Tag: music, albums

[music, albums] November 29, 2003 at 5:45:00 PM CET

Lambchop - AW CMON and NO YOU CMON

2,565 words on the two new albums by the unclassifiable 16 member chamber orchestra from Nashville due for release February next year by Marcello Carlin from The Naked Maja. Two excerpts:

... And then, something completely unexpected, or perhaps not, as the emotion which has been slowly simmering throughout the album(s) thus far finally boils over. Following a brief electronic lament worthy of the Aphex Twin, Lambchop drive as they have never driven before, and for the first time ever rock out on, appropriately enough, “Nothing Adventurous Please,” wherein we are aghast at the spectacle of the alt. country avatars turning into Neu! – a motorik drive which is gradually overwhelmed by noise guitar and grumpy piano commentary as Wagner gleefully chants, “You just missed us!” A cross between “Hallogallo” and Sonic Youth’s “Total Trash,” and the beating heart of both albums. ... So are these Lambchop’s best records? I would say that existing fans will adore it and should save up for it now; neophytes should buy Nixon ahead of this, as it is still their most fully realised record. Nevertheless the new albums are continuing evidence of Wagner’s immense ability to put a microscope to the most seemingly conventional of stories or musical forms, and by sheer dint of his imagination, turn them into something which is quietly but extremely unconventional.

(bold accentuation by me)

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[music, albums] November 23, 2003 at 9:18:00 PM CET

Cuckooland is devastating.

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[music, albums] November 4, 2003 at 11:56:00 PM CET

ok just a last one

The pedal-steel in “Amelia” alone is enough to send depressive types to the medicine cabinet. John Darnielle on Hejira

This sentence is so plain wrong. I can tell you because I am a depressive guy. It is exactly the opposite. The pedal-steel in "Amelia" makes the pills redundant. It is the best antidepressant anyone has ever developed in the world. And Joni Mitchell's clear emotional voice alternating all the time between alto and soprano is the best balm for the wounded soul imaginable. And listening to her lyrics for me is like looking into a ruthless mirror. Which is very healthy from time to time. I was less alone in this world the day I discovered Joni Mitchell. It was a hot summer afternoon in 1985. In a house on top of a small hill close to a small lake South of Munich. And the record playing in the background was Hejira. The smooth flow of this album and the soothing electric bass of Jaco Pastorius fitted perfectly to the heat. Like the cicada in the olive trees in Greece. Absolutely irresistible. Entangling the listener. Is there anything more relaxed in the world than "Blue Motel Room"? A record for daydreamers.

We had an argument on a similar subject before...

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[music, albums] November 2, 2003 at 6:54:00 PM CET

Reissue of the year?

1988's Prairie School Freakout by the criminally underrated and unsuccessful Eleventh Dream Day has been re-released by Thrill Jockey. I have just been listening to the 14 thirty second snippets over at Amazon and I must say that this guitar freakout(!) album which makes me think of Yo La Tengo's folkier side, Sonic Youth's experimentalism and Crazy Horse's guitar sound immediately jumped on top of my wishlist and I believe every word of the glowing Dusted Magazine review:

For lovers of guitar-heavy indie rock, listening to Prairie School Freakout for the first time is somewhat akin to discovering some vintage porn in your dad’s closet. ...

The album’s opening track, “Watching Candles Burn”, sums up the band’s approach: dueling guitars that wildly alternate between a countryish strum and noisy, half-improvised solos; Rick Rizzo’s amelodic, almost aggressive singing; a general sense of freewheeling, youthful energy. ...

... the album’s closer, “Go.” A tumultuous, far-ranging guitar workout, the song handles dense nests of sound delicately and subtly, hinting at the gracefully complex playing that would characterize their later work. Powerful as many of the songs are on Prairie School Freakout are, there is a mastery of dynamics and tone on this song that goes far beyond the rest of the album. The vocals, traded urgently between Bean and Rizzo, reach a frenetic, unsteady wail above warbling feedback and stabbing guitar riffs. At times quiet and retreating, at others aggressive and chaotic, the song never loses its focus or its sense of immediacy, managing to sound beautiful and slightly scary at the same time.

