up the feelings I have for The Faint's new album, Danse Macabre. Indie rock (with the exception of the obscure supergroup The Hattifatteners) has never expressed much of an interest in a "ring of corpses holding hands," but if the kids really want to fight the culture industry through song, they should embrace this, as death does not care for social standing or wealth. Nor does dance!
But let's start from the beginning: long before The Faint released Danse Macabre last Tuesday, the Bubonic plague wiped out approximately one-third of Europe's population. Fear of falling victim to the plague's wrath became a part of everyday life for the people of the time, inspiring a lot of art, poetry, music, and most importantly, woodcuts, about death. The Danse Macabre usually referred to representations of skeletons dancing or playing musical instruments. Danse Macabre is also a symphony by Camille Saint-Saens, a progressive-metal band from Birmingham, and an 18+ night on Thursdays.
From what I gathered in my days studying woodcuts, the music of the Danse Macabre would cast a diabolical spell over people, drawing them towards the dance into death. And The Faint's Danse Macabre is no exception. These songs may ride on new-wave synth swells but they've got a New Order-like urgency and art-punk edge that throws off comparisons to Depeche Mode and The Human League. The album is primarily driven by keyboards, though Joel Petersen's live bass, Todd Baechle's occasional acoustic drums, and Saddle Creek cellist Gretta Cohn help the album avoid a sterile sound.
Right from the start, Danse Macabre casts a gothic light on the ordinary (as opposed, of course, to the extraordinary). A song title like "Agenda Suicide" suggests something more in the order of Heaven's Gate than career paralegaling, but instead, the song details the wasted days of mindless work in the name of an empty American dream: "Our work makes pretty little homes/ Agenda suicide, the drones work hard before they die/ And give up on pretty little homes." Meanwhile, "Let the Poison Spill from your Throat" is gossip from the crypt. Social climbing and bitter words motivated by insecurity are made physical and grotesque: "If there's dirt you've got on someone/ You let it loose without a thought/ You let the poison spill/ Spurt from your throat/ Hiss like steam."
Though The Faint's last album, Blank-Wave Arcade, was lyrically obsessed with sex, Danse Macabre seems to keep coming back to gothic paradoxes; the living die by agenda suicide, and mannequins are brought to life. Paralysis and involuntary movement or actions are common themes-- although paralysis is more likely to mean being trapped in daily routines than in coffins, and involuntary movements are caused by social pressure rather than Satanic possession. Still, these subjects seem well suited for synth-heavy anthems that lack subtlety in their thumping draw towards the dancefloor.
So, sure, it's dancy, and unquestionably new-wave, but the Danse Macabre is anything but retro. The Faint might be using Duran Duran's keyboards, but rather than mimicking the past, they play with new-wave, goth, punk rock, and some old woodcuts to make a record entirely fresh and oddly optimistic in the way that only an album which commands you to "Danse!/ Danse the Danse Macabre!" can. | 2001-07-31T01:00:03.000-04:00 | 2001-07-31T01:00:03.000-04:00 | Rock | Saddle Creek | July 31, 2001 | 7.8 | 22bcfaf3-a4f8-4fc3-b1b9-a0d227d87b08 | Pitchfork | null |
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The Norwegian producer Hans-Peter Lindstrøm’s latest solo full-length feels breezily noncommittal. Each experiment—including a spoken word piece by Jenny Hval—dissolves into the next. | The Norwegian producer Hans-Peter Lindstrøm’s latest solo full-length feels breezily noncommittal. Each experiment—including a spoken word piece by Jenny Hval—dissolves into the next. | Lindstrøm: It’s Alright Between Us as It Is | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/lindstrom-its-alright-between-us-as-it-is/ | It’s Alright Between Us as It Is | The heyday of “space disco”—in its Scandinavian, endurance-length format—is a decade behind us now, but the brightest stars in that galaxy have demonstrated some serious longevity. Between his dotty collaboration with fellow disconaut Todd Terje (“Lanzarote”), 2012’s perfectly formed Smalhans, and last year’s colossal “Closing Shot,” there’s an argument that Hans-Peter Lindstrøm’s most dazzling dancefloor moments have all arrived at a rather advanced stage of his career, more than a decade after his first 12”.
It’s Alright Between Us as It Is marks the Oslo artist’s first solo full-length since 2012’s Six Cups of Rebel, a wacky, inscrutable epic which left dancers perplexed rather than perspiring. The lukewarm reaction to that record didn’t put an end to his progged-out experiments, however; next came the damn-near unclassifiable Runddans, an album collaboration with veteran rock producer Todd Rundgren. After such bold strides into new territory, it’d be reasonable to expect another high-concept showpiece. Instead, It’s Alright Between Us as It Is feels as breezily noncommittal as its title. Playing in a continuous stream, with each track dissolving into the next, the experience is like leafing through a gluey scrapbook of experiments.
The most attention-grabbing moments are provided by three vocal collaborations, while a cluster of churning, yearning space disco tracks provide the padding. Those cuts are a reminder that Lindstrøm is a master of duration and evolution, able to grab a moment of bliss and stretch it between his fingers like putty. This is the Lindstrøm we meet on the first half, after the curtain comes up with a burst of wah-wah guitar that could be a leftover from Runddans. “Spire” is a smooth, endless ascent that never quite bubbles over; “Tensions” rises higher still, bringing shimmering sunset boogie and a dazzling crescendo to turn even the most louche dancefloor participant into a 100-watt megastar. The featherlight vocals of Swedish singer Frida Sundemo uplift “Sorry,” a 1980s-style tearjerker adorned with wistful flutes and a brass-bright melody that’s one part Badalamenti, three parts Benny Andersson. It’s an homage to simpler times—the kind of impossibly tragic disco ballad that should be winning Eurovision and soundtracking long drives along winding fjords.
The bolder, messier second half begins with “Shinin,” a dizzying construction built up from itchy drum patterns and shards of bass and piano that punctuate the mix at strange junctures, as if improvised. It might have been an idea worth exploring, but the vocal—provided by Grace Hall, singer for moody R&B duo Skin Town—is an awkward fit: a powerhouse, competition-worthy performance, peppered with earnest “ooh-woah”s and “alright”s. The contrast with the dreamy instrumentation is severe, and just as the hook starts to cohere into something memorable, the arrangement takes a left turn and the mood collapses.
Faring much better is “Bungl (Like a Ghost),” where a spoken word piece by Norway’s Jenny Hval injects a welcome layer of intrigue to a pared-down house beat, showcasing her phenomenal talent for language: “I look into the camera and I feel black metal bulging behind blue eyes,” she says quietly, like a confessional. “I chose the other path, to be dead, so when I held her she would feel me like a ghost.” Again, a jazzy piano line wanders in as if from another studio session, adding an uneasy atonality; little else happens but the sustaining of a cryptic mood. It’s so unsatisfying it demands your attention.
While the vocal credits might have promised a more straightforward pop route this time around, It’s Alright Between Us… ends up being one of Lindstrøm’s most disjointed and ambiguous projects. Lifelong studio-dweller that he is, Lindstrøm is far too talented to leave us empty-bellied after 50 minutes—but when you’ve served up a buffet, don’t be surprised if your guests can’t remember what they ate. | 2017-10-25T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2017-10-25T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Electronic | Smalltown Supersound | October 25, 2017 | 6.5 | 22bfa54d-ff6d-4215-a2a2-eb13d99468c7 | Chal Ravens | https://pitchfork.com/staff/chal-ravens/ | |
The Detroit rapper’s fourth album of 2020 is yet another unalloyed success. It’s pure genre fare delivered by an artist with a refined, almost clinical approach to storytelling. | The Detroit rapper’s fourth album of 2020 is yet another unalloyed success. It’s pure genre fare delivered by an artist with a refined, almost clinical approach to storytelling. | Boldy James / Real Bad Man: Real Bad Boldy | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/boldy-james-real-bad-man-real-bad-boldy/ | Real Bad Boldy | What’s remarkable about Boldy James’ bounty last year is how each of his four records succeeded as a standalone project. February’s The Price of Tea in China, an understated suite produced by prestige-rap mainstay the Alchemist, tunneled into James’ drug dealer psyche in noirish flashes. August’s The Versace Tape was comparably low-stakes, a collection of prismatic two-minute sketches with beats contributed by former Vine star Jay Versace. The wild card was July’s Manger on McNichols, an evocative synthesis of jazz and claustrophobic rhymes—the bulk of which James recorded over a decade ago. All this Rust Belt coke rap is carried by James’ extraordinary presence, instincts, and exposition. Even when trying on different sounds and styles, he never overplays his hand.
In looking at a stretch like this, it’s tempting to try to place James within an established tradition, but none quite fits. At times his affectless poise and seen-it-all tales recall a pre-retirement JAY-Z, but Boldy’s raps aren’t exactly kingpin narratives: He refrains from sweeping cause-and-effect arcs, which makes all the pavement-pounding sound exhausting. One might assign him to the canon of post-Marcberg neoclassical rap, but Roc Marciano’s obsessive detail and acquisitiveness sound practically sociopathic next to Boldy’s survival stories. James is looser than Mobb Deep, less eager-to-please than the punchline-happy Clipse; he orbits the Griselda universe, but they need him more than he needs them.
December’s Real Bad Boldy is a full-length tryst with Real Bad Man, who, per their Bandcamp, “is a crew from Los Angeles that makes clothing but also happens to have fire-ass beats.” The conceit isn’t unprecedented—Conway the Machine recorded an entire tape credited to a streetwear line in 2019—and while I can’t speak to their $60 t-shirts, Real Bad Boldy’s 10 tracks corroborate the latter claim. Paradoxically, it’s James’ most Detroit-sounding record in years, with expressive samples recalling Dilla and Waajeed’s sooty electro-soul. The melodic “Street Shit” is at once upbeat and contemplative, and the cinematic “Held Me Down” loops a mournful vocal track with choppy drums. “Failed Attempt” features a swelling Rhodes piano; James’ brisk imagery (“Parkin’ back-to-back black-on-blacks at the Coliseum/In the trap, we go rack-for-rack, this is not per diem”) feels like flipping through a stack of fuzzy Polaroids.
Structurally, Real Bad Boldy keeps to a static formula. Each track has two verses plus one durable hook, and James’ delivery and syllable placement hardly vary. His general aplomb belies his detailed vignettes, bricks of yola shipped from Pensacola, fishscale that flakes like dry skin. Some moments are positively breezy in light of Manger’s menace and Tea in China’s interrogation, but Real Bad Boldy is grounded in the same narrative authority. Even at his most violent, James maintains a neutral distance, dutifully charting cross-streets and genealogies in a way that makes the episodes feel less like capers and more like a manual that human resources would hand out on your first day. This lends an unusual omniscience to his first-person accounts: Boldy doesn’t exactly glorify a life of crime, but he’s not asking for pity either.
It’s genre fare at its most sure-handed and unadulterated, and the guests—all vivid stylists from New York State—are so devoted to selling drugs they make it sound like a vocation. Stove God Cooks, a leering Roc Marciano protégé from Syracuse, appears on “Thousand Pills,” his verse (“I had the feds tap dancin’ in my ear before Rick Rubin had a beard”) like something relayed over a burner phone. On “Good Foot,” Rochester rappers Mooch and Rigz trade reports of jewel thieves and sculptures molded from cocaine. They’re almost caricatures of ’90s rap villains—Rigz flows like Big L on cough syrup—and while James partakes in the revelry, he stays rooted to the concrete. After Eto outlines another trafficking plot on “Little Vicious,” Boldy sighingly admits, “I was happier when I was poor with my friends.”
James’ meat-and-potatoes craftsmanship doesn’t yield the shiny hooks of Jay’s epics or Marciano’s ornate tapestries, but his 2020 quartet is ideally formatted for his unhurried burrowing. Short of Manger’s audacious vision and Tea in China’s tricky corners, Real Bad Boldy is both an entry point and a crowd-pleaser that suggests an American original: No one sounds quite as comfortable in this milieu.
Catch up every Saturday with 10 of our best-reviewed albums of the week. Sign up for the 10 to Hear newsletter here. | 2021-01-04T01:00:00.000-05:00 | 2021-01-04T01:00:00.000-05:00 | Rap | Real Bad Man | January 4, 2021 | 7.6 | 22cae163-89fd-4bf5-800d-d9d8edad3dc3 | Pete Tosiello | https://pitchfork.com/staff/pete-tosiello/ | |
On their first album together, ambient singer-songwriter Ana Roxanne and leftfield producer DJ Python find common cause in slow-motion grooves and downbeat electronic pop. | On their first album together, ambient singer-songwriter Ana Roxanne and leftfield producer DJ Python find common cause in slow-motion grooves and downbeat electronic pop. | Natural Wonder Beauty Concept: Natural Wonder Beauty Concept | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/natural-wonder-beauty-concept-natural-wonder-beauty-concept/ | Natural Wonder Beauty Concept | Both Ana Roxanne and Brian Piñeyro operate with a perpetual slowness. Piñeyro’s productions as DJ Python might be more club-focused than Roxanne’s gently unfolding ambient lullabies, but he is just as patient in his approach to house and reggaeton; even his hardest tracks don’t pummel the dancefloor so much as gradually envelop it like a vaporous cloud. He’s a child of IDM at heart, building songs out of wispy drum patterns and strange synth patches that pull the listener into a deep, nocturnal trance. Roxanne, for her part, has explored rippling electronic drums on tracks like “Camille.” So it’s not completely inconceivable that the two artists might find kinship in each other’s work. In their first record together as Natural Wonder Beauty Concept, they set about exploring the shared spaces in their practices, uncovering subtle new emotional territories in the process.
