The Violent Blue - Electric President

The Violent Blue

Electric President
Fake Four Records.

SCQ Rating: 87%

One great album reflects a great album; two great albums suggest a great band. At least that’s the way I’ve always seen it, and anticipating Electric President’s follow-up to Sleep Well – a record that landed #1 on SCQ’s Top Albums of 2008, and recently #27 on SCQ’s Top Fifty Albums of the 00s – had me dancing between the fine details that separate one-off brilliance from long-term artistic integrity. That Electric President prove themselves capable of building a legacy, underappreciated as it currently is, with The Violent Blue isn’t a huge surprise to me – after all, Ben Cooper’s giveaway project Patients had me completely smitten last year – but how this new album reveals facets of the Jacksonville duo’s unheard strengths is truly a surprise.

Originally planned as a B-side release from the Sleep Well sessions, The Violent Blue earned its own coattails as Cooper’s love-letter to the ocean, where he spent much of this past summer swimming and writing. Ever the masters in sequencing, Cooper and Alex Kane treat The Violent Blue as if a massive body of water, arranging tracks that surge then swell, in waves that either crest or topple. In that respect, ‘The Ocean Floor’ merely laps the coast; ushered in on lethargic acoustic chords and sweet ambience, it tenders a calm that largely pervades the record’s first half. Not to say that these tracks are anything less than arresting. ‘Feathers’ is arguably the band’s most accessible love song and ‘Safe and Sound’, while sticking with the acoustic and piano, provides The Violent Blue’s first significant wave with a bright campfire-esque song Sleep Well couldn’t have imagined. For those listeners hoping this audible calm foreshadows a storm, Electric President don’t disappoint, incorporating blasts of electric guitars among their graceful doses of haze. If the title track’s climactic release finds Cooper and Kane touching upon shoegaze, their distortion-loving eruption at the start of ‘Eat Shit and Die’ begs the question of how these guys disciplined themselves to synths so strictly on the last album. While heavier in nature, The Violent Blue’s second half plays out a series of lovely, unsettled ripples that feel like a needed, natural progression.

As Electric President balance their ferocity, they also weigh the scope and punch of their songwriting with each conservative stunner like ‘Feathers’ or the title track being measured by a more adventurous composition. ‘Nightmare No. 5 Or 6’ is constructed like a classical piece, so flooded with well-executed tempo-shifts and tasteful instruments, it’s profane to admit how catchy the whole thing is. Less cerebral but no less enthralling is finale ‘All the Distant Ships’, a nine-minute sludge-fest that occasionally peels back into moments of clarity that, nuanced with beautiful lyrics and soft beds of twinkling piano, almost made me cry this morning.

Beyond the common nautical themes shared by these songs, The Violent Blue deserves its non-B-sides status because these songs couldn’t pass for anything but Electric President’s A-game. And while I’ve enjoyed trying to pinpoint the songs birthed by Sleep Well (I have my suspicions), the awe comes from hearing a band who shook me senseless two years ago returning with equally powerful songwriting and a bolder, organic sound. What this album might accomplish for the band, in terms of exposure, is anyone’s guess but one thing’s for sure: The Violent Blue is another must-listen marker in this discography, and proof that their footing as songwriters has never been more assured.

Thompson Falls - Overspill Poets

Thompson Falls

Overspill Poets
Revenge Western Records.

SCQ Rating: 68%

Nearly twenty years I spent dreaming of bigger cities before I skipped my hometown for university, all the while equating those small-town stretches of society as a wasteland of thumb-twiddling. Since then, the often spontaneous decision to pack my bags has carried me to larger cities and eventually Canada’s biggest, where I soaked up its compromised culture in subways and street-meat. At some point during this time, I began looking back at those smaller cities in a new light, recognizing how unburdened they were and how free I felt. Titled after an Idaho town of the same name, Thompson Falls evokes that familiar nook of one-way streets and quiet sidewalks I longed for, where each building and passing individual represents a portion of the whole, well-known and essential in their role.

As it happens, Thompson Falls is also an ideal soundtrack for trekking through the forgotten backwoods of wherever, combining a well-honed study of jangle rock with some alternative country leanings. Kicking off strong with the rustic pleasantries of the title track, Overspill Poets (George Kitching and Tim Taylor) dig into the record’s best tracks early with the full-band folk-rock of ‘The Sound of Sirens’ and Taylor’s memorable vocals which hang over ‘Boxing Gloves’ like a traditional celtic pub-song. Particular attention must be paid to ‘Summer’ however, as by harnessing some unsettled guitar and a drum-machine, Overspill Poets create a moody, modern alt-rock tune that, at the risk of not quite fitting in, out-muscles everything else on Thompson Falls. And while the album’s latter half has its share of standout tracks (the jagged licks of ‘Northern Star’ spring to mind), Overspill Poets linger too often in affable, MOR arrangements that slide into the background for listeners. Such tracks like ‘Leave It Behind’ and ‘Tomorrow When You Leave’ lack enough presence to truly register and end up making an album of twelve songs feel overlong.

