Crystal Castles (II) - Crystal Castles

Crystal Castles (II)

Crystal Castles
Polydor/Fiction Records.

SCQ Rating: 68%

Crystal Castles – yeah, the first self-titled album by Toronto’s favourite electro-thrash duo – was a tad over-hyped and SCQ shares part of that blame. After such a frantic build courtesy of concert-goers’ word-of-mouth and sold-out EPs, my role as Toronto blogger and electronic enthusiast bled all over SCQ’s review of their debut. Like an early Best Of compilation, Crystal Castles contained most of their pre-recorded material already celebrated by the blogger community at large, with only three tracks being recorded specifically for the full-length. And the messy, uncoordinated nature of its sixteen-track pile-up sounds obvious two years later, although it's no less enchanting. Volatile as it hopped along, the debut’s only assertion was that Crystal Castles write a lot of punishing electronic songs that value shock-and-awe over nuanced sequencing. Its allure was found in the details they couldn’t bother to iron out.

While the hype for CCII has trumped that original release, their message, if any, remains latched onto the nature of their full-length; that written and recorded as a single project, CCII features a unified ebb and flow. Ethan Kath and Alice Glass aren’t pontificating any deeper subject matter here but the mood is undoubtedly darker, creating atmospheric club-anthems for goths like ‘Suffocation’ and ‘Year Of Silence’ (which curiously samples a Jonsi vocal from Sigur Ros’ last record). Trading left-field antics for deliberate new-wave prodding, Crystal Castles have honed their sonic markers into the more accessible and popular electro resurgence, with highlight ‘Celestica’ going the greatest to prove this duo might have the chops to craft a lasting career in the spotlight. Single-extractions aside, CCII becomes burdened by its own menacing with wallowing synth-stabs that test one’s attention span (‘Violent Dreams’) and occasionally grate the ears (‘Doe Deer'). Where their debut balanced these aggressively heavy beats with shimmering drifters, Crystal Castles submit no spacious experiments here. 'Magic Spells’, this ain’t, but ‘Suffocation’ is closing in on the vibe.

There is hope amid all these nihilistic shades of eyeliner. Compared to CCII’s noisier moments, ‘Not In Love’ sounds like brilliant bubble-gum pop created by nocturnal DJs, mixing effect-riddled vocals to an emotionally stirring coda. And while a track like ‘Baptism’ remembers the 8-bit sensation that brought Crystal Castles to global attention, its raw originality loses impact when adapted into 2010’s trance-exploitation. Kath and Glass are playing elusive on CCII and, when you consider that one of their top songs, ‘Alice Practice’, was a microphone test recorded without their knowledge, playing elusive makes sense.

Magnetic North - Aqualung

Magnetic North

Aqualung
Verve Records.

SCQ Rating: 73%

Matt Hales, the Brit behind the curtain of Aqualung, has been an unpredictable surprise for SCQ in recent years; his 2007 game-changer Memory Man found his syrupy rep taking on a sinister understanding of electronic-rock, not to mention making a gift for my girlfriend suddenly a gift for myself. Hales is also a bit of a paradox for this particular writer, my praise launched at dark-horse sophomores countered by a wrath (in the form of this open letter) spewed toward his subsequent backpeddling. The accused, 2008’s Words & Music, felt less like a half-hearted collection of cutesy, white picket-fence singalongs and more like bittersweet justification on my behalf that Aqualung’s deserving spot on this website (Memory Man landed respectively on SCQ’s Top Twenty of 2007, even) was born of fluke.

Magnetic North proves otherwise, clarifying Words & Music’s sub-album classification in its very press-release and citing this as the official follow-up to Memory Man. Now that’s more like it! And Hales makes good on his crafty rewriting of history with a collection of tight melodic songwriting that, like that 2007 surprise, marries the sincere with the cloying, the studio polish with the piano balladry. ‘New Friend’ earns its title thanks to a small army of Hales friends’ singing over its refrain, even if it’s hopelessly hackneyed, while surefire single ‘Fingertip’ over-romanticizes every cliché. Yet the majority of it works, given you check your cynicism at the door, and gains credibility next to Aqualung’s more somber offerings. The combination of Hales’ Bono-with-range vocals and delicate piano immediately raises hairs on the succinct ‘California’, the relationship-on-edge-of-collapse meditation ‘Remember Us’, and – perhaps one of this year’s finest songs - ‘Sundowning’. Although it lacks the spirited experimentation that shaded Memory Man with urgent undertones, Magnetic North showcases Aqualung’s softer takes on love and longing; ultimately Hales’ safer side.