Although Natural Wonder Beauty Concept isn’t expressly intended for moving bodies, club culture has left scuff marks in its ebbing rhythms (the cover art should trigger flashbacks for anybody used to catching Lyfts from a downtown warehouse at 3 a.m.). “Fallen Angel” opens the album in slow motion, with Piñeyro’s spacious bass and tinny hi-hats inching along like a caterpillar crawling up a leafy branch, while Roxanne’s softly cooing voice peeks through like sunlight overhead. Together they arrive at a crisp, chilly downtempo not quite like anything either artist has released before. But part of Natural Wonder Beauty Concept’s appeal is the way it constantly changes direction: Immediately after “The Veil I” casts us into a bleary spell of warbling piano loops, flipped pages, and tap-dancing shoes, the duo shifts gears on the lovely title track, whose racing jungle breaks and melancholy central motif mix together to create a purified drip of blissful nostalgia.
Vocals have always played a central role in Roxanne’s music, filtering her background in church choir and Hindustani chant into an otherworldly mist, and that emphasis seems to have rubbed off on Piñeyro. The trip-hoppy “III” interjects its skittering drums with Piñeyro’s own voice—marking the first time he has used them on one of his productions—as he disaffectedly asks, “Isn't it strange that nothing makes a difference at all/Isn't it strange that I kind of feel nothing at all?” His soft humming fits surprisingly seamlessly into the track’s dusky atmosphere, particularly when balanced out by Roxanne’s own glowing voice on the chorus. Roxanne treads new territory of her own on the downbeat pop of “Driving,” though unfortunately the results are less convincing; her awkward enunciation and noodly doot-doo-doot-doo refrains sound more amateurish than ethereal. Much better is the intimate “Sword,” whose tactile polyrhythms circle around Roxanne’s pitch-shifted melodies to elicit a sweet, alien tenderness.
At times the two musicians teeter so close to the edge of formlessness that they spill over into a nondescript electronic haze, particularly as the record begins to wind down. But if Roxanne brings one thing above all else to Piñeyro’s sound, it’s a sense of serenity. Though Piñeyro has shown himself capable of concocting heavenly jams of his own, his fascination with twitchy illbient has largely lent his music to dim, ravey basements compared to the tranquil meditations Roxanne conjures with her performances. Natural Wonder Beauty Concept finds a magic zone between those two worlds: sleek yet damaged, peaceful yet ghostly, a new-age record for the comedown lounge. So often supergroups end up failing to become more than the sum of their parts, or struggle to cleanly thread the needle between its band members’ distinct voices. Where Natural Wonder Beauty Concept shines is in the way it uses Roxanne and Piñeyro’s common ground to reveal deeper textures buried within each artist’s work. When they align in that sweet, blurry middle, both projects feel even more alive with possibility. | 2023-07-14T00:02:00.000-04:00 | 2023-07-14T00:02:00.000-04:00 | Electronic | Mexican Summer | July 14, 2023 | 7.4 | 22cb76dc-ef7d-42e1-8b38-9825e32320d2 | Sam Goldner | https://pitchfork.com/staff/sam-goldner/ | |
FKA twigs' first full-length is a monumental debut. On a formal level, it takes the kinds of risks that few pop artists, and few "experimental" artists, for that matter, are willing to take these days. As far as the making of the artist known as FKA twigs goes, it brings her tantalizingly into focus without shedding any of the mystique she has developed so far. | FKA twigs' first full-length is a monumental debut. On a formal level, it takes the kinds of risks that few pop artists, and few "experimental" artists, for that matter, are willing to take these days. As far as the making of the artist known as FKA twigs goes, it brings her tantalizingly into focus without shedding any of the mystique she has developed so far. | FKA twigs: LP1 | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19590-twigs-lp1/ | LP1 | FKA twigs knows a thing or two about creating an image for herself. Every song she's released so far, even the four from her self-released debut EP from 2012, has been accompanied by its own video. What these may lack in storyboarding, set design, or anything else, really—"Hide" just features her hypnotically stroking an anthurium that adorns her nude midsection—more than make up for in their ability to draw you close, hold you rapt and keep you wondering just who, exactly, this character called twigs might be.
The British musician and performer born Tahliah Barnett got her start in the pop-industrial complex as a backup dancer in music videos, a career that led, for a spell, to a strange kind of almost-fame—you walk around and you get recognized, but not for being you, necessarily, just for being that girl from the video. And so, she has said, you learn to lie: "No, that's not me. No, I get that a lot." She addresses this situation on her debut album, LP1, with the song "Video Girl". It's actually one of the album's most straightforward songs, but its chorus is unequivocal in its equivocations: "Is she the girl that's from the video?/ You lie and you lie and you lie." And all that artifice, in turn, is a way of making truth out of the lie. Because what is her music, what are her videos, if not an elaborate way of saying, "No, I'm not that girl from the video. This is who I am"?
She hides in plain sight on the cover of LP1, wearing an expression that's—what? Coy? Distant? What exactly is going on there, beneath those strands of just-so curlicue and that weird, plastic sheen across one slick cheek? And that splash of red, what is that supposed to be—a blush, a bruise, a birthmark? Is she a teenybopper post-popped bubblegum, a cartoon character post-exploding cigar? The image expands upon the subtle surrealism of last year's EP2 cover, where her neck was almost imperceptibly elongated, and the more aggressive post-processing of her "Water Me" video, in which her eyes are enlarged, anime-style, until they threaten to pop like a Panic Pete Squeeze Toy. These tweaks are crucial to twigs' eerie, post-humanist, Uncanny Valley-girl aesthetic.
More than anything else, the image reminds me of Björk's Alexander McQueen-designed Homogenic cover, in which the Icelandic singer hovered in the middle distance between larger-than-life pop icon and superflat fantasy gloss like a digital scan of a wax figure. Listening to LP1, it's immediately clear that twigs is aiming for similar heights—and easily capable of scaling them. Quiet as it may be, this is a huge album, a monumental debut. On a formal level, it takes the kinds of risks that few pop artists, and few "experimental" artists, for that matter, are willing to take these days. As far as the making of the artist known as FKA twigs goes, it gives us a sense of who she is without shedding any of the mystique she has developed so far.
Building on her co-produced debut EP with Tic and her Arca-produced EP2, the sound throughout is a crystalline jumble of splinters and shards, of stuttering drum machines cutting against arrhythmic clatter—metronomes winding down, car alarms bleating dully into the night. Her voice, the most awe-inspiring instrument on the album, flits between Auto-Tuned artifice and raw carnality. As an acrobat, she's a natural, but she's not afraid to lean on a little digital enhancement. One minute it's a flash-frozen sigh; the next, it's a melon-balled dollop of flesh. As futuristic as her music is, no single technology dominates. Elastic digital effects brush up against 808s, and icy synth stabs share space with acoustic bass. The common denominator is the crackling sense of dread that persists when the notes go silent and the beat drops out, which is often. The overall effect is that of R&B that has been run through some kind of matter-transporting beam and put together wrong on the other end, full of glitches and hard, jutting artifacts.
The most obvious reference points, aside from the spectrum of breathy, synth-heavy R&B that stretches from Ciara through the Weeknd and Beyoncé, are first-gen trip-hop acts like Portishead and Tricky, with their charcoal-streaked affect and sumptuous sense of texture. There are also clear links to contemporary UK artists working the margins between R&B and electronic music, like James Blake, the xx, and even Sophie, she of the deconstructed Saturday-morning rave choons. Her own vocal style, or at least her stratospheric range, evokes Kate Bush and even Tori Amos. More provocative, though, is the way she and her producers wrangle a whole host of unlikely references into the mix: "Two Weeks" features blushing chords reminiscent of late Cocteau Twins and a junkyard guitar lead straight out of Tom Waits' Rain Dogs. Even more incongruously, "Two Weeks" cribs a fleeting riff from Air Supply's "All Out of Love."
At the same time, it's a testament to the strength of her vision that the album is as cohesive as it is, despite having so many producers involved, including Arca, Devonté Hynes, Clams Casino, and Grammy-winning journeyman Emile Haynie (Eminem's Recovery, Lana Del Rey's "Born to Die" and "Blue Jeans," Kanye West's "Runaway"). Sampha helps out on the brittle "Numbers," a Portishead-gone-footwork number that serves as the album's energetic peak, and, perhaps most surprisingly, Paul Epworth (Adele, Coldplay, the Rapture) is responsible for "Pendulum," the album's literal and emotional centerpiece.
FKA twigs is not a masterful lyricist, at least not yet; some of her couplets feel clunky, like she's grasping in the dark for rhymes and coming up with the objects closest to hand ("If the flame gets blown out and you shine/ I will know that you cannot be mine"). But when she zeroes in on the essence of a thing, she hits hard. The brazen "Two Weeks" features lines as vivid as red welts: "Higher than a motherfucker", "I can fuck you better than her." (The Weeknd only wishes he could make depravity sound so soul-destroyingly desperate.) On top of that, there's a whole thing about pulling out teeth that tips the song into some kind of freaky David Cronenberg territory, making her drugged-up and tied-down fantasies all the more tantalizingly surreal.
If "Two Weeks" represents the album's sensual core, "Pendulum" is the epicenter of the record's underlying sense of heartbreak, with its glum mantra, "So lonely trying to be yours." Lyrically, the song finds twigs at her most plainspoken—it's a long way off from last year's similarly devastating, but far more cryptic, "Water Me"—so it feels significant that it's one of the album's most sonically out-there songs, with a rhythm built out of what sounds like a roulette wheel run amok and its wash of synthesizers like a sky full of fireflies in death spirals.
Early in the song, she sings, "Lately I'm not so present now," and the line goes straight to the crux of FKA twigs' whole identity. After all, this is an artist whose name itself suggests a fundamental displacement. Spelled out, it's "Formerly Known As twigs," (no) thanks to the lawyers of some other artist named Twigs. (Barnett earned her nickname from her habit of cracking her joints like dried sticks; is it any wonder her beats are so brittle?) That "FKA" is a way of masking the bigger question mark. Formerly known as, sure. But who is she now? Are you that girl from the video? "I can't recognize me," she sings at the close of "Video Girl", but for the rest of us, with LP1, she's zooming into vivid focus, and it's impossible to look away. | 2014-08-11T02:00:00.000-04:00 | 2014-08-11T02:00:00.000-04:00 | Electronic / Pop/R&B | Young Turks | August 11, 2014 | 8.8 | 22d12911-3029-4a24-a565-b8d721b2fcde | Philip Sherburne | https://pitchfork.com/staff/philip-sherburne/ | null |
Few have taken house music deeper than Ron Trent and his Prescription label, and this new comp gives a moody, silvery snapshot of the label’s mid-’90s heyday. | Few have taken house music deeper than Ron Trent and his Prescription label, and this new comp gives a moody, silvery snapshot of the label’s mid-’90s heyday. | Various Artists: Ron Trent Presents - Prescription: Word, Sound & Power | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/23000-ron-trent-presents-prescription-word-sound-power/ | Ron Trent Presents - Prescription: Word, Sound & Power | We’re five or 10 years into the latest deep house revival, 30-odd years since the style first coalesced. Yet in all that time, no one has come up with a precise definition of the style. Deep house is less a set of characteristics as it is a kind of blue, a mood recognizable primarily for its woozy, immersive pull. If house music’s steady thump is the anchor, then everything else—synths, bassline, vocals, effects—tosses to and fro like kelp in the current.
Few have taken house music deeper than Ron Trent and his Prescription label, which he co-founded with Chez Damier in 1993. Ron Trent Presents – Prescription: Word, Sound & Power is a snapshot of the label’s mid-’90s heyday, when Prescription developed an instantly recognizable sound rooted in the jacking grooves of early Chicago house, splashed with moody tone color, and crosscut with Afro-Latin polyrhythms. The compilation’s 24 tracks—nearly all by Trent, either solo or in collaboration with artists like Damier and Anthony Nicholson—highlight Prescription’s sweet spot: not too rough, not too slick, and swirled with dusky color.