Despite the goofiness underlying a description like “Bob Mould crashing into REM on Johnny Cash’s iPod”, the author of that quote succeeds in name-dropping the eclectic roster Overspill Poets translate from. And in spite of some flaws, Thompson Falls boasts a jangly alt-country sound I’ve admittedly never heard, one that is fully formed and a hopeful launching point for this English duo. If I may: like Morrissey forgetting his ego with a bar-band in Middle America. No good?

Bad Vibrations EP - Bad Vibrations

Bad Vibrations EP

Bad Vibrations
Brotherhood Cassettes.

SCQ Rating: 71%

I’m not so into punk. The whole objective at its root, be it rebellion or straight-out anarchy, has always seemed a more recreational than practical pursuit, possibly because most punk bands I’ve followed end up chasing their purist tails or, you know, become Blink 182. Like any genre that equates authenticity with not straying from the proven path, punk’s in-club, “punker-than-thou” rule seems quite at odds with its fight against conformity.

What I am into is Bad Vibrations. Here’s a punk-oriented band dissatisfied by the notion of treading the same lukewarm waters and unafraid to consciously show vulnerability in their relentless riffs. Here’s a trio of friends who’ve only been practicing together since last summer, who’ve taught their drummer how to play from scratch. Of course, given that this three-piece is fronted by KC Spidle, main dude of Husband & Knife and ex-drummer of Dog Day, it’s expected that this self-titled EP should dive deeper than surface-level defiance. ‘Think About Life’, in its imperative title alone, shifts our expectations with Spidle’s introverted lyrics underscoring high strings strummed like a soft siren. Is it a careful warning of things to come or narratives to unfold? Hard to say, as ‘Think About Life’ is heartily abandoned with the DIY gusto that motivates much of this EP. ‘New Danger’ supplies Bad Vibrations’ true intentions with serrated guitars and steady-as-a-freight percussion while ‘We’re Dead’ is anchored to a guitar-assault so massive, it feels epic despite its slight running-time. Even though this debut is nine tracks measuring twenty minutes, its final third is aggravated by two interruptions – a muffled, probably high-as-hell phone message, and an equally stifled conversation which clocks more time on ‘Foreigner’ than the song itself – which offer no replay value.

However rushed or hammered out these tracks might feel, the band’s impetuousness proves difficult to resist. And when these exercises in compressed energy are matched by catchy choruses, as on ‘Care About Yourself’ and ‘Good/Bad’, Bad Vibrations (rounded out by Evan Cardwell and Meg Yoshida) are a force to be reckoned with – within punk’s inner-circle and beyond it.

There Is Love In You - Four Tet

There Is Love In You

Four Tet
Domino Records.

SCQ Rating: 82%

If direction hasn’t been at the heart of every thesis revolving Four Tet’s discography all these years, it has certainly been a noteworthy concentration. From the declarations, both with Pause and Rounds, that he’s a genre-pioneer to assertions from improv-fanatics that Tongues and NYC break ground for an electro-jazz revolution, Kieran Hebden has earned heavy cred for supplementing his successful Four Tet brand with a workingman’s verve for side-projects and remixes. Nonetheless, Hebden’s multiple Steve Reid-affiliated jams, a Fridge album and (let’s not forget) Ringer EP, Four Tet’s lackluster 2008 effort, have stunted a vertical arrow, once ascending to dizzying heights, into a myriad of small arrows plateauing outward. These flow-chart inspired questions of direction have only increased in anticipation of There Is Love In You, the first Four Tet full-length in five years, as Hebden dives wholeheartedly into modern dance music.

Purportedly fleshed out and refined over his lengthy DJ residency at Plastic People, There Is Love In You finds Four Tet fully committed to the glassy-eyed minimal techno suggested on Ringer EP. It could’ve been a disaster. The very notion of Kieran Hebden, one of electronic music’s best beat-programmers, turning to uber-popular 4/4 beats just gave me chills. Yet what failed on Ringer EP – two-dimensional melodies, flat drones - is revisited and scrapped in favour of a streamlined Everything Ecstatic sequel; woven with a thousand familiar, winking harmonies but blitzed out on the autobahn with far more BPM. Opening with a reminder of last year’s memorable split with Burial, ‘Angel Echoes’ finds Hebden still swimming in vocal samples, spliced into new patterns like bottle shards softened by club-induced beats. Despite its healthy four-minute length, this addictive track feels like little more than an intro; possibly because it’s as stationary and well-fed as ‘Smile Around the Face’, or maybe because it’s followed by the nine-minute rave-up ‘Love Cry’. Indeed, the minimal techno influence is inescapable, gripping the staccato punctuations of ‘Sing’ and utilizing predictable, three-note progressions on the aptly-named ‘Plastic People’.

Where, on one hand, his beats threaten to cast Four Tet into the Kompakt crowd with Gui Boratto and The Field, There Is Love In You acts as a blueprint for Hebden’s melodic instincts, allowing him to layer curious found-sounds and organic instruments over measured time-signatures. In this vein, ‘Sing’ features some trance vocals stretched into childish-meets-exorcist strands while the seemingly infinite arpeggios of ‘Circling’ end up meshing for a surprisingly structured finale. These careful inclusions muddle what could’ve been Four Tet’s most transparent album, offering complexity from slight turns, grit from sleek frames.

