Glider - The Sight Below

Glider

The Sight Below
Ghostly International.

SCQ Rating: 88%

Over the past two years I’ve taught myself to thoroughly screen any potential electronica purchases. For one, tons of artists – be it drone, ambient, laptop beats, whatever – sound virtually interchangeable but the greater risk is that you could spend your entire life hunting down new electronic music and never, ever find that disc you were destined to hear. As such with any issues of quality control, I’ve become a first-listen critic - haphazardly selecting a few cuts off a given disc before rendering silent opinion – and because this scene has so many homogenized niches, my search for greatness can become pretty depressing. You begin to question whether your parameters for greatness were actually flukes borne from a specific time period or emotional peak. You find yourself disappointed in records because they fail to conform to your blind assumptions about their name or aesthetic. Things stop making sense.

An album like Glider brings everything back into clear focus and has reminded me of my passion for this scene. While its tone and vibe are fairly commonplace – emotive ambience, four/four beats, cinematic synth-sweeps – how it’s constructed and performed is gorgeously unique. The Sight Below (who prefers to keep his birth-name private) uses each of Glider’s nine tracks to explore the capabilities of combining steadfast four/four rhythms, compressed guitar and keys… and while the results should, by all means, sound monotonous, they instead combine to form a faultless tapestry of emotional cliffs and valleys. ‘At First Touch’ establishes the setting with ominous, reverberating keys swelling coolly over a persistent beat. Beneath its steady thump is the first hint of Glider’s depth; a second rhythm, occasionally detectable and drifting up from beneath the mix. Throughout the flexing bass-line of ‘Dour’, the flooding moods of ‘Life’s Fading Light’ or ‘A Fractured Smile’s ecstatic pulse, Glider sounds like a heartbreaking ambient record somehow complimented by the dance party your neighbour is throwing downstairs. While the compositions are remarkable without context, I’m blown away to discover that Glider was recorded live off the floor as The Sight Below builds each layer before our ears and then adds his minimal, nostalgic guitar. His graceful spontaneity provides these tracks with the heartbeat necessary to ward off any needless repetition, while his focus prevents the excesses that most live recordings cater to.

Alternating between still-life soundtracks and dancefloor euphoria, this is the record you want to hear next to frozen beaches, empty parks or in the still of night overlooking your city’s horizon. I keep telling myself an album of such singular sound shouldn’t be this exhilarating yet its strength is in the details. No two tracks share the same melancholy’s feel or metronomic beat’s structure as each bends its mood and tempo expertly. Like its topographic cover implies, Glider is an airborne transport that’ll move you over earth and water, giving you an aural weightlessness and breathless view from above all things.

Immolate Yourself - Telefon Tel Aviv

Immolate Yourself

Telefon Tel Aviv
Bpitch Records.

SCQ Rating: 78%

Anyone who has seen No Country For Old Men must remember its closing scene where Tommy Lee Jones reflects on a dream he had the previous night before an unexpected cut ushers in the final credits. Compared to the preceding story’s intensity, this retelling of a dream seems like a lull, a moment for viewers to lean back in their seats and collect themselves. It isn’t until the credits roll that Jones’ dream takes on the importance of a Shakespearean soliloquy and as viewers we scramble back over those dream details, hoping to uncover some closure that resonates beyond its linear tale of age and greed. Like that abrupt and anticlimactic finale, Immolate Yourself takes some time to both digest and judge.

For one thing, my initial listens impressed upon me a slick, electronic-pop record; its beat-programming comparable to the Junior Boys (especially on ‘Stay Away From Being Maybe’) and rich production reminiscent of M83. Early listens also deemed the album too glossy and hell-bent on tweaking EQ instead of writing songs. Yet I continued listening to it on a near-daily basis as if each song was crawling closer to relating some grand understanding or purpose. A song like ‘Your Every Idol’ seemed pointless, allowing an unwavering tribal beat and fluttering synths to slowly increase in volume and then end. No better was ‘Mostly Translucent’, with its barely audible vocals and, once again, fluttering synths building toward no release, no satisfactory end. Beyond a few tracks, I decided Immolate Yourself was overfed on production ideas to compensate for boring songwriting. I was wrong… this isn’t bloated, it’s empty. There’s a tremendous difference.