Unlike Trent’s early hit “Altered States” and its larger-than-life hook, these tracks tend to conceal more than they reveal. There are few obvious melodies; instead, sounds painted on in overlapping layers create the illusion of unfathomable depth. Trent has described his style at the time as “drum-orientated Chicago rhythm tracks with a minimalistic melody,” and the key word there is tracks: Unlike songs, these tumbling perpetual-motion machines have no verses or choruses, no bridges, no reprises. They roll straight ahead in an unswerving line, climbing upward at a steady, 30-degree grade until, some imperceptible climax having been reached, they begin their descent, shedding layers as they lose elevation. But such simple additive and subtractive arrangements don’t account for the complex ways in which those moving parts interact. Three or four drum patterns—machine sequences, disco breaks, cowbells, congas—might run in parallel at any given moment, each with its own particular sense of swing and syncopation. Similarly, what might sound at first like a single set of chords reveals itself to be four or five different layers of synthesizer, organ, Rhodes, and sampled voice, all fused into one rippling wave.
Chez-N Trent’s anthemic “The Choice” is the only selection that grabs you by the lapels, but its charm lies in the details: rimshots so vivid you can practically feel the grain on the sticks; a wheezy ghost rhythm of sampled grunts and hiccups. Trent’s 13-minute “Seduction” strikes an impeccable balance between atmosphere and sheer muscle: Shakers and syncopated bassline keep pushing things forward, even as deep blue chords apply a narcotic sense of drag. At their best, Trent’s tunes throw up the faintest hint of a silvery hook, just enough to draw you deeper into their tidal flux.
The album’s very best track is its first: “Morning Factory,” which Trent and Damier made in their Detroit studio following the 10-hour drive home from New York, where they’d gone to see Junior Vasquez spin at the Sound Factory. Inspired by the clarity of the club’s sound system and the energy on the dancefloor, the tune samples Kerri Chandler’s Atmosphere EP, a 12-inch they’d picked up on their trip to the city. Even though the link is clear—those aquamarine chords are a dead giveaway—“Morning Factory” ultimately sounds nothing like its source material. Where Chandler’s tune is crisp and clearly defined, “Morning Factory” is a soft and spongy, with shakers, bells, and synths dubbed into a vaporous haze. Atmosphere was, at the time, about as deep as deep house got. But with “Morning Factory,” Trent and Damier blew the dimensions of the style wide open. Today, anyone traversing the outer limits of deep house still follows in their wake. | 2017-03-18T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2017-03-18T01:00:00.000-04:00 | null | Rush Hour / Prescription | March 18, 2017 | 7.4 | 22d3193b-1f01-4f16-9632-101b54245e81 | Philip Sherburne | https://pitchfork.com/staff/philip-sherburne/ | null |
Two reissues and a well-selected compilation from the offbeat singer-songwriter. | Two reissues and a well-selected compilation from the offbeat singer-songwriter. | Harry Nilsson: Son of Schmilsson / A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night / Everybody's Talkin': The Very Best of Harry Nilsson | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/11877-son-of-schmilsson-a-little-touch-of-schmilsson-in-the-night-everybodys-talkin-the-very-best-of-harry-nilsson/ | Son of Schmilsson / A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night / Everybody's Talkin': The Very Best of Harry Nilsson | He sung his balls off for you, baby. Harry Nilsson, mild-mannered banker by day before being propped up by John Lennon and Paul McCartney as the fabbest songwriter they knew, was one of those guys you read about being able to sing out of the phonebook and make it work. He had a bizarre, almost too-bountiful-for-its-own-good talent that combined sarcasm, dry wit, pure songwriting chops, and a personal buoyancy that usually offset even his most self-defeating, throwaway lines. His best stuff-- pretty much everything he released in 1970-71-- was unlike any major recording artist, juggling disparate aspects of pop music (and even pop culture in general, check his animated short/soundtrack The Point for New Age idealism crossed with acid-damaged imagery) with the whirlwind pace at which he was living.
So, Nilsson was an Icarus. He teetered over the edge both musically and physically, indulging passions for melody and liquor as if both were going out of style. When he and Lennon hooked up in the early 70s, during Lennon's famed "lost weekend," it was like an excuse for both men to give in to every addiction, bad idea (and even a few good ones), and rock'n'roll clichŽ they'd managed to avoid before. For Nilsson, it wasn't totally destructive: He scored several major hits off his Nilsson Schmilsson LP. It was a desperate record that, even if it didn't necessarily fall back on the Beatlesque songcraft he'd flashed on his earlier stuff, was overflowing with charismatic bravado and the sometimes-ragged voice of someone who'd inhaled more than his fair share of smoke.
However, if Nilsson Schmilsson was desperate, Son of Schmilsson sounded a little bored. Or drunk. Or something you'd imagine a ridiculously talented singer might come up with as an afterthought before heading out for the night. It's not that the songs are terrible: "Remember (Christmas)", hokey title aside, is a classic Nilsson ballad, perhaps taking a cue from his pal Randy Newman, but delivered with a nuance that sounds very close to sincerity. Nilsson had a knack for being able to make almost any line, any tongue-in-cheek turn of melodic phrase seem warm, even optimistic in the face of whatever foolery he was up to at the time outside the studio. "Spaceman" sounds like a single, 70s style, big chorus and syncopated band hook intact. In fact, it's one of the best "productions" on the record, right down to an orchestration that would make George Martin proud, though lines like "I wanted to be a spaceman/ Now nobody cares about me" seem almost too fitting for comfort.
However, most of the record is gags. "Take 54" (which borrows way too liberally from the bad Lennon solo records) finds Nilsson admitting he needs his girl to come back so he "can make a good track," while "Joy" details his run-in with a woman would turn him into her "joy boy" over a goofy country-rock backdrop. Funny? I guess. "You're Breakin' My Heart" lays it out: "you're breakin' my heart, so fuck you." Funnier? Arguably, though at that stage, it wasn't honesty or blunt humor that Nilsson lacked, but tunes. The jokes on Son of tend to fall flat for similar reasons as Lennon's concurrent stuff did: All attitude and not many great hooks make getting through the music a laborious, if occasionally chuckle-worthy experience.
As if retreating further into an inside joke (that Nilsson probably only ever told to himself in the first place), the singer released an album of standards and showtunes, A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night. Fans shouldn't have been surprised at his ease pulling off this kind of music, as he'd always been something of a cabaret pop performer, only now subbing out a clarinet-ridden McCartney influence for Irving Berlin. The best news is that his voice is back to its old, silky smooth self (though he'd completely ruin it the following year recording Pussy Cats with Lennon). The bad news, if you don't happen to love extra golden oldie American popular song, is that the arrangements and performances are straight-down-the-middle, by-the-fakebook croon to make Andy Williams beat the band.
"It Had to Be You" is nice (and the string quote of "Over the Rainbow" is a cute touch by veteran Hollywood bandleader Gordon Jenkins); "Makin' Whoopee" is done well, with still more vintage string arrangements, though seems a bit on the slow side to me. In fact, the whole record is geriatric with a capital Muzak: I want to think Nilsson actually loved this stuff, and was paying it homage with straightforward interpretations, but the tempos are uniformly nursing-home ready and his voice perpetually in the same modest, comfy tenor; eventually, I want to look for a trace of sarcasm just to stay awake. The bonus tracks aren't helping, as the last thing I need is more of a drowsy thing. Everybody's Talkin': The Very Best of Harry Nilsson is (another) serviceable best-of for an artist that had a habit of actually tucking his best stuff away deep in the middle of his albums. Nevertheless, if you've never heard the guy before, this has all the hits: "Coconut", "Everybody's Talkin'", "Jump Into the Fire", and his versions of "One" (made famous by Three Dog Night) and "Without You" (Nilsson's only No. 1). For my money, the best stuff here is "Me And My Arrow" (from 1971's The Point) and "The Moonbeam Song" from Nilsson Schmilsson, but I wish they'd included more from his early records (particularly Aerial Ballet or Nilsson Sings Newman).
After Son of Schmilsson, Nilsson never really came back from the edge. Pussy Cats was an improvement, though often for reasons unintended by its makers. Sometimes when I hear it, I wince-- it's tough to listen to someone self-destruct on record, even if (or especially if) he's giving it his all. Each of Nilsson's records from the mid-70s onward (ending with 1979's marginally underrated Knnillssonn) was less popular than the one before, and unlike some of his pop-genius peers, it wasn't really because he was flying too far over the heads of audience. As such, these latest reissues probably aren't the best way to discover his music, though are still an essential part of his legacy. | 2006-06-09T01:00:01.000-04:00 | 2006-06-09T01:00:01.000-04:00 | Rock | null | June 9, 2006 | 6.5 | 22d3dd37-37fe-40d8-aa1b-88bf79be3c6a | Dominique Leone | https://pitchfork.com/staff/dominique-leone/ | null |
Ricky Eat Acid is Sam Ray, a Maryland-based musician who mixes unobtrusive electronic drifts with the basic shapes you expect from more linear types of songwriting. Three Love Songs is at once hypnotic, triumphant, and bittersweet. | Ricky Eat Acid is Sam Ray, a Maryland-based musician who mixes unobtrusive electronic drifts with the basic shapes you expect from more linear types of songwriting. Three Love Songs is at once hypnotic, triumphant, and bittersweet. | Ricky Eat Acid: Three Love Songs | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19056-ricky-eat-acid-three-love-songs/ | Three Love Songs | Music that's "as ignorable as it is interesting," to use Brian Eno's famous phrase about the ambient genre, can pack an emotional wallop, too—what if the wallpaper reminds you of an ex? Or of a long-gone grandmother? The techno whizzes over at Germany's Kompakt label recently released their 14th annual Pop Ambient compilation, but lower-case "pop ambient" still seems like a useful phrase to describe records that mix unobtrusive electronic drifts with the basic but intense #feels you might expect from more linear types of songwriting.
The ghost of Drake hovers over the tune on Ricky Eat Acid's Three Love Songs that would be most likely to fit on one of those Pop Ambient comps. "In my dreams we're almost touching" flips the "my only wish is I die real" bit of the rapper's 2011 Take Care title track (via a cover version) and lofts it over percolating thumps and whirring synths. At once hypnotic, triumphant, and bittersweet, it's something like Kompakt star the Field gone piano-house, with dance-diva vocals reaching heavenward and then disintegrating as if you were listening to it on a tape player with a battery that's giving up the ghost. Nothing else on the album is quite like this, and certainly nothing is as immediate.
The rest of Three Love Songs is pop-ambient in more of a lower-case sense, and that works, too. Ricky Eat Acid is Sam Ray, a Maryland-based musician who has his hand in a few other projects and was booked to open a late-February New York City show by R&B aesthetes Rhye; wonderfully (and tellingly), a recent mix Ray made for The Fader consists mostly of scruffy, heart-on-sleeve indie guitar pop from bands like Go Sailor, Joanna Gruesome, and Rocketship. Though it takes this album until the eighth of 12 songs to reach its dying-real pinnacle—the LP title is a slight misnomer—how it gets there is a patient journey across nuanced, digital-meets-organic soundscapes, fraught with gnawing heartache and wistful reminiscence.
Three Love Songs is Ricky Eat Acid's first album available on vinyl, and the first vinyl release from Brooklyn's Orchid Tapes. Part of why it's so affecting comes down to an inspired and strategic use of the format. Side one is almost entirely drum-less, but each flickering vignette, heavy with found sounds, is different enough from the last that by the time a preacher starts spewing fire and brimstone on the fifth (and first substantial) track, the seven-minute "In rural virginia; watching glowing lights crawl from the dark corners of the room", it's, well—not quite a come-to-Jesus moment, but pretty close. The slightly uncanny piano loops of fuzz-caked mid-album track "Inside your house; it will swallow us too" are in their own way almost as catchy as "In my dreams we're almost touching"; piano carries over to Clams Casino-like side-A closer "It will draw me over to it like it always does", which finally adds percussion and a sung vocal sample. Not a moment too soon, or too late.
One predecessor for this type of unguardedly emotional, magpie downtempo might be late, great Swedish duo Air France's 2008 No Way Down EP. The sonic similarity is clearest on the second of Three Love Songs' two (one for each side) seven-minute opuses, the instrumental "Outside your house; the lights went out & there was nothing", with its sumptuous viola next to IDM-bustling beats and opulent keys. But there's a bigger spiritual affinity: The choir-like vocals and shrill hum of Yo La Tengo-referencing hymn "I can hear the heart breaking as one" would be out of character from the Swedes, but the "sort of like a dream, no better" quality, that heart-in-throat sense of of being suspended between planes of existence. Finale "Starting over", meanwhile, ripples like Deerhunter man Bradford Cox's more esoteric blog-only Atlas Sound tracks.