Still, there’s something to be said for ‘Reversing’, a dance track rewound which gracefully speaks volumes about Four Tet’s career-path indecision. Winding backward so quickly, the sounds of bass and crashing cymbals can barely be deciphered from the percolating melodies still resonating in real time. Where next? In terms of the Four Tet saga, There Is Love In You may be remembered most as the album Hebden hung up his innovator’s cap to bask in the pale light of modern trends. Or perhaps this will be considered the first Four Tet release that manages to be more beautiful than provocative. With ‘This Unfurls’, which takes a refreshing backpeddle to the days of live drums and BoC psychedelia, and ‘She Just Likes to Fight’, a polished revisiting of ‘Slow Jam’, There Is Love In You often feels like a smoke-and-mirrors standstill, or a slight regression. No matter how you spin it, the debate of Four Tet’s direction doesn’t weigh so much when he sounds so on top of his game.

Heligoland - Massive Attack

Heligoland

Massive Attack
Virgin Records.

SCQ Rating: 84%

After what convoluted combination of trends, worldwide success and ill-timing do musicians no longer receive objective treatment, do artistic merits no longer take centre-stage? I mean, there must be a formula at work behind Massive Attack’s falling-out with critics and the hipster public – 100th Window notwithstanding – to justify Heligoland’s skeptical reception. Was it the selling-out that landed ‘Angel’ in every turn-of-century movie and ‘Teardrop’ in every primetime TV series, back before selling-out was customary? Or did people just give up on LP5 after so many letdowns – those subpar stop-gap releases like Danny the Dog OST and Collected, the unfulfilled promises for Weather Underground that began in, what, 2005? No one-off or shelved project can rival the greatest proof that a critical trigger against Massive Attack exists: that beneath all the indifferent reactions, Heligoland is an enviable accomplishment.

Of these critics, the most bewildering are easily those who insist that Heligoland sounds nothing like Massive Attack. Even without Horace Andy melting each lyric with his soulful quiver, nobody could sell ‘I Love You Girl’’s menacing bass and dark electronics without citing Mezzanine first. Same goes for the highlight ‘Paradise Circus’, which finds that same overcast ‘Teardrop’ magic by stepping into bass-heavy, bedroom-ready rhythms. All this said while keeping in mind, of course, that Massive Attack have crafted a patient career around the idea of not sounding like themselves, so it’s funny to me that those offended by Heligoland are commonly the same people craving for Blue Lines II. Yes, this long-awaited LP is by far their moodiest but, unlike 100th Window’s synthetic layers, Heligoland unloads a multitude of organic, flesh-and-blood surprises. From a blissfully harmonious bridge of dreamy vocals that colour the middle-eight of ‘Prayer For Rain’ (featuring TV On the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe) to the emotive, minor-key dirge of ‘Saturday Come Slow’ (with Damon Albarn), Massive Attack maintain their role as curators to some of today’s best vocalists while pushing their own brooding trademarks to new environments. Even the two Del Naja vocal-turns show tangible intensity missing on previous efforts, culminating on throw-down ‘Atlas Air’ where heavy beats and be-boping synth progressions create a sinister electronic masterwork. Consider it an antithesis to ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ (yeah, deal with it!); devious, soulful and a little terrifying, Heligoland is progressive… what I thought everyone wanted from this Bristol group in the first place.

100th Window gets blamed for being everything from a cold-hearted minimal techno record to a Del Naja solo album (yeah, except with Horace Andy, and Sinead O Connor, and Neil Davidge, and… aw forget it), but what should’ve created a marketing point – Massive Attack’s first album in seven years! – instead weakens the Bristol-based outfit’s regal standing. Unlike the major-label dominated 90s, electronica isn’t starved anymore. Hell, you’ll find more disco beats, synth squiggles and analogue experimentation crawling around popular indie-rock than you could during Prodigy’s heyday, and it doesn’t help that every sleek and sultry electro act has been pillaging the M.A. handbook for the past decade. Seven years is an eternity for a scene this thriving, yet Heligoland (yes, like Portishead’s 2008 return Third) proves the collective’s worth and, occasionally, their domination of a culture they helped establish. A thrilling yet underappreciated return.

To All Young Lovers... WITH LOVE

On the cusp of Valentine's Day, Zangief (the impenetrable Shane Murphy) and I thought it appropriate to assemble a collection of love songs - a few classics, a lot of personal faves - which deserve as much celebrating as, I don't know, Sade...? As we've yet to choose our DJ identities and show title, this mix is but a prologue to our actual podcasts (which will arrive in due time and, yes, feature some much-maligned banter). Featuring great tunes "expertly sequenced from the past half-century" (USA Today) and "an explosive ending you won't soon forget" (Entertainment Weekly), With Love is a soundtrack lusting for your listening pleasure this Valentine's Day.