Those aforementioned tracks of transience remain the best examples of Immolate Yourself’s barrenness but they’re sewn thickly to a song-cycle of emotional hollows. The sense of dread here is palpable, from the eerie discomfort of ‘Your Mouth’ to the awkward vocal hooks of ‘You Are the Worst Thing in the World’. Even the record’s most extroverted track, ‘Helen of Troy’, fantasizes about veering off a bridge with one’s love interest in tow. Now in case these song titles didn’t already blow your break-up whistle, I’ll tell it plain: Immolate Yourself details an unnerving anxiety toward relationships over its 46 minutes. My long-awaited grand understanding is that Joshua Eustis and Charles Cooper present this tension by malnourishing their songs of emotion; the beats are concave, the vocals detached in an approach similar (yet with drastically varied results) to Joy Division.

Such a self-destructive tactic of immolating their music (as well as some grave lyrical themes) make the apparent suicide of Charles Cooper – two days after Immolate Yourself’s release – a tragic yet comprehensive chapter to this album’s origin. News of his death was shocking and comes on the heels of the duo’s best work, yet I cannot deny that Cooper’s death changes the way I hear Immolate Yourself. I’m accustomed to hearing musicians mope about love or despair… that’s par for the course. When that particular artist dies in mysterious circumstances like Cooper did on January 22nd, it provokes fans to listen ever-closer to the man’s last words no differently than how Tommy Lee Jones’ retelling of a dream can move from a character study into a microcosm of the film’s message itself. There is no shortage of people who complain that artists who die young are among the most celebrated, that suicide is a shortcut to eternal notoriety. It’s largely true… but what they fail to acknowledge is that suicide is authenticity. Ian proved it, Elliott proved it. Immolate Yourself, in its darkest, most brooding moments, has a primal authenticity that is both moving and haunting.

Slowing Down / Catching Up

The One Month Challenge

Maybe it’s due to the snowflakes soaring horizontally across my window, thick as television static, but I think I’ll stay in today. Besides, where would I really go now that I’ve given myself the ultimate challenge…

FOR ONE MONTH (February 17th through March 17th) I CANNOT BUY ANY NEW MUSIC!

What am I, crazy? Well, it’s a good personal trial for a few reasons: (1) I’ve recently gone a bit off the rails with CD purchases, (2) the curiousity over how much I’m actually spending is a bit tantalizing and (3) I’ve ensured an ace up my sleeve. While the rules stipulate that I cannot spend any portion of my paycheque on new music (shows, paraphernalia included), I can make money by selling records from my collection. If I decide to sell several albums for the sake of buying something new, that’s legal and guilt-free.

So the bigger question is: can I handle this? All bets or well wishes are welcome.

SCQ on the Web

It’s great to find the occasional SCQ review used to promote records and labels, like my previously unaware press quote for Jesu in Hydrahead’s press headquarters or my linked admiration for Thunder Power’s EP on Slumber Party Records. Also, be sure to check out my review of The Welcome Wagon’s debut album on celebrated Toronto website Two Way Monologues.

Anyway I’m going to spend the rest of today getting to know a few records I’ve purchased in quick succession. I might not be buying many records over the next month, but you can count on a bunch of new reviews and SCQ’s 2nd Annual Top Drinking Albums feature (right in time for St. Patrick’s Day) coming soon. Now I’ll leave you with a barely visible picture of Antony Hegarty from this week’s fantastic Antony & the Johnson’s show at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. His presence truly forced you to live in the moment and forget about your camera altogether.