The ultimate forebear for Three Love Songs would have to be the KLF's 1990 ambient-house landmark Chill Out, with its strong sense of place, its free-flowing evocativeness, and its samples ranging from Elvis to an evangelist's sermon—the gleefully trolling UK duo had a fever, and the only prescription was more Tuvan throat singing! A Pitchfork writer once quoted another describing that album as "the sound of music having dreams about music"; again, for what it's worth, "In my dreams we're almost touching" samples a cover of a Drake (and Rihanna) song that samples a Jamie xx remix of a Gil Scott-Heron song (that was actually a cover of a pop standard). Three Love Songs might be the sound of music having a dream within a dream about music. And in those dreams, it's almost touching. | 2014-02-28T01:00:03.000-05:00 | 2014-02-28T01:00:03.000-05:00 | Electronic | Orchid Tapes | February 28, 2014 | 7.8 | 22dc96da-60a7-4e27-9b56-e1c04caf89f7 | Marc Hogan | https://pitchfork.com/staff/marc-hogan/ | null |
Most of the material on this 13-track, digital-only, rarities compilation was recorded prior to Seth Haley's 2011 Com Truise debut, Galactic Melt. | Most of the material on this 13-track, digital-only, rarities compilation was recorded prior to Seth Haley's 2011 Com Truise debut, Galactic Melt. | Com Truise: In Decay | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/16917-in-decay/ | In Decay | Fifty minutes into Com Truise (Seth Haley)'s fifth "Komputer Cast"-- an infrequent but rewarding podcast series offered through his website-- he takes a wild left turn into Other Side's "Central". The track, an obscure, surly post-punk offering, collides harshly with the proggy computer compositions that surround it. It's like being punched in a library: You peel yourself off the floor smelling must and blood. It's an interesting moment because this impulse-- to fuck things up, to jar and puncture-- is absent from Haley's recorded work. It's still missing on In Decay, a 13-track, digital-only, rarities compilation that finds a younger Haley asking little of his listeners or himself.
Most of the material on In Decay was recorded prior to Haley's 2011 debut LP Galactic Melt. We can debate the utility of this type of release for a prolific, still-green producer, but that timeline is important because In Decay is deceptively underdeveloped. (The digital distribution, normally a great idea, chafes: Like many on the Ghostly roster, Haley has such a well-developed sense of design that his physical products are treats.) Haley so ably winds his synths into pleasing shapes that his compositions can sound complex when they're not. On In Decay, it's the drums that give him away: Respectful, grid-worshipping snares dominate almost every track, slapping against the more formed melodic ideas.
About those ideas: In Decay still leans heavily on dry-ice, low-cal funk. The tracks are baubles, pure sonic fetishes that that fail to provoke discernible imagery or mood beyond a noirish appreciation for the oscillators of Christmas past. Where Galactic Melt dipped its toes into dance music, In Decay hovers sluggishly in midtempo grooves (the engine rev of "Klymaxx" is a welcome diversion). In this mode, bass-heavy anthems like "Data Kiss" and "Smily Cyclops" offer the most to grasp.
The re-emergence of Chromatics (including Johnny Jewel side concern Symmetry) and Todd Terje's hot streak-- among others-- mean that an already crowded field of 1980s analog revivalists has, shockingly, gotten more crowded. Cut Haley whatever slack you see fit for In Decay's odds-and-sods status, but nothing here dispels the notion that his vision is more limited than that of many of his peers. He is a pure stylist, something his affinity for beautiful graphic design helps make clear, but if you're sitting behind a synthesizer in 2012 in the name of nostalgia, you'd better be able to use it to sharpen that style to a point. In Decay is too dull and passive to threaten. | 2012-07-24T02:00:04.000-04:00 | 2012-07-24T02:00:04.000-04:00 | Electronic | Ghostly International | July 24, 2012 | 5.6 | 22e14045-f6b3-40cb-9571-ef1c4dfd3600 | Andrew Gaerig | https://pitchfork.com/staff/andrew-gaerig/ | null |
Invoking the playful spirit of classic IDM, the Dutch producer’s debut full-length is an ode to reveling in the beauty of life’s tiniest details. | Invoking the playful spirit of classic IDM, the Dutch producer’s debut full-length is an ode to reveling in the beauty of life’s tiniest details. | upsammy: Zoom | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/upsammy-zoom/ | Zoom | Despite its title, Zoom has nothing to do with the video conferencing app that’s kept us all connected over the past few months. If anything, the debut full-length from the Dutch electronic musician upsammy (aka Thessa Torsing) is about disconnection—if not from society as a whole, then from the day-to-day hustle and bustle that often prevents us from examining the world around us. It’s an ode to taking a closer look and soaking up the beauty of life’s tiniest details. The chunk of ice melting in Torsing’s hand on the cover—also referenced in the woozy opener “Melt in My Heated Hand”—is a metaphor for the entire record. Zoom is a rumination on impermanence.
Torsing lives in Amsterdam, but she has an affinity for nature, which provides an ideal setting for the moments of thoughtful observation that inspired Zoom. Videos for “Extra Warm” and “It Drips” both feature fixed shots of pastoral tranquility. Though the music itself isn’t necessarily peaceful—Torsing’s percolating rhythms often recall the impish spirit of classic, late-’90s IDM—it is richly melodic and full of light, with sparkling synths and billowing pads that invoke the magic of the untamed wild.
It was a DJ residency at Amsterdam’s much loved De School nightclub that first put Torsing on the wider electronic music radar, and words like “adventurous” are often used to describe her sets. Straight lines aren’t really her thing, and depending on her mood, she’s as likely to hit crowds with low-key ambient bliss as she is intense blasts of off-kilter electro. Zoom takes a similar approach; while it’s not impossible for DJs to put these tracks to good use, the album clearly wasn’t designed with dancefloor functionality in mind.
Zoom is transportive, and it is best when glistening and gliding toward Torsing’s wooded hideaways. “Glowing Out of the Plastic Box” is a shot of bright bucolic wonder, the charm of its cotton-candy melodies only enhanced by the song’s crooked stomp. “Echo Boomed” is similarly buoyant, although its carefree rhythm feels more like a breezy afternoon walk through the countryside. There’s a lightness to much of Zoom, though that shouldn’t be mistaken for a lack of complexity. Torsing’s production is abundantly detailed and always evolving; her music has an organic quality, an aesthetic aided by her use of field recordings and intermittent patches of fuzz. There’s something delightful about the restlessly playful drum patterns of songs like the world-weary “Twisted Like a Flame” and the more rousing “Reality Paces the Platform,” which together close out the album on a high note.
At times, Torsing’s percussion coalesces into something that resembles a danceable groove. With its dubby, halftime bounce, “Extra Warm” is Zoom’s most obvious head nodder, although it’s been overlaid with additional drums that top 170 bpm, darting to and fro with the inexhaustible energy of a hummingbird. “Subsoil” is similarly energetic, its bubbling percussion bringing to mind the frantic vibe of shangaan electro and other fleet-footed African rhythms. Much slower is the sci-fi strut of “Send-Zen,” the only track that could potentially be described as ominous.
Zoom arrives at a moment in which the world feels particularly chaotic, but the album’s irrepressible shine shouldn’t be dismissed as superficial escapism. For those who have the luxury of pausing to reflect, right now seems like an opportune time to simply be present and take stock of their surroundings, both physical and mental; upsammy’s album makes for a rewarding soundtrack to such introspection. | 2020-06-16T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2020-06-08T01:00:00.000-04:00 | null | Dekmantel | June 16, 2020 | 7.4 | 22ee2495-6934-43e0-98f8-fd4a7799d142 | Shawn Reynaldo | https://pitchfork.com/staff/shawn-reynaldo/ | |
The Los Angeles folk musician’s third album is her best yet—a collection of hushed reveries that unspool like daydreams. | The Los Angeles folk musician’s third album is her best yet—a collection of hushed reveries that unspool like daydreams. | Jessica Pratt: Quiet Signs | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/jessica-pratt-quiet-signs/ | Quiet Signs | Jessica Pratt spins fantasy worlds bound to bewitch, dreamscapes that spiral towards the surreal, psychedelic spirituals that nourish. Her music’s intimacy feels so organically abstract, it is as if the songs are distilled directly from her subconscious. But as her third record, Quiet Signs, reveals, any perceived effortlessness is an illusion. While Pratt’s toolbox remains minimal—her trusty fingerpicked guitar and elastic voice alongside a sprinkling of keys and woodwinds—she weaves these means more intricately than ever, with a firm and confident hand.
After her last album, 2015’s On Your Own Love Again, transformed the meditative starkness of her 2012 self-titled debut into a lonely, ornate reverie, Pratt decided to record in a proper studio for the first time. She has said the experience initially induced anxiety, as she worried that a more polished sound would come at the expense of her otherworldly haze. But instead, Quiet Signs’ crystalline production allows even the subtlest of Pratt’s musical choices to radiate.
This depth is immediately evident on “Opening Night,” a contemplative piano instrumental played by her musical and romantic partner Matthew McDermott. Pratt named the track after indie auteur John Cassavetes’ 1977 film about an aging actress who struggles to find a truthful performance. And that same ruminative mood is felt in the song’s echoing notes, which sound as if they were played to an empty, gigantic theater. The meandering of “Opening Night” reveals an essential principle of Pratt’s work, that of trusting intuition, of letting a melody wander until it finds a natural resting place.
The nine songs here follow their own innate paths, often beginning with a simple acoustic arrangement before blossoming into vivid daydreams. On “Fare Thee Well,” Pratt’s gentle strumming and a piping organ give way to a whimsical flute solo—like a bird just freed from captivity, the sprightly woodwind soars higher and higher until it dissolves into the distance. Meanwhile, Pratt’s voice winds its own course, her varied intonations imbuing each song with its own character. Memories of “stolen city sighs” on “Here My Love” swell with the lingering euphoria of infatuation. On “Silent Song” she harmonizes tenderly with herself, imparting the idea that she is never truly alone. When she sings of existential restlessness on “As the World Turns,” her vowels are so round you can trace their full orbit.
Within these acrobatics, insight into Pratt’s poetic musings remains elusive. She warps the typically direct, observational role of a singer-songwriter into something altogether more mystifying. She wraps her words in tightly woven melodies and gauzy reverb, often rendering them incomprehensible. Pratt’s obscuration sometimes sound like a means of emotional protection, as if she is draping her vulnerabilities behind a veil. Motifs that do emerge from Pratt’s cosmos swirl around notions of uncertainty, loss, disenchantment, and, on the bright side, budding romance. When a lyrical impression emerges, it floats to the surface just enough to announce its presence, but rarely offers clarity. Pratt’s method of abstraction is especially affecting because it embodies the ambiguities of the everyday: how words are not always enough.
The clearest moments on Quiet Signs are the centerpieces “Poly Blue” and “This Time Around.” “Poly Blue” is all Laurel Canyon sunshine, as Pratt observes a lover’s mystique. “He’s the undiscovered night,” she murmurs, as flutes flutter around her chords. “This Time Around,” on the other hand, captures a moment of hopelessness, of a profound uncertainty that faith might fail. As the song opens with spare strums, she keeps these fears close to the chest, but they soon begin to spill out. Suddenly, her voice deepens for a startlingly straightforward confession: “It makes me want to cry.” It’s a rare moment of perceptible pain, one that lingers on after the song has ended.
From there, Quiet Signs begins to fold into itself like a daylily facing the moonlight. While “Silent Song” exudes sentimentality, “Crossing” is private to the point of impenetrability, its curlicuing shape suggesting the mysteries of introspection. Both tracks largely do away with ornate embellishments, allowing Pratt’s meticulous plucking to shine. It’s as if she could needle away on her guitar for the rest of eternity, slowly unraveling the biggest questions, one by one. | 2019-02-08T01:00:00.000-05:00 | 2019-02-08T01:00:00.000-05:00 | Folk/Country | Mexican Summer | February 8, 2019 | 8.4 | 22f11078-a882-4215-857b-2e00c7f596f1 | Quinn Moreland | https://pitchfork.com/staff/quinn-moreland/ | |
Syd reshapes heartbreak into pillowy, ’80s-nodding R&B on her second album, softening her sound while maintaining vulnerability in her songwriting. | Syd reshapes heartbreak into pillowy, ’80s-nodding R&B on her second album, softening her sound while maintaining vulnerability in her songwriting. | Syd: Broken Hearts Club | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/syd-broken-hearts-club/ | Broken Hearts Club | Over the past decade, Syd has emerged as a purposefully understated but no less commanding singer and producer in R&B. Whether making layered, party-ready grooves with her group the Internet or sultry, subterranean hip-hop and neo-soul on her 2017 solo debut Fin, the California artist’s music has an unhurried, intimate appeal to it. Syd’s hushed voice can bend into a gossamer falsetto or a no-nonsense flow depending on her mood, bringing a deft, preternaturally cool touch to sensual ballads and swaggering earworms alike.