Just think of us as the all-loving owl and you as the black sheep being herded upon the Love Bus... Click here to download and Happy Valentine's Day!!

SCQ's Winter Albums 2010

Greetings to all SCQ readers but especially those who are nestled in colder climates, welcome to another winter! And if you’re reading this now, you’re likely spending this season as I do; from indoors, with a mug of something warm and watching all of winter’s beauty without necessarily feeling it.

Last year’s Winter feature landed on the anniversary of SCQ’s 200th blog post and, strangely enough, this year’s closing of another Quarterly feature shares a similar cause célèbre. Surprisingly, what you’re reading here is the 500th post for the SCQ main-page! That must earn me something in the realm of nerdy blogger-dom, no? At the very least, it’s a great occasion to showcase a few albums well-suited to this inhospitable season, from some wintry folk and alt-country of Horse Stories and Cuff the Duke to the icicle-sparkling keys of Pantha du Prince.

Thanks for seeing me through another season,

Love SCQ

Black Noise - Pantha du Prince (Winter 2010)

Black Noise

Pantha du Prince
Rough Trade Records.

SCQ Rating: 78%

The first few tracks of This Bliss, Hendrick Weber’s sophomore full-length under the Pantha du Prince moniker, will always remind me of Christmas afternoon, 2007, when I zoned out in my parents’ basement; at first, noting how graceful and unfurling compositions like ‘Saturn Strobe’ and ‘Asha’ pumped from my Dad’s speakers, and later, acknowledging how a festive overdose of everything sweet and salty had pushed my sleepless mind to a point of uncomfortable excess. The basement’s lack of illumination lended well to my woozy state, blurring furniture edges and the measurement of time into a shadowed indifference that, by record’s end, had succeeded in harbouring a fever. Yet my impassiveness to This Bliss, which grew with each successive track, proved unrelated to my illness and instead linked to said album’s seventy-four minute run-time. As sensuously propulsive as its highlights were, This Bliss – like me, on that particular Christmas afternoon - couldn’t shed its needless excesses; a sequencing ball-drop that ended up diluting the record’s promise.

Weber’s potential and long-winded nerve again collide on Black Noise, a follow-up that retains its predecessor’s penchant for cavernous drips and chimes while finding new ways of keeping its listeners invested. ‘Lay In a Shimmer’, while intoxicating in its funnel of flirtatious toybox melodies, is overly familiar to This Bliss’ top-heavy tease and as the acid bassline of ‘Abglanz’ begins to meander, one can’t help but protect him or herself with the foresight of knowing that, with Black Noise, Weber has again breached the seventy-minute mark. Yet for every half-hearted venture into ho-hum minimal techno, Weber doubles forward with two imaginative, breathtaking compositions that live up to his 2007 promise. Decent lead single ‘The Splendour’ ends up looking like a Hollywood stunt-double when followed by main-event track ‘Stick To My Side’ (made great with – not because of – vocals by Panda Bear) while the out-of-place aesthetic of ‘Behind the Stars’ and aimless ‘Satellite Sniper’ are surrounded by Weber’s deepest, meatiest cuts (the buried dance-grooves of ‘A Nomad’s Retreat’ and the dew-soaked, xylophone-webs of ‘Bohemian Forest’). Because the average track here lasts a minimum of six-minutes, Weber’s permitting of these few weak-ends, like This Bliss, reduce the album’s overall potency – and still, Black Noise is a notable upgrade on the Pantha du Prince canon. Vast improvements in the sequencing department help to defray some loose ends, from including the occasional haze of vocals (‘Stick To My Side’, ‘Im Bann’) to ensuring us patient listeners are rewarded for our dedication (the emotional triple-decker which concludes on the shape-shifting ‘Es Schneit’).

If cover-art can be of guidance, Black Noise brings us out of Pantha du Prince’s predisposed darkness and offers its songs a setting. For this album, the heavenly cascades, like raindrops off wine-glasses, are bellowing out of that shot’s reclusive castle and climbing the backyard’s towering vista. And for me, these songs have been trickling and pulsating against my eardrums throughout this first winter in a new city, where the sunset unveils a sky truly black and a windchill so fierce I race to get indoors. Earlier Pantha du Prince albums couldn’t have survived this long with me, here in Ottawa. By fueling Black Noise with capricious momentum-swings and wise sequencing, Weber has finally taken his noir electronica out of the basement and into the tundra.

November, November - Horse Stories (Winter 2010)

November, November

Horse Stories
Perfect Black Swan Records.

SCQ Rating: 85%

Quality songwriters don’t come around as often as we’d like them to. Really, it isn’t about a song they’re pushing or even a particular sound they’re toting so much as a demeanor, a vulnerability that you can relate to. In that respect, choosing to follow a songwriter’s work with any determination is like choosing a friend; you want someone you can share ideals and desires with, and yet someone you don’t entirely understand. Toby Burke, the Los Angeles via Australia-based artist behind Horse Stories, broke the ice for me with ‘Hummingbird’, a gentle folk song so pure and powerful it’s nearly gospel in its ethereal build. If ‘Hummingbird’ hints at the promise of great things, November, November provides proof of those declarations and the beginnings of an assured friendship.