Oh, to those of you with Gmail accounts: be sure to add yourself to SCQ’s “Followers” list. There are no perks whatsoever but at least you’ll have a picture of your choice next to any comments left. Wow!

The Crying Light - Antony & the Johnsons

The Crying Light

Antony & the Johnsons
Secretly Canadian Records.

SCQ Rating: 87%

Three and a half years have passed since I Am a Bird Now, a passing of time that has dulled neither its rich melancholy nor a single emotional punch. It was a record clamoring for intimate understanding and sexual identity but what made it a modern classic was its redemptive quality; the hard-fought battle to feel comfortable in one’s own skin. Regardless of your sexual orientation or disposition, I Am a Bird Now’s over-arching theme applied to every set of ears listening. After landing a ton of critical praise and a Mercury Prize, Antony shines his lyrical light upon the universal in The Crying Light; a document of aftermaths, both of Antony’s quest as well as our current global plight.

Within a minute of ‘Her Eyes Are Underneath the Ground’ it’s evident that Antony’s voice feels less encumbered, less confined to the emotional prison of his previous work, and it’s early proof that his talents aren’t limited to such contextual, transgendered material. Tracks ‘Epilepsy is Dancing’ and ‘Kiss My Name’ are upbeat, full-band compositions that swoon with romantic contentment, giving earnest listeners the comfort that Antony has found a happier muse. Even the orchestrated finale ‘Everglade’ is brimming with a sense of closure; one that Antony luckily undercuts by a growing, new tension: the fragile health of our planet. Now don’t sweat it… The Crying Light features no preachy, ecological torch songs. Instead, Antony uses broad lyrical strokes to mark his concerns of mortality and nature. From ‘Dust and Water’s near-hymnal on the cycle of life to ‘Another World’s restless plea, Antony alludes that how we came to prosper as a people may be incomprehensible but we should respect that mystery by protecting what’s essential to us.

Perhaps because of its less-personal content, The Crying Light carries a lighter burden that routinely shifts its tension for reflecting harmony. This subtler work is additionally pleasing as it achieves a beauty comparable to its predecessor without the all-star cast that bolstered I Am a Bird Now. The key to these ten songs is restraint, elegantly displayed on the piano-folk of the title track and the late-night, NY love song ‘One Dove’. When Antony loosens such focus it’s a toss-up; while ‘Aeon’, with its vocal layers and metronomic guitar, is the clear album highlight, its neighbouring ‘Daylight and the Sun’ crosses into dramatic performance that nearly requires a three-act visual accompaniment. It’s a rare, borderline case of over-reaching that like many other tracks here are embraced by avant-composer Nico Muhly. Neither Lou Reed, Rufus nor Devendra were as indispensible as Muhly is here, creating stirring arrangements that turn excellent piano sonatas into sweeping, compassionate aural experiences. These two composers were born to work together.

As its similar black and white cover-art might suggest, The Crying Light is a wonderful companion-piece to I Am a Bird Now. Where that landmark 2005 release was an inward examination of one’s identity and eventual liberation, this new album looks out into cities, fields and forests for greater inspection of a universal predicament. We, as communities and countries, are slowly becoming aware of the damages we’re inflicting on Mother Nature. Through the misunderstood, androgynous and gorgeous voice of Antony Hegarty, we have a true ambassador for another world.

Black Sea - Fennesz

Black Sea

Fennesz
Touch N Go Records.

SCQ Rating: 79%

City buses get cleaned maybe once a winter in Toronto, accounting for each being slathered in frozen mud and salt, mixed so haphazardly yet creating a similar collage of grays, blacks and browns. Dirty splashes dry in phenomenal designs across my morning commutes and, like frozen waves, bare all the inherent beauty of nature that we feel proactive throwing salt at. The sight of these several, framed impressionistic prints is an acquired taste for me; one that I stared vacantly through until its complexity drew me in.