READ (I Found Out) - Super Visas

READ (I Found Out)

Super Visas
Independent.

SCQ Rating: 79%

No matter who you are, a newbie to independent music or an open-minded veteran, first impressions of James Hicken should elicit a fair share of scrutiny. I know my initial reaction after hearing his band Wallscenery Demos’ second effort Check This! was one of grand uncertainty, as each track that drew me in would be countered by something I instinctively held at arm’s length. Don’t let it hinder your listening though and don’t back away; you may never enjoy every song Hicken has ever written but in time his restless ambitions become familiar charms that weave through his work like elusive armour. Sticking with it also permits the great perk of catching Hicken at his focused best, which he is on Super Visas’ debut READ (I Found Out). It’s a treat you somewhat have to earn.

If the raison d’etre behind Super Visas was to draw out a balance between Hicken’s musical interests, READ (I Found Out) achieves it handily. These seven songs still contain an accommodating degree of variety, ranging from bustling indie-rock to a surprisingly effective spoken-word composition, but they’re produced in a similar, gauzy finish and sequenced to fit cozily next to one another. You can tell Hicken has roped in his immeasurable basin of ideas (as opposed to dispersing them at random) by the distant choral that grows more haunted – yet increasingly beautiful – over the prickly rhythm-guitar on ‘Anonymous Props’. That opener’s mix of warm, bleeding keys and lo-fi percussion returns on ‘Duly Noted Projections’ and the title track, the latter with Hicken’s voice rustling like a rasp of autumn leaves. When the album steers into nostalgic pools of cascading acoustics, as on ‘The Hum That Keeps Us Cool’, Hicken proves that loosening the reigns and fleshing out his songwriting ideas can result in mesmerizing, spacious tracks that give the parent album added layers of emotion.

The less-structured jams embraced near the album’s end, like ‘Get It Right’, forfeits verse/chorus predictability but not at the expense of tight focus and, after its preceding tracks, its heady grooves feel almost celebratory. Justifiably so. Super Visas lives up to the hinted genius scattered over Hicken’s other aliases and weeds out the filler for a debut that should only get more suitable as autumn comes calling.

Pink Graffiti - Secret Cities

Pink Graffiti

Secret Cities
Western Vinyl Records.

SCQ Rating: 70%

When Fargo-based outfit Secret Cities released the digital single Bright Teeth in March, they manned a strange nexus bridging glitchy hip-hop to the architecture of monolithic indie-rock. Whether executed purposefully or accidentally, Bright Teeth’s hybrid was an unstable one; weighed down in terse strings but peppered with lively laptop thumps, its very appeal was fatedly tied to its volatility.

While subsequent full-length Pink Graffiti still deals in some electronic textures, the early glitch of its predecessor has proven a red herring with Secret Cities (MJ Parker & Charlie Gokey) sounding closer here to an intricate Arcade Fire. Nowhere is the comparison more apt than on ‘Pink Graffiti Pt.2’ and ‘Pink City’ where massive, churning melodies are haunted over by eerily tracked vocals and impressive harmonies layer each respective song. In the shadows of these constructs lies some of Secret Cities most accomplished material; ‘Aw Rats’ drifts wonderfully on a muddled urgency and lullaby ‘Colors’ twinkles over a cotton-candy sweet lilt without turning twee or saccharine. Few other examples stick to the sharpened focus evident here and Pink Graffiti emits that aforementioned instability, whereby tracks either break the glass ceiling or hard-nose their limitations. As towering a presence as this kind of songwriting offers, Secret Cities can only get so far without conveying a live energy to match their dizzying ascensions. There’s an undeniable desire to keep these tracks on their toes, from the rippling piano that fades in from casual whistle-work on ‘Pink Graffiti Pt.1’ to the rhythmic ‘Slacker’ that dissipates into sweet viola melodrama, but the efforts to make an epic of Pink Graffiti only dulls its hooks.