Originating in a windowless garage under Burke’s LA house, these songs have endured three years and countless demos of transformation and refinement, as Horse Stories reinvented his stylistic approach. And as November, November spread track-by-track from my stereo, I kept those details close to heart, hoping no brash guitar or clumsy lyric would interrupt Burke’s patient flow. Luckily – no, incredibly – this album’s trial of refinement has resulted in no such wayward decision; instead, Burke has hewed ten impeccable tracks, founded on acoustic guitar but stretched with bouts of percussion and strings so engaging, their emotional resonance outlasts their economic run-times. The dexterous drumming and finger-picked guitar that announces ‘Standing In the Snow’ sets a bleak scene of two stubborn people, possibly lovers, figuring each other out while the odd electric outburst blows through a frigid breeze. With a harder edge but no less patient is ‘Hole In the Head’, where Burke repeats – as if the impossible has come true – “I made it, I made it,” before a crest of quietly aching guitar-work. Although November, November’s first half, rounded out by the charmingly nostalgic ‘Telephone Message…’, cannot be trumped, the record’s second half nearly succeeds in matching it. Burke’s deliberate pacing on ‘The Weight’ and ‘Believer’ crests with the latter, sturdy and string-laden, before settling confidently upon two soft closures. As ‘Rockinghorse’ pleads for the return of a runaway over antique piano and soft horn, ‘The TV’ seemingly sums up all of November, November’s tasteful markers – subtle vocal echoes, pastoral acoustics, acute moments of drama – in its stirring, choral refrain.

To open one’s album with a song as instantly loveable as ‘Hummingbird’ is a no-brainer; what separates Burke from the many one-hit troubadours, however, is that November, November’s nine subsequent tracks are as good, if not better. Between the lyrics and in Burke’s slight twang, I can’t help but hear elements of Ryan Adams, moody but confessional, touching these songs as if passing the torch from one great songwriter to another. In Horse Stories lies a worthy successor to the folk crown, no doubt, as well as a friend you never knew you had.

Way Down Here - Cuff the Duke (Winter 2010)

Way Down Here

Cuff the Duke
Universal/Noble Records.

SCQ Rating: 74%

Long has Cuff the Duke maintained a strange foothold in the Toronto music scene. For years they’ve built their reputation as a recognizably gifted band – albeit one that often settles for opener slots - whose affiliation with a major-label keeps their records relatable to the city’s thriving indie-scene only by geographic proximity. Marginalized from the progressive sounds of Toronto’s best indie labels (Out of This Spark, Arts & Crafts) and humbled by the success of their Universal Records-backed colleagues, Cuff the Duke seem perpetually rooted to the local scene. So it’s with some relief that the snow-touched backstreets captured on 2007’s Sidelines of the City have been erased in favour of a blanketed gray winter, as if the quintet sought to remove themselves entirely from the avenues of their urban sanctuary.

And that’s just what they did. The recording for Way Down Here displaced the band to Greg Keelor’s studio in northern Ontario, a sprawling farm virtually isolated in the dead of January. These cut-off surroundings assisted in crafting Cuff the Duke’s most cohesive collection to date; a rootsy mix of mellow rock songs and understated country influences which reveal their songwriting at its most vulnerable. ‘You Were Right’ opens the album on an introspective, 1970s Neil Young, note, with vocalist Wayne Petti matching his welcome timbre to softly treading acoustic guitar. From that fireside warmth, the band branches out on the lightly psychedelic ‘Promises’, the affable acoustic-chug of ‘Listen to Your Heart’, and with the electric guitar in ‘It’s All a Blur’ trembling like a white-noise blizzard. As Way Down Here becomes increasingly clocked-in by balladry (the slightly overlong ‘Like the Morning’), a track like ‘Another Day in Purgatory’ represents the much-needed bluster of a crashing rock song.

Utilizing a restrained alt-country vibe that fits like a good suit, Way Down Here is easily Cuff the Duke’s most well-rounded, impressive release. And while a song as altogether beautiful as ‘Need You’ finds these boys on the cusp of greater songwriting, nothing here will manage to break that familiar glass-ceiling they’ve been fluttering against. Too few chances are taken to elevate Way Down Here beyond the predictable confines of “another good Cuff the Duke album”, with ho-hum tracks like ‘Follow Me’ cloying the bands’ more genuine moments. That Cuff the Duke are currently on a cross-country trek with Blue Rodeo, a Canadian institution in and of itself, likely makes this band’s bed permanently north of the 49th parallel; with this wintry release, I can’t think of a better place to lay down roots.

SAGE - The Pinecones

SAGE

The Pinecones
Just Friends Records.