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[music, albums] November 2, 2003 at 1:15:00 PM CET

New Yo La Tengo EP

The world's most eclectic rock band has a new maxi out. Apparently like on the last tour the new versions of the first three songs which are from the mellow Summer Sun are rocking quite hard. From the latest Aquarius newsletter:

YO LA TENGO "Today Is The Day!" (Matador) cd ep/12" 5.98/5.98 Yo La Tengo are like the Energizer bunnies of indie-rock, aren't they? There's always a new album or ep and, not only that, it's always usually pretty good. So, get set, here's a fine new six-song ep to add to your collection. The first three tracks are derived from the sessions for YLT's Summer Sun album that came out earlier this year. You get a more 'rock' version of "Today Is The Day" (which appeared on Summer Sun in a milder version) along with two other tracks that were cut from Summer Sun 'cause they also just rocked too hard, which didn't quite fit with the rest of that album's material. But they sound great here. Then, getting away from the rock, there's also a lovely Georgia-sung cover version of "Needle Of Death" by British folk guitarist Bert Jansch, a previously-unreleased mellow instrumental groover called "Dr. Crash", and a live-on-the-radio acoustic take on "Cherry Chapstick" from YLT's And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out. Real nice. Oh, and downtown NYC free jazz bassist/big shot William Parker shows up on one track, playing not bass but double reed horn, by the way.

P.S. Nice extensive review of Today Is the Day in Dusted Magazine.

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[music, albums] October 21, 2003 at 4:36:00 PM CEST

The weapon of mass destruction has been found ;-)

This (Oct. 16th entry) really made me curious: Nick Edwards of Gutterbreakz on the new Martin Rev (the Suicide keyboarder) solo album To Live. Excerpts:

...The sound is so punchy and compressed, like he's deliberately set the recording level too high or something - the music sounds like it's gonna break your hi-fi if you play it too loud. It's that sense of 'perceived' loudness and the rampantly aggressive mix which makes this album so startling on first listen. And Rev's voice - which, incidentally, seems to mimic Vega's early vocal style - is so overdriven it just punches a big fucking hole in the mix, like all the other sounds get beaten into the background. There's simply not enough room for them all in the frequency spectrum. I imagine that the method of getting the music onto tape was as crucial to Martin as the actual compositions. It's all about density, reaching that point of critical mass where it seems like everything going to implode on itself at any minute. The recording process as Weapon of Mass Destruction.

That's not to say that the choons are of secondary importance. Far from it. The opening title track tears through the speakers with all guns blazing. It sounds like the Young Gods covering the Stooges' 'Penetration'. ...

Things get really strange when you get to "Shimmer", which starts out like another rocker, before being consumed by an avalanche of digital processing; smeared, stretched and crushed by delay, flanger and god knows what else, until it becomes unintelligible. It sounds like improvisation, as though the Digital FX Processor is Rev's new Lead Instrument. The sound becomes more insane and chaotic as Rev travels into the furthest reaches of freeform extemporisation, twisting knobs and pushing buttons as deftly and intuitively as Pharoah Sanders attacking the tenor sax at the peak of his powers. ...

"Painted" throws layers of abstract sound-matter over a beat that's pure mid-80's NYC Electro. It's like Arthur Baker jamming with Autechre. ...

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[music, albums] October 10, 2003 at 11:53:00 PM CEST

On repeat tonight

I am bathing in I Believe in You from Talk Talk's splendid Spirit of Eden right now. This thread on ILM brought this album back to my mind. And there is another looong and instructive thread on Talk Talk.

How to describe this celestial music? A blend of lots of soundtrack, some symphony, a little progrock, a wee bit of jazz improvisation, a lot of blues and a voice (Mark Hollis) which would have annoyed me ten years ago but which does meld just perfectly with the mostly sparse and understated arrangements with so many instruments.