With every song detailed and gracefully unfurling, it seems impossible to predict upon first listen how many spins Pink Graffiti will need to live up to the heavenly promise it hints at. To many, this record might require just one. Yet given the band’s clear trajectory for indie-rock pastures, this record sounds too deliberated over and too polished to transmit said genre’s restless energy. They may still be carving out their identity but it’ll be a crime if Secret Cities doesn’t find a deserving audience.

Didn't You 7" - Cloud Nothings

Didn’t You 7”

Cloud Nothings
Old Flame Records.

SCQ Rating: 75%

That Dylan Baldi, the mastermind behind Cloud Nothings, has Justin Bieber as his top friend on Myspace isn’t completely rooted in irony. Despite the multitude of gaffes such a comparison attracts, both young men are riding waves of hype – one of the underground nature, the other literally everywhere but – and neither knows where their successes will end. For the safer artist of the two, namely the one who isn’t being photographed with a Kardashian, Baldi’s star seems poised to continue rising with his prolific streak as this latest 7” serves his best material yet.

The raw electric guitars that brash head-first into ‘Didn’t You’ may be on the tinny side and that simple keyboard line might call to mind Los Campesinos!, but Baldi’s voice turns open-chord ruckus into unique bedroom-pop blasts. Listen closely enough and the song hints at a number of until-recently-unheralded genres (early 90s radio-rock, surf music) as well as the effortless posturing of hey-day punk. As easily addictive as ‘Didn’t You’ spills from the stereo, inexplicable B-side ‘Even If It Worked Out’ goes one further, occupying the same unstoppable noise-momentum as the previous track but with the especially biting chorus “I’m sorry we can’t be friends / my heart is overrated / I don’t like being alone / but I don’t like being with you”. Add a jangly 80s guitar to run fluently beneath and presto: near-perfect pop.

Admittedly, Cloud Nothings’ style of lo-fi anthems and compressed sonics bodes well on restricted formats like the seven-inch and I question whether Baldi could keep his thrills-per-minute quota up over a full-length. Regardless of how future-proof Cloud Nothings is, the songs on Didn’t You 7” are expressly of the present, to live your high moments by each second. The whole mood of it suggests that what comes next shouldn’t matter.

Vade - Roel Funcken

Vade

Roel Funcken
Ad Noiseam Records.

SCQ Rating: 78%

The gears at work beneath ‘Gallice’, the opening track from Roel (half of Funckarma) Funcken’s solo debut, announce themselves like oil and water, colliding so dispassionately one could swear the song was trying to tear itself in two. Its toneless squiggles bubbling next to dreamy shards of melody may sound scatterbrained but it’s entirely ear-friendly, anchored by shape-shifting beats and a patient tempo. Showing no sign of strain between Ad Noiseam’s purist stance on experimentalism and Funcken’s cushy electronics, ‘Gallice’ weaves the first layer of an intricate sonic blanket that should no doubt comfort fans of thinking-man’s electronica. And while Vade operates on an uncharacteristically softer palette than most Ad Noiseam releases, Funcken lives up to the label’s refusal to settle for pretty.

Unlike the intensity present in Funcken’s other work (most notably Funckarma’s Dubstoned series), Vade explores dense pockets of sound that feel laid-back and cerebral. The serene keys of ‘Lyra Stellum’ become more alien with each ricochet off its structure’s caved walls, no differently than how the acid-squeals peppering throughout ‘Vertox Dreaming’ get increasingly rougher thanks to some heavier elasticized beats. Funcken rarely lets a song float by on its own momentum and, while that gives his dreamier material like ‘Ledge’ some visceral awareness, it also doesn’t spoil Vade’s chilled-out spirit.

As enigmatic and relaxing as ‘Daze Flextone’ and the lot are, Funcken knows when to infuse some aggression to keep this LP’s seventy-minute runtime from falling asleep. ‘Halfkriel’ jumps heartily into Aphex Twin styled drill-n-bass, ‘Martyrz’ replicates some big-beat dynamics of The Chemical Brothers circa 2002, and ‘Spi Trade’ blenders up some vaguely industrial sounding techno. Often cold and convulsing, Funcken’s heavier fare can drag its feet – particularly on ‘Lajor Mazer’, which sounds like the Jaws theme performed by grimey synth-saws – but every track here champions Funcken’s worldly techniques in different lights. What isn’t subtly breathtaking is still impressive.