SCQ Rating: 83%

A record like SAGE would usually elicit a rant of my revivalist prejudices well before I unwrapped the cellophane. Something about how modern bands reap the flower-power generation of all its clichés, something about how too many acts are dancing on the shoulders of Beatles’ psychedelia, Joy Division nihilism, or the John Hughes’ cinematic zeitgeist. Luckily, I didn’t even know what The Pinecones were about when first listening to their sophomore’s title track but having taken in SAGE’s bounty of ripe guitar licks and vocal harmonies, my revivalist rant needn’t apply. Unlike recent borrowers like The Soundcarriers, The Pinecones’ don’t treat their 60s muse as a crutch to assemble half-original songs, instead opting to write unapologetically classic compositions that rival those of the Kinks or fellow East-Coasters Edward Bear. A record like SAGE has been long overdue.

Chances are, even those who celebrated the band’s previous album We Were Strangers In Paddington Green don’t know what the Pinecones are really about. Taking a left turn from their debut’s refined piano-laced pop, Brent Randall and His Pinecones abandoned the hierarchy and reformed as four equal songwriters singing their own material under the name The Pinecones. The potential risk involved with Randall’s loosening of the reigns pays significant dividends on SAGE, with each Pinecone contributing uniquely structured tracks to flesh out this psych-heavy exploration. The summery jam ‘Never Seen the Likes’ keeps the album’s back-end spritely while ‘Jenny Fur’, in its guitar stabs and runaway chorus, has the feel-good power to be jangling over a raucous beer commercial. Of SAGE’s boundless variety, it should come as no surprise that Randall pens many of the highlights. Whether he’s toasting to the jaunty ‘Tea Tonight’ or coining one of the great song-titles of 2010 on the front-porch funky ‘5 O’Clock Shadow (Of a Moonbeam)’, Randall digs deep into the far-out vestiges of the 60s to create this psychotropic treasure chest.

As impressive as The Pinecones are collaboratively, half the fun of SAGE lies in its sonic experimentation led by producer and multi-instrumentalist Paul Linklater. Despite the record’s lo-fi techniques, mystic adventures are plentiful on the tripped-out tale of ‘I Am a Mountain’ and in the epilogue flourishes of ‘O Ivy’. If, by the time of final track ‘Four More Days (Til I Open My Music Shoppe)’, it sounds like The Pinecones are slowing down, they’re actually just getting deeper within their own tie-dyed rabbit-hole, swimming in warped organ-tones and squiggly effects. Nothing this fresh can be revivalist fodder and if anything, paradoxically, SAGE often sounds ahead of its time.

The Dead Sea Scrolls - Fort Fairfield

The Dead Sea Scrolls

Fort Fairfield
Acustronica Records.

SCQ Rating: 71%

If you’re a seeker of untapped electronica, there’s no turning your back on net-labels; as soon as you do, a new web-based imprint armed with talent will come knocking on your door with the expressed purpose of proving that phrase “you get what you pay for” wrong. The latest free release to warrant mention comes courtesy of Gothenburg/Malmoe duo Fort Fairfield (J and T Luck), whose record The Dead Sea Scrolls descends upon the ears like a patchwork quilt of iced cool beats, unexpected samples, borderline post-rock and accomplished soundscapes.

Eclectic as it may look on paper, The Dead Sea Scrolls unfurls no differently than most home-listening electronica records, unsealing pastoral, open-ended melodies on ‘Safe’ and echoed tin beats on ‘Sounds of Birds’. Their wintry sensibilities are further streamlined on the snow-crunched beats of ‘The Forest Awakens at Night to Reveal Another World’ (which borrows a few Moby trademarks) and the title track, which matches analog-synths to break-beats in a way Boards of Canada would be proud of. When the Luck duo does bring out a guitar, it doesn’t result in ‘Ode to Mogwai’ as many might expect, but instead ‘Freakout Pt 1’ (which, um, sounds exactly like Mogwai circa EP+6). Band-comparisons aside, Fort Fairfield excels best with patient electronic meditations like ‘Hisingen’, hinged on white noise and ethereal sound-manipulation, or the web of delicate keys and sympathetic beats which make up ‘Grace’.

So far I’ve pinpointed the areas of Fort Fairfield’s sound which are pretty, sure, but also conservative. What separates The Dead Sea Scrolls from the countless electronic albums mining turn-of-the-century chill-out is its use of samples - many of which I doubt are cleared – that imbed this collection with a nervy edge. The deep-end drones of ‘Live For the Railroads’ give uncomfortable depth to a tearful sample ripped from 10 Things I Hate About You, while hearing Anton Newcombe pop up with his Dig-stolen “you fucking broke my sitar, motherfucker” one-liner makes a point to interrupt the Swedish duo’s relaxed flow. These questionable sampling choices are ultimately backed by some worthy teasers, like timing a Motown sample to M83-esque drama (‘Too Long a Sacrifice Can Make a Stone of the Heart’) or looping a schmaltzy retro ballad into its own groove (‘Patchwork’). The ideas are certainly flowing in the Fort Fairfield camp, although neither of these head-turning moments are expanded beyond their respective track’s segue ambition.

Regardless of whether these samples all click, their inclusions are key in extricating Fort Fairfield from an overcrowded electronic-bubble of laptop artists. The Dead Sea Scrolls is currently available for FREE from Acustronica Records.

Chimeric - Radian (No Ripcord Review)

Chimeric

Radian
Thrill Jockey Records.