Black Sea, Christian Fennesz’s follow-up to 2004’s Venice, is very much an acquired taste in that vein: harsh and compassionless, as desolate as its landscape cover-art yet inviting to those who are convinced they hear more than is immediately audible. Take the mournfully clean guitar in ‘Black Sea’ that washes away initial slabs of industrial noise or witness the daybreak clarity of ‘Grey Scale’, a contemplative song that spends its sparse melody warding off Fennesz’s expertly layered digital attacks. These passing episodes of directness invite listeners to brave heavier endeavors like ‘The Colour of Three’, a track that indeed showcases Black Sea’s difficult side. Carrying on as a crushing second-half to the title track, Fennesz creates claustrophobic layers of buzzing synths that strike suddenly and then swell and morph in rhythm to nearly identical layers. It’s challenging and morose; the kind of track that instantly ditches casual hipsters and those curious for “ambient music you can study to”. Even so, these bleak moments lug a ton of grace.

What makes those city bus windows so visually interesting to navigate lies beneath its ice and dirt, where the outside world is still partially visible and passing by. Just when I’m completely transfixed by my make-shift bus-art installation, I’ll catch familiar sights trapped beneath the frame. Black Sea is an authentic ambient record – in that there are instances (‘Glass Ceiling’) you’ll truly forget it’s playing – but for all its well-honed smoke and mirrors, it holds “familiars” all the same. Silence builds to a Sigur Ros circa 2002 crest in ‘Glide’ while ‘Perfume of Winter’ drops playful chords like nostalgic footprints in snow. The disc closes with ‘Saffron Revolution’, a song that makes good on an album’s worth of electronic detritus and delivers a haunting swan-song where Fennesz’s puzzle-pieces come together.

Listening to Black Sea from beginning to end tonight, ‘Saffron Revolution’’s memorable climax feels greater than before. As I peer out of spotless windows on this greyhound bus, finding far-off lights that linger behind the impossible miles of Canada, Black Sea reflects the emotion and mentality of taking the long road. I see no great prize awaiting me at the end of those photographed railroads – no more than I see tonight from a snowy highway in darkness – but ‘Saffron Revolution’ is a song of winning, of that final step. Black Sea, for all its tempermental chapters, is about navigating a safe path across.

Award* Winning Record Review - Sleep Well

Forgive this post. It isn't often that SCQ has the opportunity to brag much but when a Top Prize from Soundscapes enters the picture, I feel the need to celebrate. Sure, the "Top Prize" is a $50 gift certificate* but as the generous crowd at Soundscapes knows, anyone who cares enough about albums to enter this competition will treat this like pirate treasure. That's it photographed... a rare picture indeed since it's already cashed in. Here is the award* winning epic, based on true events:


**Why Sleep Well by Electric President is my Favourite Album of 2008**

Like a recently landed immigrant to the downtown core, I found myself living in the city I used to catch the skyline of from afar. Instead of waves splashing stone, I now heard hundreds of languages, traffic-light bird-calls and subways screeching while I squeezed shoulder-to-shoulder among commuting strangers. Long days usually ended with my sneakers wandering the orb-lit sidewalks of Palmerston, on down to College and into Soundscapes.

My humid July evening was beckoning something unheard and electronic so I explored the rows of plastic and digipack spines until one, a rainbow of blues and blacks, caught my eye. I’d merely a passing interest in Electric President because of my respect for their label, Morr Music, but even so cannot explain – whether it was desperation or some paranormal intuition – why I purchased it. Thanks to my unfashionable but reliable discman, which had spun opener ‘Monsters’ by the time I’d turned back onto Palmerston, I knew the choice was indeed some fluke-case of intuition.