Earlier I described Vade as “thinking-man’s electronica”. I wasn’t sure what I meant by that but it still feels right. And maybe I’m just looking for an alternative, less-awful way to infer IDM… what 90s snobs defined as Intelligent Dance Music. Despite the ridiculous implications of such a title, IDM has managed to stick around courtesy of mind-bending albums like Vade that require serious armchair time in order to appreciate the many aural complexities. By resisting the urge to repeat itself and bridging electronic genres in wholly bizarre ways, Vade deserves a generous-to-the-point-of-pompous tag like IDM. Despite its heavy, demanding course, one couldn’t ask for much more from Roel Funcken; I, for one, might ask in the future for a little less.

You EP - Gold Panda

You EP

Gold Panda
Ghostly International.

SCQ Rating: 76%

As enthralling as the artist behind Gold Panda has crafted himself an identity - mixing extroverted vibes with a stranger’s mystique - it has been difficult to see the man’s releases as anything but virtual mirages on this American side of the pond. Images of his cover-art are commonplace but track-listings and street-dates have been harder to pin down; even on Gold Panda’s Myspace page, most releases were accompanied by 2010 and a series of question marks. Having spent the past few months finessing his fan-base on tour-circuits, Gold Panda looks eager to make this his breakthrough year with You EP (released by Ghostly International here in North America).

Although the physical 12” only carries two Gold Panda tracks (the digital version bears an additional bonus track and both versions offer remixes galore), You EP pays greater dividends than simply being a widely released physical memento. Beyond the title track’s immediate catchiness – think an emotionally charged take on Four Tet’s ‘Smile Around the Face’ – Gold Panda shows range with the house-frosted minimalism of ‘Peaky Caps’ and the frozen glitches hiding a warm melody on ‘Killing Yourself On a Beach’ (on digital version only). Although ‘You’ is gathering due attention for Gold Panda’s craft, my admiration tends to gravitate toward these other originals; both versatile in mood and BPM while never leaning on easy hooks, expansiveness could be Gold Panda's future M.O.

Now typically I’m the kind of listener who gets as excited about remixes as he does about taking out the recycling, yet these ‘You’ remixes easily double the EP’s playability. Surely it helps when a group of top-shelf remixers are on board, each capable of throwing fresh curveballs from their sleeves. Recent tour-mate Seams loops a fragment of the original into this hypnotic display of incidental harmonics before letting the song’s stuttering hook loose of the haze. Next up is Osborne’s remix, which duct-tapes Gold Panda’s track in a suitcase and morphs it over a worldly voyage of soft club grooves and a wonderfully off-kilter keyboard solo. Additional (but digital-only) remixes by Dam Mantle and Minotaur Shock highlight the single in continuously unique ways, calling attention to their own knack for melody while propping Gold Panda’s. Finding no shortage of ways to explore a single cut without ruining the original, these remixers help flesh out Gold Panda’s underhyped sonic chops. Although Ghostly’s 12”, in limited copies and beautifully packaged, is for many a first chance to grab Gold Panda’s music in the physical sense, it’s hard to refute the extra perks offered by the digital version. Lucky for you, dear reader, neither choice will leave you disappointed.

Wife Of God - Starring

Wife Of God

Starring
Death By Audio Records.

SCQ Rating: 63%

There’s an id invested in noisy psych records that I respect but rarely enjoy. A compulsion to raucous disharmony that amplifies and distorts all emotion with adrenaline-pumped authority. For me, this aesthetic has always seemed a one-way street, with a current that’s easy to follow but unwilling to impart many subtleties along the way. Wife Of God, the debut release by Brooklyn-based quintet Starring, feels gridlocked between bouts of unwavering catharsis but occasionally swindles a muddled side of arty ambition into the roar.

What’s challenging about a record this combustible is that the shift between promising and pulverizing can happen rather suddenly. The title track hammers this point home by turning an alluring lead of fluttering farfisa and looped guitar into a smattering of claustrophobic psych riffs and light vocoder-dusted vocals. ‘She’s Extended’ offers another provocative opening with a collage of voice and static that trembles between left and right speaker. Problem in this case is that the song never arrives; its experimental come-hithers merely act as a segue to bridge the frenzied assaults. Of these pulse-quickening jams, ‘Get Over Here, Disco!’ and ‘Sonnenbrille’ offer the most nuances; the former a tribal blast of hippie chorals occasionally interrupted by some biting distortion, the latter building into a warm apex of farfisa and horns. Sure, you have to really listen to discern these embellishments beneath the crashing urgency of Starring’s basic guitar-and-percussion strategy, but these efforts hold more psychedelic connotations than revved up garage-rock, no matter how ferocious.