On her second album, Broken Hearts Club, Syd reshapes heartbreak into pillowy, ’80s-nodding R&B. The album softens her sound with sunny acoustic guitar and velvety beats, but her songwriting doesn’t surrender its vulnerability and focus on queer desire that made Fin so intoxicating. Syd is a natural romantic, especially on “Fast Car,” which depicts an affair so white-hot it’s holding up traffic. “Don’t care that they beepin’ now/Hope they’re all watching,” she teases over phased electric guitar and twinkling piano, zeroing in on that sweet spot where adoration takes over common sense. Opener “CYBAH” relishes in the sound of quiet storm, as Syd teams up with New Orleans crooner Lucky Daye over pitch-shifted guitars and a slow-motion beat. Here, her insecurities start to simmer before a new flame: “If I ever make you mine, need to know if you’re the type/Do me wrong or do me right… Could you break a heart?” she murmurs, posing a question she already knows the answer to.
That push-and-pull is at the core of Broken Hearts Club, which saunters from breezy, tenderhearted songs to downcast ballads that center moments of doubt and mistrust. True to its title, Syd has said the album is about her first real heartbreak, and many songs are tinged with that bittersweet aftershock. “Hope you’re finding what you need or what you seek/’Cause now I’m free,” she shrugs on “Missing Out” alongside trilling, Casio-style keys, just before a trace of regret sets in. During “Out Loud,” a silken ballad featuring Kehlani that’s fringed with plucked acoustic guitar and layered backing vocals, Syd urges a lover to voice their true feelings, no matter the cost. There’s a bluntness to the songs on this record that was absent from Fin and makes for a more conventional album when paired with the soft-focus instrumentation, but it offers a familiarity that grows seductive in Syd’s mellow flow. That she makes a more traditional path still sound so fresh only reaffirms her considerable versatility, no matter the style of R&B.
Broken Hearts Club doesn’t stray far from that warm atmosphere, but Syd still makes time for the occasional detour. The bouncy, cartoonish synth line on “Tie the Knot” brings a welcome jolt of playfulness, while the creeping bass that courses through the Darkchild-produced standout “Control” evokes Fin’s shadowy, after-hours highlights. Those idiosyncratic moments embroider an album that proves allowing yourself space for vulnerability is the surest method of moving on from heartache. Syd finally finds closure of her own over a lone, hazy synth melody on the too-brief “Goodbye My Love”: “Maybe we’ll see it in time, my love/Just wasn’t destined to work for us,” she confesses. “We had to put ourselves first for once.” It’s a mature farewell imbued with melancholy, a temperament that Broken Hearts Club carries with artful finesse. | 2022-04-12T00:00:00.000-04:00 | 2022-04-12T00:00:00.000-04:00 | Pop/R&B | Columbia | April 12, 2022 | 7.5 | 22f4c527-3724-463d-a465-a9887b05312a | Eric Torres | https://pitchfork.com/staff/eric-torres/ | |
The rock group evokes Deerhunter while perfecting their own unpredictable way with melody, teetering on the edge of catchiness and constantly teasing and dodging the logical next note. | The rock group evokes Deerhunter while perfecting their own unpredictable way with melody, teetering on the edge of catchiness and constantly teasing and dodging the logical next note. | Pool Holograph: Love Touched Time and Time Began to Sweat | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/pool-holograph-love-touched-time-and-time-began-to-sweat/ | Pool Holograph: Love Touched Time and Time Began to Sweat | In 2015, Wyatt Grant decided to upgrade Pool Holograph from a solo bedroom project to a proper band, adding three members including the brothers Jacob and Paul Stolz, a duo who help cultivate silky, vintage hooks for the indie-pop band VARSITY. The Stolzes are a cornerstone of VARSITY’s sound, but on Pool Holograph’s three LPs and one EP as a group, few melodies, if any, should be described as “hooks.” The band seems more challenged and rewarded by teetering on the edge of catchiness, constantly teasing and dodging the logical next note.
Their latest, Love Touched Time and Time Began to Sweat, rides that line better than any before it. On their prior releases, Pool Holograph kept a dose of whirlwind aggression in their back pocket, succumbing to occasional rock-out urges as a way to break up their loping art rock. Here, they cut out the thrashing and growling in favor of negative space. That openness draws extra attention to those melodies, which have a tendency to trip over themselves and still sound in control.
A disclaimer: Pool Holograph recall Deerhunter c. ‘07-’10 pretty clearly, to the point that any Deerhunter fan will probably notice the similarities within seconds, whether in Grant’s extremely Bradford Cox-like voice or in the band’s movements between sheets of haze and punctuated clangs. Given this, Love Touched Time doesn’t always feel fresh, exactly—its strength lies instead in its light touch. Pool Holograph have refined a natural sense of balance between pristine and peculiar, dangling nice, simple phrases, then corrupting them slightly with odd steps that pique the ear.
That’s clear in moments like the outro to “Medieval Heart,” Love Touched Time’s best song, when they squeeze in a stray high note at the very end of the repeating guitar line that’s almost an octave higher than any note before it, like an involuntary twitch that they anticipated and somehow finessed into their regular gait. It’s there when they feed a sample of ambient nature sounds into the background of the half-speed, 3 a.m. stargazer “Harbor Lights,” but faintly enough that it’s not heavy handed or distracting from the song’s plain beauty. At times, it’s there in a phrase from Grant’s choppy lyrics (“your hand in her bracelet” is a particularly alluring double-taker). Pool Holograph found their zone from a route of left turns and controlled collisions. With Love Touched Time, they give themselves some breathing room to explore it.
Catch up every Saturday with 10 of our best-reviewed albums of the week. Sign up for the 10 to Hear newsletter here. | 2020-10-12T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2020-10-12T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Rock | Sunroom | October 12, 2020 | 7.1 | 22ff47cd-fc00-4d70-99ac-e4ff3275af66 | Steven Arroyo | https://pitchfork.com/staff/steven-arroyo/ | |
Neither arch nor brittle, this is the Japanese electronic musician’s most approachable and generous collection to date: “plastic” as in “malleable,” not “artificial.” | Neither arch nor brittle, this is the Japanese electronic musician’s most approachable and generous collection to date: “plastic” as in “malleable,” not “artificial.” | Shinichi Atobe: Love of Plastic | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/shinichi-atobe-love-of-plastic/ | Love of Plastic | Sustaining creativity over the decades isn’t always a question of figuring out who you are. Sometimes, the operative question is how: How much of yourself should surround your work? How do you balance a unique point of view with the utilitarian demands of the dancefloor? How do you change while remaining yourself? Across two decades and six albums, Shinichi Atobe has developed an adventurous, uncompromising, and deeply pleasurable body of work that offers a clear answer to the first question: Very little.
A handful of photos identify his physical form. His origin story is short and sweet: He somehow managed to release a single 12", 2001’s Ship-Scope on Chain Reaction, itself among the most mysterious and respected techno labels, and then went quiet until another cult label, Demdike Stare’s DDS, suddenly reactivated his career with a series of instantly sold-out albums—or are they compilations? No one can say. He’s said to live in Saitama, north of Tokyo. If he’s otherwise present in the world, there’s little trace.
Atobe’s early work floated industrial loops across seas of melodies, with rhythms like iron anchors tethered to vast rubber bands. It was odd; it was awkward; it sounded like nobody else yet fit right into the mix. Eventually, he came to sound even more singular: Tracks like 2014’s “Butterfly Effect 2,” 2018’s “Heat 2,” or 2020’s “Ocean 1” are off-the-grid endeavors that murmur in your headphones but bang on the floor, in perfect and uncanny balance.
Like his previous releases, Love of Plastic arrives by surprise. It’s peak form. Like the rest of his CV, its tracks are titled serially but sequenced out of order. They might be two minutes long or almost 10, and those lengths feel both arbitrary and inarguable. Love of Plastic embodies his POV: Phrasing should be sweet but not sappy; beats should be slippery, not sloppy. The difference here is what else he’s allowing himself to do, which is warm up. Not scorch, as parts of 2018’s Heat did, or get mushy like a moment or two of 2017’s From the Heart, It’s a Start, a Work of Art. From the directness of Atobe’s titles, one could be forgiven for expecting Love of Plastic to be arch or brittle. Instead, it’s his most approachable and generous collection to date. “Plastic” as in “malleable,” not “artificial.”
The brief “Intro” is all bubbles, something coming to the surface—and what comes is “Love of Plastic 1,” so bright and bouncy that it glistens like a bauble before revealing itself as a crown jewel in Atobe’s catalog. What the world needs now is more good old gay house music, and while I wasn’t expecting Atobe to suddenly go all Frankie Knuckles, the look suits him.
Love isn’t all poppers and pianos and synth pads. “Love of Plastic 8” leaves welts, with an itchy, acidic bassline etching lines between your ears that never quite form pathways. It’s a devilishly good bad trip, one so delirious that when the kick drum suddenly tumbles over itself, it sounds like a laugh. “Beyond the Pale” is coated in so much high-viscosity gloss that its house feels more like an apartment in a high-end magazine, desirable and out of reach. Its low end is equally enviable.
Two tracks look back to 2020’s Yes. “Ocean 2” is neither the analog-y expanse of that album’s “Ocean 7” nor the crowd-pleasing deep house of “Ocean”; instead, it’s the kind of twinkling, humid hall of mirrors DJ Sprinkles might reside deep inside. And the seductive “Loop 6” is less a reincarnation of Yes’ “Loop 1” than a take on the kind of bulbous, queer fantasias Olof Dreijer made in the Knife’s later work and, especially, in his recordings as Oni Ayhun. Yet their shape and scope are Atobe’s own.
The highlights are the “Love of Plastic” tracks, though, and they are just delightful, even Deee-Lite-ful. “Love of Plastic 5” squelches and squiggles with glee, as curtains of perfumed synth pads shimmer and percussion taps and tinkles. At one point, a handclap arrives just a beat or two behind and spends the next few minutes trying to fit in, and maybe it’s just how shit the world seems right now, but the effort is heroic. With its fabulous staccato strings and tantalizing vocal sample, “Love of Plastic 6” is almost diva house, the way Burial can almost be UK garage, but there’s a gaggle of glitchy noise panned way to the side and a situation of rattling like a purse spilling all over the floor. Closer “Severina” ups the ante, its tunneling dub techno gradually expanding into a jaw-dropping immensity of detuned bells, some kind of trumpet, spiraling chimes, and streamers of whirring bits of noise. Atobe is striking a pose and showing off his poise, perfecting gestures he’s finessed over the years. What happens next is an open question.
Catch up every Saturday with 10 of our best-reviewed albums of the week. Sign up for the 10 to Hear newsletter here. | 2022-01-27T00:00:00.000-05:00 | 2022-01-27T00:00:00.000-05:00 | Electronic | DDS | January 27, 2022 | 7.8 | 23022d1c-b832-4f25-8fb7-cfdc275490b7 | Jesse Dorris | https://pitchfork.com/staff/jesse-dorris/ | |
On Vince Staples’ third album, the California rapper keeps it short and not so sweet. | On Vince Staples’ third album, the California rapper keeps it short and not so sweet. | Vince Staples: FM! | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/vince-staples-fm/ | FM! | On Vince Staples’ debut mixtape, in a calm tone that suggested he had seen some shit, he rapped, “You want some positivity go listen to some Common.” Eight years later, he continues to live up to those words. In Vince’s Long Beach, California-centered world, it’s summer year-round, and while the season usually brings bright skies and beach weather, it’s also the time of the year when people are wilding—when the temperature increases, so does violent crime. The West Coast never gets a chance to catch its breath, a feeling brought by the change in season. In Cali, the block is always hot.
Vince’s dark humor and borderline-troll personality have turned him into one of the genre’s most captivating characters, but his provocative side has been explored more often in interviews and social media than in his music. On his brisk, third studio album FM! he finally brings that personality to wax. The album begins with L.A. radio mainstay Big Boy describing the relaxing endlessness of a West Coast summer. But Vince is not with that and immediately debunks the fairytale: “Summertime in the LB wild/We gonna party ’til the sun or the guns come out.”
With all the success he’s accrued simply being himself, Vince appears to realize he doesn’t need to shape his sound to appease out-of-touch label executives for his music to weave through the West Coast air waves; with the 11-track FM!— of which he only raps on eight songs—he creates the shadow broadcast of his dreams. Vince has made an album that’s true to himself, one that represents his image of Long Beach, his love for the music of the West Coast, and that unleashes the complete personality of Vince Staples.
Vince’s tone is present on FM! in a variety of ways. Often he’s not even the one relaying it. Case in point: The project’s two interludes, presented as radio premiere snippets, don’t feature him at all. The radio has always been a home for trolling, consider, for example, Funk Flex’s frustrating and legendary “Otis” premiere on Hot 97 that teased the Kanye and JAY-Z collab for over 20 minutes. Vince uses the radio in a similar fashion, dropping in an Earl Sweatshirt knocker only to cut it off after 20 seconds. He follows that up later with the tease of a Tyga strip club anthem. The moments give Vince the chance to spotlight two artists he genuinely appreciates—but they’re also maddening. Because even though I’m aware I’m being trolled, I want more. Vince knows that and he’s rubbing it in my face.