Seemingly designed for humid night-walks, Sleep Well deserves every nocturnal reference it chews on. Songs like ‘We Will Walk Through Walls’ and ‘Ether’ describe harrowing visions that, despite tightroping between dream and nightmare, manage to soothe my ears, while ‘Graves and the Infinite Arm’ and ‘It’s An Ugly Life’ blend Beach Boys’ vocal harmonies with euphoric sweeps of synths. Between expansive arrangements of the full songs and transient instrumentals that slide by like morphing dreams, Sleep Well cooled down my summer rush. Like a good friend, it sweet-talked me out of my Toronto-anxiety and forced me to appreciate little moments. That night I walked home from Soundscapes was among the best of them.

RIPPED OFF 08

A month and a half since the posting of my Top Twenty Albums of 2008, I've yet to feel any sudden stings of regret. Sure, Hercules & Love Affair rushed out of the gate like a champion while Conor Oberst provided one of my absolute favourite tracks of the year..; still, 2008 is but a glimmer in my eye. Haven't thought about it, completely over it... almost.

The 2nd Annual SCQ's RIPPED OFF is my much-needed hammer to nail that year shut. At once a retrospective of my misfires as well as a memorial for neglected albums, RIPPED OFF 08 collects my favourite discoveries of last year that, due to their release date, couldn't qualify for year-end lists. My condolences, all.

Asa Breed (Black Edition) - Matthew Dear (RIPPED OFF 08)

Asa Breed (Black Edition)
Matthew Dear

Courtesy of Ghostly International.
Original SCQ Review here.

Asa Breed is so RIPPED OFF because it could’ve landed on my recent Top Twenty Albums on the technicality that its reissue (the expanded Black Edition) was released in 2008. Including it was an ongoing consideration, although I couldn’t deny that the album’s best tracks (the dense electro-pop of ‘Deserter’, the insidious bassline of ‘Don and Sherri’) were standout tracks of 2007. So I pulled out my cattle-brand and RIPPED OUT it shall forever remain.

Despite spinning much of this material since the summer of ‘07, Asa Breed Black Edition has been constantly revisited over the past year. The bluesy groove of ‘Good to Be Alive’ proved ideal for summer wanderings while ‘Will Gravity Win Tonight?’, with its supple tones and alley-clicks, echoed of urban chill-outs for apartment evenings. Asa Breed affords Dear a dozen or so possible directions to take for a follow-up and when that album arrives, I vow it won’t be subjected to this sad, after-the-fact feature.

Walls - Apparat (RIPPED OFF 08)

Walls
Apparat

Courtesy of Bpitch/Shitkatapult Records.
Original SCQ Review here.


With Walls, I haven’t detected new highlights or unearthed any hard-fought theme at work since my original review. The whole album remains wholly invigorating; its beats crisp and complex, its mood ubercool yet reflective. ‘Fractales’ still quickens my heartbeat. ‘Not a Number’, warm-up that it is, still runs laps around Apparat’s electronic contemporaries, and ‘Headup’ might always be the best song that Anthony Gonzalez of M83 failed to write. As accessible as Walls is - acting as a faultless cross between indie-dance and German electronica - I’m continually blown away by Sascha Ring’s ability to keep this from spilling into ear-candy territory. As irresistible as Walls is, it never caters to dull wits or overwrought sentimentality. It’s simply the best German electronic album of 2007… and I missed it.

The Curve of the Earth - Attack in Black (RIPPED OFF 08)

The Curve of the Earth
Attack in Black

Courtesy of Dine Alone Records.
Original SCQ Review here.


It’s been nearly a year since my first apprehensive listen to Curve of the Earth and my subsequent shock that it’s wonderful, and yet here I sit at my laptop, taking in ‘I’m Going to Forget’’s bittersweet chorus and as shocked by Attack in Black’s unexpected WTF turnaround. Had I known that the Welland boys would respond to their punk-rock full-length with this excellent vinyl-only folk album, I would’ve purchased this upon release in late November of 2007 and placed it prominently on my year-end list…

Since RIPPED OFF is made of these cheated glimpses through hindsight, I’ll instead suggest (again, I know) that anyone reading this should check out The Curve of the Earth. It’s humble and clumsily recorded yet such meager production seems to pick out each song’s clever quirks and the band’s live-off-the-floor spontaneity. While their predictable radio-rock debut Marriage may have topped charts and made them well-known in Canada, their work on The Curve of the Earth will handily outlast its trendy predecessor. A minor breakthrough just waiting for its fanbase.