Even though these structured freak-outs steer a given song onto autopilot, it’s worth noting that these jams never sound uninspired. Matt Marlin’s drumming is thunderous throughout and the vocals (shared, I believe, by all members of the band) manage to meet the force of these compositions without resorting to a scream-fest. Mixing no-frills psych with a touch of Akron/Family’s far-out mysticism, Wife Of God warrants attention from out-there purists. Lucky for Starring, I don’t think this genre attracts any other kind.

Buds - CJ Young

Buds

CJ Young
Independent.

SCQ Rating: 58%

Behind all the naïve or overwrought ideas that go into a debut album, the ultimate goal for a musician is always to articulate their worth, to exercise their capacity to connect with a listener. As conventional as it sounds, most acts will dedicate their debut to driving that desire throughout a united body of songs but CJ Young, the London-based songwriter, enjoys skirting such conventions. Whereas most bands wouldn’t mind finding a niche audience on the heels of a first release, Young sets the bar higher for his EP Buds, which collects several varied styles in a bid to confound his talent from being pigeonholed.

Buds succeeds in mystifying those who’d like to classify its random mix of left-leaning folk and old-school rhythm-and-blues. And there’s something to be said for Young’s confidence, which allows these divergent exercises in songwriting to speak for themselves and stand vulnerably out of context next to one another. Buds falters not because Young is spreading his muse so thin, but because his genre choices are so unflattering side by side. Although ‘Fireflies’, a romantic peppering of soft guitar notes that converge upon a muscular acoustic instrumental, prepares the listener for an intricate home-listening record, Young follows up by howling like a young Tom Waits over ‘Underbelly’’s urban blues. This seesaw of intimate clarity versus boisterous rock-and-roll continues throughout Buds’ six tracks, with the former ‘Fireflies’-led material maintaining its appeal and the latter, louder group of songs getting progressively worse. As if the divide between his quietly adventurous folk-based songs and those regrettable throwbacks weren’t distracting enough, Young trades his vocal-style just as jarringly. For the unsettling rasp and wooziness of ‘Broken Umbrellas’ to appear on the same disc as ‘Fireflies’ (which first attracted my ear to Buds) begs a harsh but vital observation: by connecting to any aspect of this EP, one is being polarized by the rest of it.

Considering the bizarre gauntlet Young has presented, it’s possible Buds is polarizing with purpose although I haven’t found any aspect to this theory that would benefit the listener. At Young’s request, I even spent the majority of my Buds-listening on high-quality headphones, since he stated headphones were needed to appreciate the “three-dimensional” production and his ability to “make a sound fly across your face”. If by that he means moving a guitar-figure from right speaker to left and back again, I suppose headphones help. The ragged guitar of ‘Five Years Old’, on the other hand, is something you should barely hear over bar-chatter when you’re too drunk to care what the jukebox is playing. What Buds needs isn't headphones, it's focus.

SUMMER 2010!!

Have you ever stood in this exact spot? Under the searing fluorescent lights of countless phone-ringings and throat-clearings? Between the carpeted cubicles and dreadful work-posters of an office catacomb? Well, you vitamin-D deficient typists and malnourished microwave-meal clerks, this year’s Summer Albums feature is dedicated in your honour. Clutch every breeze of those Friday nights as if you’ll never breathe again, relish in every laugh with friends to break the grimaces you’ve mastered over the work-week, oh!! Thank God for each and every one of you… martyrs, one and all!

Anyway, I remembered recently that the initial idea behind these Quarterly features was to feature albums from the past which illustrated the moods of a certain season. How can I help it though, if new records that encapsulate all this beautiful weather keep finding me? With long-awaited new releases by Broken Social Scene, LCD Soundsystem and Prins Thomas, SCQ is offering no shortage of reasons to spring you from your work-place doldrums…

To all the survivors,

Love SCQ.

Forgiveness Rock Record - Broken Social Scene (SUMMER 2010)

Forgiveness Rock Record

Broken Social Scene
Arts & Crafts.