There is not a lot happening in the music, it is not for short time-span attentionists. I have listened to it a couple of times yesterday and today. It is nice background wallpaper music but it is even better when you really listen to it, when you pay attention to what's going on. My favourite instruments besides Mark Hollis' voice are the distorted harmonica and the percussion and the bass and and and. Just every bloody instrument. And the breaks, the pauses just before the waves continue to roll. There are also these violent non-expected eruptions like in Desire which make this album a soundtrack of real life.

This is one of the albums you should listen to on headphones and smoke a joint to. Though this is a contradiction. Joints are made to connect to people and not to disconnect from the world.

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[music, albums] September 27, 2003 at 12:40:00 AM CEST

Discovery

The New Radicals Maybe you've been brainwashed too (up to #7) is one of the most uplifting nonfamous albums I just got to know. Thank you, Bernhard, wherever you are now. Soul (which I used to hate) can be great, especially the Northern variant.

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[music, albums] September 26, 2003 at 9:31:00 PM CEST

Where can you hear Chan Marshall aka Cat Power, Neko Case, Kurt Wagner from Lambchop, Jason Lytle from Grandaddy, Joey Burns and John Convertino from Calexico, Richard Buckner, M Ward and the man himself: Howe Gelb?

On the new album of Howe's country flirtation group:

The Band of Blacky Ranchette - Still Lookin' Good To Me

out in the UK on October, 6th. There is a 4 1/2 (out of 5) star review at Americana UK.

P.S. There is another excellent positive review at Popmatters.

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[music, albums] September 4, 2003 at 11:50:00 PM CEST

Neil Young - Greendale, review

I picked this up yesterday from the post office with the book I quoted from yesterday (apparently I miscalculated the size of the small parcel as it did not fit in our mailbox). The first listen was very pleasant. 100% Neil Young, very simple words and tunes with this naive quality of most of his work. Not only has he got the voice of a child, he also seems to have its soul. Neil Young has always had this kind of therapeutic effect on me when I was down because of relationships falling apart and heartbreaking stuff like that. And it seems the same with this album. It's soothing and unobtrusive. I didn't listen to the story line as it doesn't interest me at all what happens to this family somewhere in a small Californian town. It is very rare that concept albums move me. The last one and probably only one ever was Lou Reed's Magic and Loss where he transformed the pain of losing several friends due to AIDS into great art.

On the other hand two subsequent listens made me unsure if this is good. Some very conventional arrangements like in song two (Double E) which is absolutely unbearable and song four (Leave the Driving). Even Carmichael, the ten minute middle ballad and a peak which I loved immediately at first listen maybe isn't as extraordinary as I thought. The electric rough-sounding guitars (Crazy Horse) are to my liking but the song is definitely too long and repetitive. The next song, Bandit has an acoustic guitar on it evoking the open atmosphere of Joni Mitchell's Hejira but it turns into something else with Young's falsetto getting lost in schmaltz. Song number 7, Grandpa's Interview is electric again with a lot of blues, an excellent captivating song on grandpa's death. A killer riff, close to Cortez the Killer actually. But again the song is far too epic, not substantial enough too fill almost thirteen minutes. Bringin' Down Dinner is a synthesizer meets drum-machine-like-drumming bore. The second last song Sun Green has some more bluesy electrified mouthharp on it (as some of the earlier songs) and rocks smoothly with slightly distorted shouting voices in between Young's singing. Almost making me think of Trans, an electronic experiment which constitutes the worst Young has ever released. Be the Rain finishes the album full of simple-hearted shitty political lyrics like "save the planet for another day" and this background lady choir I have always detested, even on the Leonard Cohen albums.

A very mixed affair all this. I think I will edit it to thirty minutes on tape and that will improve it considerably. Nevertheless Neil has tried to tread some new territory with this music novel, with 57 years that is a little feat considering that Deep Purple, Fleetwood Mac and Santana are touring right now in front of amazingly big audiences with music which is as fresh as a stinking dead fish. Neil Young who has had polio in his childhood and has two handicapped kids still hasn't lost it. He is a miracle in the pop music business. A marathon runner who is still on his way.

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