No Ripcord Review: 4
SCQ Rating: 45%

There aren’t a ton of incentives when approaching records like Chimeric. Firstly, post-rock’s chameleon-like ability to channel every influence in the world from jazz to electronica to ambient doesn’t justify omitting its best feature: those pummeling moments of catharsis that Mogwai built-up and Godspeed! You Black Emperor stretched out. Still, despite the genre’s stagnancy in recent years, there remains much room to grow outward and Radian (Stefan Nemeth, Martin Brandlmayr and John Norman) sound intent on wandering post-rock’s darker, untraveled boundaries. I appreciate the ambition but, secondly, there’s ‘Git Cut Noise’, an opener that hints upon its nonsensical clatter in the title alone. There’s a vaguely metal riff running beneath its initial clanging that eventually comes out swinging… and maybe that’s Radian’s idea of catharsis; simple chord progressions layered with noise to the point where every hiccup of indifference becomes somehow, by-default, valid.

It isn’t such an accusation, really. Thrill Jockey have all but made it their mandate: putting a cerebral spin on post-rock records will not only attract adventurous listeners with unique tastes, but also a cross-section of fans who will self-congratulate themselves for digging it. That latter group, among them the same fans who criticized Tortoise for sounding plain on It’s All Around You yet adored the hopelessly plain Mountains LP Choral, will no doubt wear Chimeric as a new badge, dissecting these six songs as if they’re subliminal messages while the former group politely declines.

Such nerdy enthusiasm is requisite for ‘Feedbackmikro / City Lights’, a ten-minute opus of progressions that move from tense deliberation to a bracing ascension of warm guitar tones reminiscent of early Fridge. Oh, right, and a few interrupting minutes of disconnected noise that bids to turn a decent composition into more than the sum of its parts. It doesn’t sell, though, likely because Chimeric was actually recorded and assembled from spare parts, taking varied sonic ideas and stitching them onto anchored, post-rock brooding. While abusing dissonance fails to take these songs anywhere new, Radian do succeed in laying down some great song-ideas with thunderous mood-pieces (the title track) and electronic tinkering (‘Git Cut Derivant’). Yet compiled and stacked as they are, most tracks feel weighed-down and overlong, distracting their melodious moments with a few ugly hurdles to clear.

Left-field, noisy records are not the problem; it’s that in Chimeric’s case, there’s no contrast. A record of anxious, cacophonous foreboding has to be met with small comforts, some tenderness, in order to keep listeners interested in the emotional ride. Although these compositions show a ton of variety, Radian pigeonhole themselves to a one-note range that imprisons Chimeric with a threatening, claustrophobic mood. While this trio has the talents of an anxiety-driven (albeit instrumental) Talk Talk, this long-awaited return offers few listener payoffs.

(This review was originally published on No Ripcord... )

Seven Saturdays - Seven Saturdays

Seven Saturdays

Seven Saturdays
Self-released.

SCQ Rating: 75%

With a name like Seven Saturdays, one might peg Jonathan D. Haskell’s project as a triumphant ode to excess that muses weeklong binges running Sunday through Sunday, or a chronological soundtrack to seven consecutive weekends. While either could be a possible root of origin for this Los Angeles multi-instrumentalist’s moniker, I can assure you Haskell’s debut EP sounds prepped for neither extroverted clubs nor raging house-parties. Instead, we’re ushered into the twilight hues and nocturnal tones of ‘The Shallow End’, a track as dark and comforting as the backseat of a taxicab once you’ve stumbled free of the dancehall’s dry-ice and sweat-covered crowds. Over the course of thirty minutes, Seven Saturdays doesn’t deal with weekend throw-downs so much as escaping their chaos for quiet reflection.

Delivering on that opener’s foreboding promise, ‘Secret Things’, in its rise from pedestrian live-drums to swooning orchestration, reveals Haskell’s top-form trademarks as that of a pop-conductor. Communicating a distinctly urban air drawn from his inescapable home of Los Angeles, Seven Saturdays pivots between late-night, lonely traffic lights (on the palpably transient ‘Love In the Time of Anticipated Defeat’) and string-laden daydreams (‘Good Morning, I Love You’), assured in their overt romanticism but grandiose in the scope of one’s wistful imagination. That combination of melodic drones and symphonic pop, respectively, gels together fluently, establishing a rock-solid emotional range while trading low-end meditations for sky-bound anthems. No track accomplishes the latter better than ‘A Beautiful Day’, the closing track which overrules Haskell’s quieter output and decides Seven Saturdays’ M.O. for surging, harmonious scores caught somewhere between live-instrument electronica and post-rock.

His basic set-up of keys, violin and drums may seem redolent of another electronic-fringe artist who resides just up the coast, Jimmy Lavalle of the Album Leaf, and the comparisons are fruitful for both artists. Yet while Lavalle has mellowed his output into increasingly digestible mood-music tablets, Jonathan D. Haskell imbues a restlessness throughout Seven Saturdays, beatific yet hungry, which over five tracks allows for a convincing display of well-planned impulsiveness. An impressive independent release worth checking out and a first-step I’m eager to see followed up on.