SCQ Rating: 72%

“You fuck what you love / and you love what you fuck”. Wow, that was the last time we heard Broken Social Scene, at least in its pure incarnation, waxing philosophic like disaffected echo-boomers over The Beatles’ grand finale “the love you take / is equal to the love you make”. As surely as that summation from ‘The End’ is epilogued on Abbey Road by the inconsequential ditty ‘Her Majesty’, I felt the 'Broken Social Scene Presents' series would stretch out the shimmer of their 2005 self-titled album without particular cause. Sure, everyone in the BSS-troupe was busy with other musical commitments but no one was going to forget the collective responsible for delivering at least two masterpieces. Yet the name was attached anyway, to Spirit If… and Something For All of Us, and amid these increasingly diminished returns, Broken Social Scene – perhaps the most ironic band name ever – became a brand.

The “BSS Presents” saga, brief as it was, feels even less rational given how ambiguous this band’s roster remains on Forgiveness Rock Record, the band’s “official” return (and perhaps their most ironic album title ever). Written and arranged by a six-strong group of BSS alumni (among them the crucial duo of Drew and Canning) and newcomer Lisa Lobsinger, this follow-up to Broken Social Scene packs a serious punch with ‘World Sick’, an opener executing dreamy verses and blown-out choruses with textbook precision. By the time it subsides into an ambient wash of dark undercurrents at the five-minute mark, ‘World Sick’ has taken a touristy crash-course of the band's most commercial elements, with pop-constructs that were once tread sporadically and with caution, now tossed into a heavy-handed anthem. The same can be said for ‘Ungrateful Little Father’ in how it wields the band’s accessible cool across their catalog’s spectrum, from deft percussion and warm instrumentation to an aftermath of swirling keys and dulled strings. It’s at once impressive and discouraging, the band’s ability to refine and undermine their history in one fell swoop.

From an indie-rock standpoint, there’s nothing wrong with ‘World Sick’ nor any of the contentious tracks thereafter; these are good, consumable songs from our talented army of Toronto bohemians. Yet “good songs” in the Broken Social Scene universe have traditionally been excused as blunders on the listener’s end, not the band’s, where a track’s brilliance was so engrossing, the only conceivable fault for labeling a song as merely "good" could rest on a listener’s casual short-sightedness. That’s an argument bleeding with bias – that Broken Social Scene, in their prime, were impervious to astute criticism – but there’s no denying that pop was being revolutionized on their prior two full-lengths and a line was being drawn, however haphazardly, in the sand; either you got it or you didn’t. Forgiveness Rock Record doesn’t earn that modern art-like imperviousness to critique because it’s non-progressive. Overly preoccupied with verse/chorus songwriting while relegating their experimental half into massive cracks, much of this record relies on been-there hooks and Drew’s cursory profanity (‘Texico Bitches’) or busily arranged but emotionally vacant blow-outs (‘Art House Director’). Granted, this is coming from the guy who thought ‘Fire Eye’d Boy’, at its time, was too straight-forward but Forgiveness Rock Record feels too measured and engorged to keep us truly engaged.

Similar to how the 'BSS Presents' material used the band’s trademarks without daring any new directions, Forgiveness Rock Record comes off a little exploitative. So it’s not a masterpiece; moving on, Broken Social Scene still find ways to grip listeners with the intimate ‘Sweetest Kill’, the compact energy of ‘Forced To Love’ and the rocking instrumental ‘Meet Me in the Bathroom’. While these songs aren’t about creating provocative pop-explorations anymore, they adhere well to both the Arts & Crafts sound and modern radio's confines. Finding its members, additional members and guests no longer subversive but still super-excessive, Forgiveness Rock Record should be a fine soundtrack to these summer months. At the very least, it's a bunch of good songs.

This Is Happening - LCD Soundsystem (SUMMER 2010)

This Is Happening

LCD Soundsystem
DFA Records.

SCQ Rating: 93%

Long before James Murphy’s third full-length under the LCD Soundsystem name had a title, tracklist or release date, people were already debating whether it could better everyone’s favourite crossover record of 2007, Sound Of Silver. Topic-thread trolls spouted their usual pessimism while Murphy countered with interviews that oozed either a feather-ruffled confidence or a chip-on-shoulder egotism. Unlike the anticipation for The National’s High Violet, which was embraced with universal assuredness a week prior, the hype surrounding This Is Happening seemed to leave a residue of desperation on press, fans, haters and Murphy himself. Whether this anxiety stemmed from dance-music’s fickle tastes (hey, remember Simian Mobile Disco...?) or rested too heavily on the project’s lone shoulders, This Is Happening had a seriously long shadow to get out from under.