When it comes to the album’s proper songs, Vince is often influenced by classic G-Funk records, and Vince uses the genre to signal his California authority. He even has to deal with the old school conflict of trying to capture the nonstop party sound of summer while lyrically recognizing its darkness. The production on the album, mostly from the chameleonic Kenny Beats—who can go from ATL melodic ballads to punk headbangers to now West Coast turn-up tracks—moves at a rapid pace. Kenny’s ability to pinpoint regional sounds will make some go in the streets and dance like the New Boyz, until Vince’s sorrowful lines pop in to remind everyone that shit isn’t sweet: “First months still feel like summer/Cold weather won’t stop no gun, or wrong hat, wrong day, I killed my brother.” A song like “Fun” feels like the sort of radio single that YG would perform at award shows until you realize what Vince is saying. Lyrics like “My black is beautiful, but I’ll still shoot at you” will always drag it back to the gloom of Long Beach.
When an artist decides they’re going to make an album for nobody but themselves, my first thought usually is, “Man, this is going to suck.” But Vince is at ease here, intertwining his personality into his somber celebration of Long Beach like never before. He’s rapping his ass off, and hooks are mostly an afterthought. He dips in and out of inventive flows, like on “Outside,” where he hits the pocket to make lines like, “Park gangster back then/At my Uncle Phil’s house with a mac 10” as memorable as any chorus. And on “No Bleedin” he enlists Bay Area favorite Kamaiyah’s buttery flow for a lively track about avoiding death that will melt into brains like an everyday pop song. On Vince’s station, the melancholy bars and the bounce come at the same time. | 2018-11-02T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2018-11-02T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Rap | Blacksmith / Def Jam | November 2, 2018 | 8.2 | 23116c40-b30c-4094-a811-3a53e2f545f2 | Alphonse Pierre | https://pitchfork.com/staff/alphonse-pierre/ | |
Like its 2018 predecessor, J Mascis’ fourth solo album plays a little like Dinosaur Jr. Jr., another softer guitar-focused outing with acoustic touches and electric sparks. | Like its 2018 predecessor, J Mascis’ fourth solo album plays a little like Dinosaur Jr. Jr., another softer guitar-focused outing with acoustic touches and electric sparks. | J Mascis: What Do We Do Now | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/j-mascis-what-do-we-do-now/ | What Do We Do Now | These days, the most surprising thing about J Mascis’ solo albums is how regular they’ve become. When Mascis released Several Shades of Why in 2011, a quarter-century into his career, it was an anomaly—his first solo record of original material and an acoustic showcase for some of his most vulnerable songwriting. Ever since, he’s made it a regular habit, chasing each new Dinosaur Jr. album with a mellower, more leisurely solo record a couple of years later, as if part of some creative detox ritual.
Since the original Dino Jr. lineup launched its improbably long, drama-free reunion, they’ve committed to, if not a healthier diet of communication and compromise, at least a shared understanding of their strengths, with Mascis writing to the terse sensibilities of his bandmates Lou Barlow and Murph. That’s led to some excellent records—five of them in a row, an incredible streak—but it’s also limited most of the shaggy exploration that Mascis brought to the band when he ran it as a de facto solo project in the ’90s and freely granted himself the right to indulge in gaudy funk or throw in a trumpet.
Like 2018 predecessor Elastic Days, Mascis’ fourth solo album, What Do We Do Now, plays like a traditional band album, albeit in a decibel range considerably lower than Dinosaur Jr.’s skyscraper amp towers. Acoustic rhythm guitars ground the record with a bright shimmer, and Mascis accompanies them with a full drum kit, keyboards from Ken Maiuri (a fellow Massachusetts native and current member of the B-52’s), and, most unmistakably, the searing electric guitar solos that he pointedly left off of his first couple of solo records.
Those wailing, emotive guitars remain one of the most expressive instruments in indie rock, but their impact is dulled when they’re unrooted from Dinosaur Jr.’s default volume and propulsion. The first time they torpedo through opener “Can’t Believe We’re Here,” jolting the track to life, the effect is undeniable. When they repeat the maneuver on every song, almost always at the midway point, the thrill wears off. Mascis’ best solos exude spontaneity. These feel more like muscle memory.
To the extent What Do We Do Now is less satisfying than Mascis’ previous solo releases, it’s because it has less to reveal. Mascis has written so many songs about the same needs and frustrations—his failures to communicate, to be understood, and ultimately accepted—that they can’t help but bleed together. Still, the album’s light touch and content disposition make it a very easy listen, especially when Mascis leans into tenderness. On the title track, he sings about longing to kiss and squeeze you, a line that might scan as barbed amid the tension and murk of a Dinosaur Jr. song. Here it’s just another pleasant thought on an album whose instincts are always for familiar comforts. | 2024-02-01T00:01:00.000-05:00 | 2024-02-01T00:01:00.000-05:00 | Rock | Sub Pop | February 1, 2024 | 6.4 | 2316b74f-5dc8-4478-97cc-fbf5f1146a69 | Evan Rytlewski | https://pitchfork.com/staff/evan-rytlewski/ | |
The Nashville songwriter brings country back to the barroom on a vibrant set that pays tribute to ’90s stars like Brooks & Dunn and Garth Brooks. | The Nashville songwriter brings country back to the barroom on a vibrant set that pays tribute to ’90s stars like Brooks & Dunn and Garth Brooks. | Joshua Hedley: Neon Blue | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/joshua-hedley-neon-blue/ | Neon Blue | Call Neon Blue a throwback to the boot-scootin’ days of the 1990s, if you must. Certainly, Nashville-based country singer Joshua Hedley welcomes such comparisons, kicking off his second record with “Broke Again,” a breakneck boogie with a stuttering chorus that splits the difference between Brooks & Dunn and Garth Brooks—superstars who pushed country music into stadiums in the ’90s without entirely abandoning the hardscrabble spirit of honky tonk.
Hedley makes no bones about being well-versed in the genre’s history. In the second track on Neon Blue, he calls himself “a singing professor of country and western,” resuscitating a phrase that fell out of favor sometime in the late 1960s—a bygone era Hedley expertly evoked on his 2018 Third Man debut, Mr. Jukebox. That record positioned Hedley as an unabashed revivalist, crafting a meticulous, loving re-creation of the heyday of the Nashville Sound, layering supple strings and vocal harmonies over the steady clomp of tic-tac bass. It was the kind of exercise that proves the thesis he offers “Country & Western”: Hedley knows his chosen genre so well that he could construct an exact replica of a certain era if he so chooses.
This time around, Hedley cut a record built upon his belief that country music took a sharp left turn somewhere around 1997, abandoning fiddles and steel guitars for shinier electronic accouterments. (Not so coincidentally, this was also the time when the Telecommunications Act of 1996 took hold, governmental deregulation that wound up homogenizing mainstream American music of every genre.) Back in the 1990s, the arena rock moves of Garth Brooks camouflaged the deep, distinct roots in classic country, a lineage that seems more evident in hindsight. On Neon Blue, Hedley starts here in his effort to bring country music back to the barrooms.
Hedley isn’t chasing a sound so much as an aesthetic, distilling country music to its essence: joyous and mournful songs about broken hearts, dead-end jobs, boozing, and loving. He keeps his stakes and sounds modest. Where modern country music is designed to be pumped out of high-end systems at anonymous, brightly-lit sports bars, Hedley is making music for dives. No top shelf liquor or sleek product placements for Hedley: He’s down at the corner beer joint, drinking whatever’s on tap, in the can or in the bottle.
Neon Blue is steeped in the culture of saloons, with barrooms playing a prominent role in most of the record’s 12 songs. Hedley meets a cowgirl at the Broken Spoke; he surveys the crowd at the honky tonk and notes that “The Last Thing in the World” it needs is another broken heart; he asks to be buried underneath a barroom floor with his boots on. He may be drinking his sorrows away, but he also discovers love underneath the warm neon glow, pining for crushes and singing about an old couple who found love in a bar.
Hedley isn’t revealing himself in his lyrics so much as he’s acting as a conduit for the audience, channeling their dashed dreams and wistful hopes along with their desire to cut loose. Like so much great country music, Neon Blue feels like a party, a record so vibrant that it scares off any sadness. Here’s where Hedley’s old-fashioned instincts serve him well. His decision to cut the record the way they did in the old days—hire a couple of veteran producers (in this case, Jordan Lehning and Skylar Wilson) and round up a bunch of Nashville’s A-team to add flesh and muscle—lets the music breathe, with the backing band following Hedley as he sings sweetly or with a slight sneer. Neon Blue contains no flashy tricks, no excess, but plenty of flair; it’s a joy to hear these pros dig deep into Hedley’s songs (plus a lovely cover of Roger Miller’s “River in the Rain”), swinging hard and delivering their solos with precision.
Contemporary country this unadorned usually gets shuffled over to the Americana classification, a catch-all category containing anything from heartland rockers and sensitive troubadours to swaggering neo-outlaws. Hedley isn’t any of these things. He’s simply a country singer, one who would’ve sounded at home singing in dance halls, honky tonks, and dive bars at any point in the past 60 years. The pleasure of Neon Blue is how Hedley subtly twists country conventions, making retro-minded songs and sounds seem both familiar and fresh. This “professor of country and western” isn’t sharing a stuffy history lesson or reciting facts: He’s absorbed their meaning. | 2022-04-27T00:00:00.000-04:00 | 2022-04-27T00:00:00.000-04:00 | Folk/Country | New West | April 27, 2022 | 7.7 | 231b9b7a-c35f-4504-97d5-3d0e8ab0d172 | Stephen Thomas Erlewine | https://pitchfork.com/staff/stephen-thomas erlewine/ | |
With Tommy Stinson producing, Denver trio the Yawpers mix a high-brow literary streak with messy rock’n’roll on their third album. They cherrypick from punk, rockabilly, and the blues in the process. | With Tommy Stinson producing, Denver trio the Yawpers mix a high-brow literary streak with messy rock’n’roll on their third album. They cherrypick from punk, rockabilly, and the blues in the process. | The Yawpers: Boy in a Well | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/the-yawpers-boy-in-a-well/ | Boy in a Well | Taking their name from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, the Yawpers have a high-brow literary streak that’s often at odds with the lowbrow messiness of their rock’n’roll. Frontman Nate Cook devised the story of the Denver trio’s third album, Boy in a Well, while tripping on Dramamine during a long flight, and it has something to do with France in World War I and a woman abandoning her son in a well. Good luck following the plot. It’s really just a high-falutin’ structure for this album, each song relating a different chapter and corresponding with an accompanying graphic novel illustrated by JD Wilkes (who also did the cover art). But there’s something lofty and worthwhile in the lowly rock’n’roll mudpit they wallow in, something compelling in their mix of gutbucket rockabilly and psychotic blues, which allows them to transcend the practiced chaos of Deer Tick and O’Death and so many other bands who insist that they rock more than they actually rock.
Maybe it’s the line-up. The Yawpers deviate from the typical rock band arsenal; in particular, like the White Stripes, they jettison the bass guitar completely. Instead, they have a particular nimble drummer named Noah Shomberg, an electric guitar player schooled in blues and metal named Jesse Parmet, and finally Cook himself, who strums a guitar haphazardly and sings like Elvis by way of Lux Interior by way of Jack White. And while they don’t quite have the charisma of those acts, together they kick up a fuss on opener “Armistice Day,” which forestalls its big moment as long as they can hold out. When they finally let loose around the three-minute mark and Cook howls viciously, the result isn’t just visceral, but downright gory.
Boy in a Well was recorded in Chicago with Tommy Stinson producing, so the Yawpers obviously have a good mentor in making a hot mess. He provides what the liners call a “piano freakout” on “Face to Face to Face,” but really every song here contains some kind of freakout, as the trio have as much disregard for rock song structures as they have for rock line-ups. “The Awe and the Anguish” opens as a back-porch blues number, colored by Parmet’s scratchy slide guitar, a bit too earnest in its authenticity and audacity. Without warning, the song explodes into a furious Led Zeppelin stomp, loud and lurching. The Yawpers understand the need for dynamics, drawing you in on quiet songs like “Room With a View” just so they can better blast your eardrums on “A Decision Is Made.”