In Our Nature - Jose Gonzalez (RIPPED OFF 08)

In Our Nature
Jose Gonzalez

Courtesy of Imperial Records.

SCQ Rating: 80%

Purchased as a Christmas gift for my girlfriend, I never held expectations for In Our Nature beyond her discovery and hopeful enjoyment of it. And although I became accustomed to these ten intricate songs, stripped of everything but Gonzalez’s signature guitar styling’s and hand-slapped percussion, the Swedish songwriter’s work hardly touched me until we caught him play last summer. The show was supposed to take place under Boston’s starry skyline but was moved last-minute into museum’s rather formal auditorium. It hardly mattered; once Gonzalez took the stage, I didn’t even know where I was sitting. His voice, even clearer and brilliant than on record, cut into us like an unexpected static-zap. Our attention was immediately held and the man silently went to work with a solitary guitar, feeding off the auditorium’s jarring silence and filling it with cascades of acoustic strums. There were no instances of grandstanding (hell, he could hardly make eye-contact with his microphone) or taking his material to a more crowd-pleasing level, yet his dedication to such skeletal folksongs turned a would-be concert into a spiritual assembly.

Since that night, listening to In Our Nature has never been the same. At first I assumed my attention to the album was a knee-jerk response to witnessing that tremendous show, but in time I’ve realized that Gonzalez’s live-show made me finally get his music. What I once found insufficient about the gentle picking of ‘Fold’ or absent from the tropicalia influence on the title track, I now understand as essential to the young songwriter’s trademarked sound. Those undernourished moments scattered throughout In Our Nature, where restless listeners might long to hear a new instrument, play a purposeful role to Gonzalez’s compositions, matching silence to complex acoustics no differently than his live presence managed. My mistake was to expect more from Gonzalez cosmetically (new instruments, different approaches, expansive production) but his commitment to sparse folk, when given serious listening, is loaded with its own tiny universe of subtle instrumentation, varied strumming, and sparkling production.

That tiny universe swells considerably on finale ‘Cycling Trivialities’, an eight-minute crest of quick finger-picking and thunderous bass that eventually settles into a post-storm lullaby. It’s a prime example of Gonzalez’s ability to comfort and thrill you all at once. Like his debut Veneer, In Our Nature is a half-hour of pensive folk songs. If we’re lucky, he’ll write dozens more with exactly the same focus.

Love & Other Planets - Adem (RIPPED OFF 08)

Love & Other Planets
Adem

Courtesy of Domino Records.
Original SCQ Review here.


When Four Tet emerged from a small jam-band to critical acclaim with his 2003 effort Rounds, few people took a second look at Fridge’s offshoot potential. Those people likely missed the fragile warmth of Homesongs and 2006’s gorgeous Love & Other Planets; two albums that give voice and imagination to Fridge’s fractured folk arrangements. As Adem’s sophomore is among my RIPPED OFF albums of the year, you could rightly assume that I was among those who disregarded the multi-instrumentalist’s solo career until last January, when a visit to his myspace opened my eyes.

From the atmospheric ‘Last Transmission from the Lost Mission’ to ‘Spirals’ lilting acoustics to ‘Launch Yourself’’s tribal-pop, Love & Other Planets is a varied set of fully-realized songs that treat Adem’s jumbled intergalactic romanticism with a distinction worthy of our vast universe. His vocals and songwriting both exhibit a stronger confidence but this album’s production is what separates this prog-folk messiah from the lo-fi hero of yore. If you’re among many who found the last Fridge album to be pretty careless, Love & Other Planets’ precision and detail will make you wonder what Four Tet has really done for you lately.