Once ‘Dance Yrself Clean’ breaks out of mute introductions and into a nine-minute seesaw of wait-for-it stillness and beat-heavy catharsis, it’s clear that Murphy took notes from Sound Of Silver’s most celebrated couplet, ‘Someone Great’ and ‘All My Friends’. With the majority of tracks on This Is Happening clocking well over six-minutes each, the DFA co-founder has rolled the sleeves of his retro blazer up in an attempt to smear his heart all over these futuristic rock songs. And that’s what this is – rock. Ignore DFA’s primary niche and, for god’s sake, forget that disco ball on LCD’s debut; if Sound Of Silver offered unexpected refractions of vintage Bowie or David Byrne, This Is Happening vindicates Murphy’s songwriting voice as more than cheap homage or expert mimicry. You might still be able to hear Heroes-era Bowie in the surging riff-crescendo of ‘All I Want’ but this mini-epic is all Murphy’s, despite its beat being as complex as a new-wave drum-machine’s, regardless of how its dissonance nearly swallows his vocals whole. The too-cool hipster of yore has grown older and, now yearning for connections instead of compilations, Murphy saturates this material with rugged emotion.

Though he may believe in waking up together on ‘Drunk Girls’, that single’s otherwise superficial lyrics staunchly remind us of James Murphy’s role as an irony-seeking nonconformist. And while his spoken-word rants have rarely tickled this particular listener, ‘Pow Pow’ has an allure unlike any LCD song, one that distracts with aimless banter and a bizarre chorus-by-default of preset casios. Oh right, and Murphy repeating the word “pow”. What initially promises to be a grating, self-indulgent track nevertheless turns our expectations inside-out as a simple beat and flexing bass proceed to hypnotize us with additional layers of… effect-laden harps? It’s a mesmerizing eight-minutes, playing catch-up on all his post-disco tricks while somehow pushing his songwriting into an addictive but spacious no-man’s land.

Choosing between Sound Of Silver and This Is Happening is essentially leaving one good party for another. If you’re looking to cause some ruckus and act the fool, I recommend Sound Of Silver. If you’re looking to cause some ruckus and find a lover, This Is Happening can't possibly disappoint.

Prins Thomas - Prins Thomas (SUMMER 2010)

Prins Thomas

Prins Thomas
Full Pupp Records.

SCQ Rating: 78%

Whoa, whoa, whoa… self-titled record? With a picture of himself gracing the cover? Is this the dark horse mastermind of space-disco or the latest American Idol cash-in produced by Clive Davis? At first it may look strange, garish even, but given that Thomas Moen Hermansen has spent his prestigious career sharing marquee-space as remixer, producer or, most famously, as collaborator on Lindstrom & Prins Thomas releases, it’s understandable that his first solo album in, er, forever should find him basking in every reflection of the limelight available.

Chosen title and cover-art aside, the weightier question probes whether Hermansen, who has proven himself gifted in a collaborative role, can write a solid song from foundation to completion on his own. In this regard, Prins Thomas is a bit of a revelation. For those of us unwilling to stalk Hermansen’s work through one-off remixes that trickle onto iTunes, his Lindstrom-associated LPs have been our leading introduction to Prins Thomas’ craft. And essentially, all we’ve learned about the man boils down to those vague aspects of Lindstrom & Prins Thomas albums that don’t – in our minds – sound like Lindstrom. Prins Thomas wipes those foggy assumptions clean for most casual fans by clarifying his space-disco muses: lotsa kraut and prog-rock influences webbed into dense electronic tapestries. To compare where we concretely can, Prins Thomas sounds like a continuation of II, their 2009 journey of mostly wonderful excess. The beats remain caked in an organic wash of 70s stoner-jams, delivering faded, echoey guitar licks on ‘Orkenvandring’ and psychedelic effects permeating the island percussion of ‘Uggebugg’.