Theirs is an expansive vision of rock’n’roll, one that cherrypicks from various folk traditions: punk, rockabilly, blues, whatever they might have on hand or find in the trash. At times the project gets away from them, and the trio struggle to wrangle so many different sounds all at once without pushing too hard or yelling too precociously. “A Decision Is Made” sounds convincingly feral, but the Yawpers rage gratuitously, as though the ramshackle aesthetic of the song were an end in itself. Maybe that’s why they ratchet these songs to that cumbersome WWI narrative: to give direction and purpose to the din. More often than not, they make the whole big mess work, even if they can’t make you care whether or not that damn boy even makes it out of the well. | 2017-08-12T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2017-08-12T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Rock | Bloodshot | August 12, 2017 | 7.1 | 231d8234-aafd-4e9f-8cb5-2aa900246316 | Stephen M. Deusner | https://pitchfork.com/staff/stephen-m. deusner/ | null |
On this sprawling new album, the Australian psych-rock band hoists its freak flag a few inches higher up the pole. It flutters in a more gentle breeze. | On this sprawling new album, the Australian psych-rock band hoists its freak flag a few inches higher up the pole. It flutters in a more gentle breeze. | King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard: Flying Microtonal Banana | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22925-flying-microtonal-banana/ | Flying Microtonal Banana | King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard are a testament to the liberating power of giving yourself restrictions. Whether making every song on a record the exact same length (2015’s Quarters!), or constructing an entire album to connect into an infinite loop (last year’s Nonagon Infinity), the Aussie armada thrive on the symbiotic relationship between governing principles and disorder. The result is psychedelic rock that plays like a pinball game—the action may be confined to an enclosed playing field, but it’s always moving, ping-ponging in unexpected directions and encouraging synapse overload.
The band’s latest—reportedly, the first of five albums they’re planning to pump out this year—is likewise bound to a motif, though this one is as much sonic as structural. Flying Microtonal Banana was the product of Gizzard king Stu Mackenzie acquiring a custom-made guitar modified for microtonal tuning, which allows for intervals smaller than the semitones that govern Western music. And since the new guitar could only be played with similarly tuned instruments, he reportedly paid his bandmates $200 each to also get their gear tricked out with microtonal capabilities. Translation for those who don’t hold a degree in music theory: Australia’s wiggiest band has found a way to hoist its freak flag a few inches higher up the pole. But this time, it flutters in a more gentle breeze.
If the unrelenting Nonagon Infinity turned rock’n’roll into an Iron Man competition, Flying Microtonal Banana is that cool-down grace period your elliptical machine gives you after an hour’s workout. While opener “Rattlesnake” immediately reestablishes the preceding album’s motorik momentum, the pace is tempered—more late-night cruise than rocket to the moon. But even as it maintains a steadier course, the changes in scenery are more dramatic—in between Mackenzie’s chirpy verses about reptilian attacks, the song powers through a fog of stormy synths, staccato guitar pricks, and the brain-scrambling squawks of a Turkish horn-type instrument known as a zurna.
On Nonagon Infinity, the action moved so fast that Mackenzie’s words whizzed by like an out-of-control news ticker spitting out the haziest cosmic jive. He still drops randomly recurring melodies like a pull-string doll with a limited repertoire of phrasing, but Flying Microtonal Banana’s more relaxed vibe and greater sense of space bring his words into sharper focus. As per psych-rock tradition, Mackenzie deals in surrealist imagery, though in this case, those images aren’t the mere product of a chemically clouded mind. “Melting” combines rhythms from ’70s Nigeria with observations on the present-day Arctic (“Toxic air is/Here to scare us/Fatal fumes from/Melting ferrous”). “Open Water” channels anxieties over disappearing coastlines into a marauding, seafaring-fantasy epic, like an updated “Immigrant Song” for Vikings who drive their ships to new lands only discover they’ve been swallowed by rising ocean levels.
Flying Microtonal Banana peaks early with these extended odysseys, before giving way to more conventionally scaled rockers like “Sleep Drifter,” the rare Gizzard track that uses its melody as the foundation for a krautrockin’ jam, rather than the other way around. But as the record rolls on, it starts to resemble an FM dial spun awry. Flying Microtonal Banana serves up brief blasts of spaghetti-western balladry (“Billabong Valley”), acidic Southern blooze (“Anoxia”), and gritty Afro-funk (“Nuclear Fusion”) that are connected only by the chaotic harmonica and zurna bursts that punctuate Mackenzie’s musings. And it becomes increasingly clear that the only difference between a three-minute King Gizzard track and a seven-minute one is where they arbitrarily decide to fade out (sometimes mid-chorus). But if Flying Microtonal Banana’s randomized approach is ultimately less transfixing than Nonagon Infinity’s maniacal focus, it nonetheless shows that, after eight previous albums, this band’s creativity and curiosity knows no bounds, and their singular balance of anarchy and accessibility is still in check. So even if you don’t understand the first thing about microtonality, there’s still plenty of flying banana here to keep you amused. | 2017-02-25T01:00:00.000-05:00 | 2017-02-25T01:00:00.000-05:00 | Rock | ATO / Flightless | February 25, 2017 | 7.4 | 231db783-eb66-4b5e-9c27-c53a666f9305 | Stuart Berman | https://pitchfork.com/staff/stuart-berman/ | null |
Over the past few years, the Body have gone through several personnel changes, and moved from Providence, RI, to Portland, OR. The time spent in flux has only galvanized the now-duo's central focus: sounding completely terrifying, in an Armageddon-with-a-view, end-of-everything manner. | Over the past few years, the Body have gone through several personnel changes, and moved from Providence, RI, to Portland, OR. The time spent in flux has only galvanized the now-duo's central focus: sounding completely terrifying, in an Armageddon-with-a-view, end-of-everything manner. | The Body: Master, We Perish | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/17970-the-body-master-we-perish/ | Master, We Perish | As the Body, thunderous drummer Lee Buford and murderous screamer and guitarist Chip King have been lashing at the foundation of doom metal for a decade. They’ve issued a steady stream of splits and collaborations, singles and short-run discs, but their most prominent public moment arrived in 2010 with the masterful All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood. With an all-female choir and sinister samples, the Body applied a seasick sense of motion to truly corrupted misanthropy, with impenetrable distortion piled onto the band’s lurching and jerking spans. In the interim, they’ve paired with post-metal troupe Braveyoung on the stage and in the studio, grown into a trio and occasionally a quartet, pared back to duo form, and moved from Providence, RI, to their current base of Portland, OR. The time spent in flux seems to have only galvanized the Body’s central focus-- that is, to sound completely terrifying, in an Armageddon-with-a-view, end-of-everything manner.
Master, We Perish is the new three-song, 18-minute EP from the Body. It lashes at perceived and much-debated divisions between metal and noise so hard and so fast that its tremendous squall and anthemic structures might actually be the sound of those fortified seams splintering. Master, We Perish not only finds the Body at its most punishing and paralyzing but also at its most diverse, a marvel considering the length. Opener “The Ebb and Flow of Tides in a Sea of Ash” does its monumental damage in less than three minutes, with air raid sirens invoking a tide of guitar static and cymbal smashes that make you consider finding shelter, even if you’re only wearing headphones.
In the song’s back half, King’s six-string upheaval shifts into piercing, sustained tones, while Buford now rumbles through the rest the kit, favoring body blows to eardrum lashes. But the Body somehow embeds a hook into all of this, meaning that you might want to throw up your fists and shout along with King about collapsing structures and forms. Be prepared to be blindsided by a wave of pain, though, like a quarterback being sacked from the back in one of those NFL Films slow-motion frames. It’s every bit as exhilarating and intimidating as you might hope, and shows the Body joining acts like WOLD, Sutekh Hexen, Locrian, and even Sunn O))) in the masterful art of merging blackened noise and damaged metal.
That’s not even the first three minutes. For “The Blessed Lay Down and Writhe in Agony”, the Body bleeds tension, with soprano vocals spiraling over cross-talking samples. A simple, slow riff and an indirect drum patter gather slowly, supporting King’s falsetto screech. The sound of a pump-action shotgun being slid into firing position serves as the valve’s release, opening a torrent of drone and rumble that funnels into a disastrous coda. King, Buford, the samples and, basically the whole world sound as though they’re being swallowed.
The finale, “Worship”, lacks the immediacy of its companion pieces, but its slow rise through martial drums and a scramble of found voices and manipulated notes suggests the Body’s developing ability to bait its audience with control and nuance. They micromanage the implied chaos until there is no more sonic space, no more spare slivers for sound. When the barrier finally breaks, the Body emerges with all of the atavistic doom force that initially made the band so compelling. Here, the sound is caked in static, a great grey noise worn like a badge of courage and a come-at-me middle finger. Feel free to tell these two they don’t belong in your clique, but I’m willing to admit I’m not that brave. | 2013-05-03T02:00:03.000-04:00 | 2013-05-03T02:00:03.000-04:00 | Metal | At a Loss | May 3, 2013 | 8.1 | 231e09c3-fcb8-439b-8912-ea42cd49883a | Grayson Haver Currin | https://pitchfork.com/staff/grayson-haver currin/ | null |
In execution, untitled unmastered. is the complete inverse of Kanye West's recent The Life of Pablo—it's a small and quiet statement from an artist with little to prove at this moment. | In execution, untitled unmastered. is the complete inverse of Kanye West's recent The Life of Pablo—it's a small and quiet statement from an artist with little to prove at this moment. | Kendrick Lamar: untitled unmastered. | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/21705-untitled-unmastered/ | untitled unmastered. | "I made To Pimp a Butterfly for you," raps Kendrick Lamar on the opening cut from untitled unmastered. It's tempting to read a lot into those words; in fact, it's tempting to delve deeply into everything about his latest release. Because when the promotionally frugal, preeminent thinking-person's rapper of a generation lets forth a largely unexpected collection of demos into a click economy of hot takes and broadcasted enthusiasm, the friction of opposites is enough to spark the kind of hopes that see meaning in everything.
No other rapper has taken up so much real estate in the past 12 months while releasing so little music and sharing as little about themselves as Kendrick. TPAB—a Grammy-winning ride of densely knotted rhymes, tangled ideas, and deep sounds—positioned Kendrick Lamar as a reluctant messiah figure, and its dialogues with self and manifestations of God resisted quick-and-easy unpacking. Now, he’s released a handful-and-a-half of song sketches in a project that's neither album nor mixtape (or even EP or LP), and seem to have even less a chance of radio play than TPAB did upon its arrival. But it feels like an extension of that album's world—an asterisk, perhaps, or an extended coda.
There's little doubt that just about all of these songs are from TPAB sessions—"untitled 03," subtitled with a date of "05.28.2013," had already been performed four months before Butterfly's release, during the the long goodbye of "The Colbert Report" with help from Terrace Martin, Thundercat, Bilal, and Sonnymoon's Anna Wise. It's classic Kendrick—a reductive-yet-sprawling fever-chill of observations on race and the music industry that mixes stereotype with history and wisdom. It's insightful and uncomfortable, if not outright offensive: Asians are linked to Eastern philosophy, Native Americans to the land, Blacks to lust, whites to greed. It's also the collection's most fully-formed song; perhaps the only one that emerges as a finished thought here.
One of the most enchanting things about this project is hearing how Kendrick manipulates his own voice before the studio modulations kick in. His vocal tics and morphs have long been technologically-aided affairs, but on "untitled 02" he's full of elastic long tails—partially gleeful Lil Wayne, wholly sanctifying choir sinner. He's crying for his bosses—both Top Dawg and God—while lamenting urban addiction and dysfunction, and contemplating mortality. "World is going brazy/ Where did we go wrong?/ It's a tidal wave/ It's a thunderdome," he sing-raps, sounding half-possessed, half-saved. For the second half of the song, he includes the firestarter verse he performed in January on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon." But the scorching iteration of that live performance is nowhere here—he's laid-back and matter-of-fact, but his threat just as heavy: "I can put a rapper on life support/ Guarantee that's something none of you want."
At times Kendrick is joined by other voices—TDE's Jay Rock and Punch, and Wise (again) on "untitled 05," which sounds like a long jazz-groove session made just to find the best parts; Cee-Lo Green shows up over the bossa nova breeziness of Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammed's "untitled 06"—but, much like TPAB, untitled unmastered. is unmistakably about Kendrick Lamar. The song he's jokingly creating on the back end of "untitled 07" shows up earlier as "untitled 04," and its refrain is "head is the answer/head is the future"—which may or may not be a multiple-entendre about sex, life and spirituality. Because Kendrick is so share-averse, goofy moments like these that would be filler on other projects have the revelatory power of a posthumous recording here. It's the kind of stuff you'd find out from other artists via their social media detritus—at the end of "untitled 02" he asks who's doing drums, sounding like a bona fide jazz cat complimenting Max Roach's stick work—but Kendrick has a verve for taking giant steps backwards into an era where masters let the music speak for itself. It all feels like a jazz project, but not just because he's using jazz music.