Research Turtles - Research Turtles

Research Turtles

Research Turtles
Independent.

SCQ Rating: 67%

Some curious things drop into the SCQ Inbox from time to time. Take that near-anonymous email I received in mid-November which featured a link to some press and the casual, “ever-heard-of-‘em” query. Clicking the link led me to a Canadian column aptly titled Don’t Believe A Word I Say where author Bob Segarini had launched a passionate, bizarrely profanity-laced lovefest over Research Turtles and insisted these Lousiana lads were the “next big thing”. Against my first impulses, I won’t make arguing Segarini’s Beatles-comparisons the goal of this review and instead emphasize my in-hindsight bewilderment that, when asked whether these guys were on my radar, I had to admit I’d never heard of them.

The radio, in its current incarnation, could use more of Research Turtles’ fresh-faced, irony-free rock and roll, the kind where catchy riffs and every-dude vocals have an honest shot of airplay without the 21st century leverage known as celebrity-dating or scandalous first-single subject-matter. And these guys should be landing record contracts not simply because they’re mold-able and posse-less (although they clearly are), but because the best of this self-titled debut has the pop-chops to challenge any of modern-rock’s meat ‘n’ potatoes. Their approach to songwriting, as witnessed in the unfurling electric chords of ‘Break My Fall’ and chunky riffs of ‘Damn’, is undeniably classic, as rooted in the 60s Brit Invasion as early 90s, pre-grunge indie. That such strict attention is paid to rocking out (albeit in a very clean-cut, polite way) while avoiding the trappings of teenage tumultuousness seems almost revolutionary by today’s standards, and delivers straightforward gems like ‘Cement Floor’ and ‘Let’s Get Carried Away’. To think, a rock band making rocking out, like, a priority or something…

Standout tracks aside, the radio could equally use Research Turtles’ weaker tracks (let’s face it: the radio needs any enema it can find…) because even this debut’s most vacuous moments are genuinely well-intentioned. The Ramones rip-off ‘Mission’ is so openly a Ramones rip-off that you’d forgive it, if only it didn’t also sound like a thousand Disney movie-trailers. Other can’t-fault-‘em attempts can be pinned in ‘Kiss Her Goodbye’ - a paint-by-numbers break-up song - and ‘Into a Hole’, which finds Research Turtles playing a half-hearted Weezer cover-band. Despite their transparent stumbles, I’d still prefer hearing Research Turtles monopolize the airwaves with pure, well-trodden rock than half the self-indulgent tripe we’re currently stuck with. Sadly, the only thing keeping these kids from joining radio’s figureheads is a press-angle and a fashion-consultant.

Breathe OST - Gregory Harwood

Breathe OST

Gregory Harwood
Unreleased.

SCQ Rating: 70%

The story of 2009’s Breathe surrounds Carol Bailey, a young man whose reckless ambition and lack of resources separates him from his family, leading him into a criminal lifestyle. When Bailey reemerges and attempts to reclaim the bonds he’d discarded, he finds that his old life isn’t so easily salvaged. Now depending on what kind of soundtrack-fan you are, my plot summary will seem either terribly vague or rightly peripheral. If you, dear reader, buy film scores to relive favourite scenes or connect to the conflicts of a certain protagonist, my review will certainly let you down. If, however, you are a fan of scores that can be celebrated in context to your own day-to-day life as equally to (if not more than) its source film, look into this moody opus by Gregory Harwood.

Underpinned by pale ambient tones and somber strings, Breathe OST caresses its monochromatic doldrums into a satisfying spectrum of emotions. Neighbouring tracks ‘Bailey Meets Lynn’ and ‘Bailey and Lynn Love Scene’ capture a restrained stand-still between characters; the former exercising this soundtrack’s lead piano progression between strings which cautiously hold their breaths, the latter deviating into trickled ivory notes cascading over a mood that seems both intimate and tragic. The bulk of Breathe OST emits this undercurrent of heavy drama, as if playing to the moods of characters too caught up in their own perceived ill-omens to recognize how inconsequential their hearts are in the greater scheme of things. And it works; Harwood’s foreboding is cleverly layered beneath the score’s small-town feel, established in the piano’s rural wandering on ‘Bailey Arrives’ and reminded sporadically by the warm, traditional cello (played by Nicole Collarbone) that stands out on ‘Loss Sequence’. Even the score’s more anxious spikes – like ‘I Told You To Look After Her’ and ‘Taking Lynn To the Hospital’, which both end in electric bass – don’t stray from Breathe OST’s small-town stillness so much as pinpoint the film’s breaking points, where relationships are no longer divided and at odds so much as thrown together.

I haven’t seen Breathe, although I’d like to. Being as familiar with Harwood’s score as these past few weeks have allowed, I would enjoy seeing whether the film’s setting and characters interact with this opus the way I’ve taken liberty with my imagination. Regardless of the score’s foremost raison d’etre, however, Breathe OST is a tense stretch of post-classical music that shows heart despite its winter-sick impressions.