These numbers are packed with more information and moods than the 35-minute running time suggests. On "untitled 01" he dons his robes as God's servant, talking to the Supreme Being: "[You] told me to use my vocals to save mankind for you/ [Don't] say I didn't try for you, say I didn't ride for you, or tithe for you, or push the club to the side for you." (If the song's subtitles are indeed dates of conception, this one—"8.19.2014."—suggests that Kendrick was having conversations with God about the course of his album a full seven months before TPAB actually arrived.) In execution, untitled unmastered. is a complete inversion of Kanye West's recent The Life of Pablo—it's a small and quiet statement from an artist with little to prove at this moment. Its author tempts deeper reading, but his choices and the lack of entry points—no directional song titles, no grand proclamations, no promotion—leaving nothing to deal with but the music. As with TPAB, untitled unmastered. demands to be approached on its own terms, even when you don't know what those terms are. You can't say he didn't try for you, ride for you, or push the club to the side for you. | 2016-03-08T01:00:00.000-05:00 | 2016-03-08T01:00:00.000-05:00 | Rap | Top Dawg Entertainment | March 8, 2016 | 8.6 | 23246adc-3ea8-4918-a6ff-7efd713481de | kris ex | https://pitchfork.com/staff/kris-ex/ | null |
Garage-rock wunderkind Ty Segall's collaborative album with Tim Presley of White Fence is an absorbing maze of detours. They're the sort of people who seemingly enjoy pulling support beams out of songs to see how they hop along without them. | Garage-rock wunderkind Ty Segall's collaborative album with Tim Presley of White Fence is an absorbing maze of detours. They're the sort of people who seemingly enjoy pulling support beams out of songs to see how they hop along without them. | Ty Segall / White Fence: Hair | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/16558-ty-segall-white-fence-hair/ | Hair | Garage-rock's secret recipe has always been one part loving memory to two parts imperfect recall. The best stuff misremembers what it enshrines, producing a jarring little chamber of echoes that plays upon beloved memories while confusing them-- I love this song/wait, is this how this song goes? Ty Segall and White Fence's Tim Presley are masters of garage-rock's indirection game; their collaborative album, Hair, is an absorbing, bleary maze of detours and red herrings. To hear them steer their demented little dune buggy through rock history is not unlike partaking in the American history lessons that Abe Simpson pieced together "mostly through sugar packets": All the familiar players are here, but they're acting funny.
The songs they write together -- Segall on drums and rhythm guitar, Presley on bass and lead-- are not anthems. They are puzzles built from rock-music parts, and you don't pump your fist to a puzzle. But they are peculiarly absorbing, and they only grow more so with repeated listening. In every song, there's a jump, an oomph, a missing-reel moment, in which a sudden left turn devours a song whole or a stray thread bumps everything off the designed course. The opener, "Time", eases its way into a sweetly evocative folk-rock strum, pitched so accurately you get instantly lost trying to track it: something from George Harrison's All Things Must Pass, maybe? But then, in its last minute, the song drops into a forceful blurt of fuzz guitars so abruptly that its tendons nearly snap. It's a bracing reminder that you are not, in fact, listening to George Harrison.
Segall and Presley are both tinkerers like this, the sort of people who seemingly enjoy pulling support beams out of their songs to see how well they hop along without them. Songs start somewhere rote and then slowly topple over before they end. "Easy Ryder" begins in a place so familiar that your ears dilate: a straight-ahead Ventures surf lick, a lazy drum shuffle, and lyrics intoning the title. But when the halfway-point guitar solo pop ups, on cue, it noodles away past its designated end, pecking determinedly away at the song until the relationship between the two begins to resemble this dynamic. "Scissor People" starts with a Yardbirds-style riff, but when it breaks down to a one-chord vamp, it keeps breaking down into smaller and blurrier parts, interrupting itself until it just bangs its head against a corner repeatedly. It's a quizzical chaos, a cocktail of adrenaline and neurosis.
Some of this schizophrenia stems from Segall and Presley's differing temperaments. As White Fence, Presley tends to be sleepier and more abstracted; Segall's music is wilder and unconstrained. Their union feels intriguingly unstable: You can almost pinpoint the moment on the narcotized psych-folk ballad "The Black Glove/Rag" where Segall grows restless with the song's tempo and wrests control of it, steering it into a field of tires. They are interesting enough together that the stuff that sounds like it took 20 total minutes to cook up and record (the hiccuping rockabilly of "Crybaby") glows with their singular weirdness. At eight songs and under half an hour, Hair is short, but full of enough odd little fillips-- the creepy whispers that open "The Black Glove/Rag", the stumbling, quasi-solemn "1-2-3-4" countdown that opens "Time"-- that it feels like a world. Given the incestuous, collaborative nature of the San Francisco psych-rock playground, it's likely that these two will make more music together. I hope they never figure each other out completely. | 2012-05-04T02:00:00.000-04:00 | 2012-05-04T02:00:00.000-04:00 | Rock | Drag City | May 4, 2012 | 8.2 | 232497ac-53e0-41b7-ac88-33f6d4381d2b | Jayson Greene | https://pitchfork.com/staff/jayson-greene/ | null |
After two attempts on his life in seven months, the rapper Young Dolph has simply gotten back to work. His latest is a brisk, blunt album with tremendous features from Gucci Mane and 2 Chainz. | After two attempts on his life in seven months, the rapper Young Dolph has simply gotten back to work. His latest is a brisk, blunt album with tremendous features from Gucci Mane and 2 Chainz. | Young Dolph: Thinking Out Loud | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/young-dolph-thinking-out-loud/ | Thinking Out Loud | It’s a wonder Young Dolph made it out of Charlotte. On the night of February 25, Dolph was sitting in an SUV on the 600 block of North Caldwell Street, in the city’s First Ward. At about 6:30 p.m., shots rang out: dozens and dozens, hitting cars and buildings and pavement and metal. Dolph was the target. He walked away unscathed; authorities eventually recovered as many as 100 bullet casings from the scene. Five weeks later, an album, Bulletproof, was out. The tracklist spelled out a response: “100 Shots in Charlotte, But I’m Bulletproof So Fuk’em, That’s How I Feel, All of Them, I’m So Real I Pray for My Enemies, I’m Everything You Wanna Be. SMH.”
Bulletproof was not the best piece of Dolph’s catalog—this critic would argue for the similarly brief King of Memphis, from 2016—but it was close. And it was certainly his most vicious release, from Zaytoven and Cassius Jay’s preposterous drums on “I Pray for My Enemies” to the chillingly concise biography on “I’m Everything You Wanna Be.” Not all of it was overtly about the North Carolina shooting, but the parts that were looked at death and cackled: “How the fuck you miss a whole hundred shots?” At one point, he mentions that since the shooting, he’d been listening to nothing but Pac.
Last month, gunmen targeted Dolph again. This time, they didn’t miss. After a scuffle outside a Hollywood hotel, he was shot multiple times in the torso; he was taken to the hospital, initially in critical condition, but he survived and recovered. It’s hard to extricate these incidents from Dolph’s musical career. Both of the shootings were later connected to fellow rappers: a friend of sworn enemy Yo Gotti was charged with attempted murder in the Hollywood shooting, and another Memphis rapper, Blac Youngsta, turned himself in in connection to Charlotte.
Dolph’s status as a still-living human being is remarkable, but for the most part, Thinking Out Loud doesn’t treat it as such. It’s tantalizingly tunnel-visioned. In fact, the new album recalls a line from early on King of Memphis: “Since I was 17, I ain’t been able to get no rest.” After two attempts on his life in seven months, Dolph has one-upped his would-be assailants by simply getting back to work.
The album hits its stride in its middle section: the Mike WiLL Made-It- and 30 Roc-produced “Drippy” is thick with paranoia, and when Dolph raps “You a peasant, you cannot come near me,” he hits “peasant” so ferociously that it sounds like a real threat. That song, paired with “Believe Me,” makes for a two-track suite that feels less like the middle of a rap album than a conflicted fever dream. Dolph is a blunt writer and a uniformly direct vocalist; he can be laugh-out-loud funny, but he undersells nearly everything. He tends to organize his songs around an easily reducible thought or topic, but the verses themselves lurch from thought to thought. Beats like the ones he receives here are the ideal setting for Dolph’s plaintive style.
Thinking Out Loud is mostly a solo affair, but the guest turns are tremendous. On “Go Get Sum Mo,” Gucci Mane sounds fascinatingly like he did in the early Obama years, as if molasses is dripping from his mouth and he were carrying and extra 70 pounds. And even from his laconic pocket, he’s in turn outrapped by 2 Chainz, who compares himself to a sea creature and wears Dolce & Gabbana to bed.
There’s no question, though, that the album’s crown jewel is its closing song, “While U Here.” Instead of meditating on his own mortality, Dolph turns the focus outward, fretting about his parents, his incarcerated little brother, the cancer that’s overtaking his best friend’s mom. He visits his grandmother’s grave and mulls over what kind of example he can set for his son; he asks himself, “Do I think too hard, or do I think enough?” It’s the kind of personal inventory you take when you come face-to-face with death. But instead of retreating into personal myth-making, it’s made Dolph even more empathetic for those around him. Thinking Out Loud is a brisk, rewarding listen—it’s the psychological heft that sneaks up on you at the end. | 2017-10-28T01:00:00.000-04:00 | 2017-10-28T01:00:00.000-04:00 | Rap | Paper Route Empire | October 28, 2017 | 7.4 | 2324bee7-a955-428b-b8ba-51bb6326d398 | Paul A. Thompson | https://pitchfork.com/staff/paul-a. thompson/ | |
Teen Daze's earliest work was lumped in with chillwave, but through releases like All of Us Together, the rhythms started to become the focal point of his productions. Frontman Jamison's singing is the center point of Morning World, and it sounds like nothing else in his catalog. | Teen Daze's earliest work was lumped in with chillwave, but through releases like All of Us Together, the rhythms started to become the focal point of his productions. Frontman Jamison's singing is the center point of Morning World, and it sounds like nothing else in his catalog. | Teen Daze: Morning World | https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20918-morning-world/ | Morning World | Teen Daze has an on-and-off relationship with the dancefloor. It makes sense: the artist known otherwise as Jamison (he uses only his first name professionally) lives in the Fraser Valley, an exurb of Vancouver that isn't exactly known for a clubbing scene, and it's far enough away from its larger neighbor that you'd probably need a hotel room to bother going out. His earliest work was lumped in with chillwave, but through releases like All of Us, Together, the rhythms started to become the focal point of his productions, leading him to play club sets and even DJ occasionally. But melody has always been Jamison's strong suit, which has lent his dance-oriented work a heart-on-sleeve quality that's more Tycho than techno. It also means that his time spent away from the drum machines—like 2013's delicate Glacier—have been the best showcases for his songwriting. And now, with Morning World, Jamison finds his voice. Picking up a guitar (and a studio full of other instruments), he plays, plucks, and sings his heart out for his best record yet.
Following a number of turbulent life changes, Jamison travelled down to San Francisco to work with John Vanderslice, who helps imbue Morning World with indie rock's warm, analog glow. It sounds almost nothing like previous Teen Daze material. Only Jamison's fluttery songwriting remains, and the new style puts his pleasant idiosyncrasies into sharper focus. Instead of pirouetting synths and daydream melodies, Jamison's singing is the center point of Morning World. His voice is wonderfully meek and boyish, with shades of Ben Gibbard and Doug Martsch in his soft, clearly enunciated delivery. It's a great match for the baroque sound he's built with Vanderslice, which feels ornate and well-appointed without reaching for the ostentatious.
While the meat of Morning World is largely string instruments and drums, Jamison's nostalgic synths play an important part, always lurking in the background. Synths swirl underneath the title track, giving it the childlike lilt of hauntology practitioners like the Advisory Circle, and add vivid color between the lines on upbeat highlight "Life in the Sea". The latter is an ode to swimming that underlines the album's core theme: an appreciation of the simple things around you. Two of the album's tracks, including opener "Valley of Gardens", paint verdant pictures: "I've come to watch the flowers as they grow/ Another chance to feel how little I know/ And another morning spent no feeling alone."
Those lyrics highlight a naïveté that's been core to Teen Daze since Jamison was young, which makes his romantic songwriting feel as earnest as a Postal Service song. It comes to a head on the LP's climax, "Infinity", which is one of his most touching songs yet, breaking out into a soaring coda where he repeats "Let me stay a little longer/ I can find my way back home." In the wake of the breakup of a long-term relationship that preceded Morning World, it's an elegant refrain that packs an adolescent's world of emotion into one loaded phrase.
When Jamison isn't being so direct, the album falters: "You Said" is a blandly casual instrumental that feels like treading water (think "Flying" from Magical Mystery Tour), while "Post Storm" goes for epic but ends up dawdling through its hefty six minutes. Those signs suggest that Jamison might still be working to reconcile his singer-songwriter direction with his many past selves, but he sounds remarkably assured for the rest of it. More importantly, he sounds like himself more than ever—which makes Morning World Jamison's most captivating and personal album yet. | 2015-08-12T02:00:03.000-04:00 | 2015-08-12T02:00:03.000-04:00 | Rock | Paper Bag | August 12, 2015 | 7.3 | 232b23b9-3675-4e1c-83c4-b81dba9c1234 | Andrew Ryce | https://pitchfork.com/staff/andrew-ryce/ | null |
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