With motorik-style bass and proggy freakouts gently lining these seven tracks, ‘Wendy Not Walter’ nearly shocks with a series of stuttering synths and unflinching disco beats, uncluttered and refined. Hermansen’s just playing around though, revisiting the pristine waters that established his reputation, before bass prods and mind-warping effects crash the early sub-genre nostalgia. This is indeed space-disco for 2010, still true to the spirit of forward-thinking disco but also saturated in heady cult-like styles preserved since LSD first touched the lips of rock and roll.

No differently than II, this solo LP lacks the meticulous filter of, say, the first Lindstrom collaboration and that results in some decent grooves being stretched beyond their appeal (e.g. the ten-minute long ‘Sauerkraut’ is too structurally muddled to get out of neutral). And again, like II, Prins Thomas risks letting his love of krautrock rhythms grow tired and turn homogenous, as a few tracks can be difficult to audibly separate. For all its likeminded attributes, however, it’s worth noting that Prins Thomas is just as good, if not more focused, than II. Before this record existed, Hermansen’s craft was coarsely understood as everything that didn’t sound like Lindstrom but, now, with a solo album that sounds slightly superior to II’s vein of gratuitous head-trips, one must wonder, in retrospect, where Lindstrom actually fit into that 2009 effort. Prins Thomas doesn’t negate Lindstrom’s worth in the duo – that would be a foolish assertion, even if this solo LP is just as accomplished as their collaborations – but it does exclaim in spades how gifted the Prins is on his own.

Workin' For the Music Man - Daniel Romano

Workin’ For the Music Man

Daniel Romano
You’ve Changed Records.

SCQ Rating: 79%

Although one needs to look no further than Attack In Black to admire the songwriting of Daniel Romano, a more apt reference point lies in 2009’s ode-to-folk Daniel, Fred & Julie. While reworking some acoustic classics alongside Fred Squire and Julie Doiron, Romano tossed a few originals that flowed so effortlessly into the mix, you’d be forgiven for thinking ‘The Runner’ or ‘Your Love’ belonged to the same cherished legacy as (Oh My Darling) ‘Clementine’. Romano played a critical role in that collection’s success and brings that same rootsy confidence to his first solo full-length.

As with Daniel, Fred & Julie, Romano seeks inspiration by looking to the past on Workin’ For the Music Man, gathering new material and session-players while foregoing the previous collaboration’s strict mono-only recording rule. Featuring contributions from the songwriter’s family and loved ones, the disc splits between whiskey-worn country-blues and bare-boned folk, utilizing full-band rowdiness or a lonesome, finger-picked six-string. Album highlights stem from both patches; ‘On the Night’ gives gracious nods to good decisions (namely, the expert fiddle-playing, his girlfriend Mischa's lovely vocals) and breathes fresh life into country’s carved-up bar-booths while ‘She Was the World To Me’ rests heavily upon Romano’s gut-wrenching vocals and a guitar, alone. The variety of songwriting feels wide-ranging - a few even sound as if they were recorded live, although you’d never guess before the crowd starts clapping - but all of Workin’ For the Music Man is painted with the same grit of authentic classics by Hank Williams, Springsteen and Petty.

Lighthearted as the mood of its recording comes off, Workin’ For the Music Man suffers slightly for its ease with the odd track too merry and boisterous to reward repeat listens (the organ-heavy ‘Poor Girls of Ontario’, the opening title track). At their worst, these rare slips sound like well-arranged sketches but, to give credit where it’s due, they also keep the pace breezy and unpredictable. And maybe they just require more listening-time; really, despite its casual, off-the-cuff impression, Workin’ For the Music Man has continued to win me over, boasting songwriting rich with surprises and moments that’ll cut you when you least expect it. As surely as we’ve yet to see the limits of Daniel Romano’s talent, I’ve yet to wear out the good company imparted in Workin’ For the Music Man.

So Long, Lonesome - Poler Bear

So Long, Lonesome

Poler Bear
Independent.

SCQ Rating: 74%

The hungriest of artists evolve with the seasons, finding solace and inspiration from each turning breeze and landscape. Hand in hand with this sensitivity for change, the hungriest of artists are also prolific, bookending their trials with varied, sonic reminders. For Josh Robinson, the Saskatoon native who records as Poler Bear, one can’t help but suggest that these past several months have offered no shortage of inspiration. Released just this past February, Se Denouer communicated winter through grays; its ambience like muffled traffic, its sentiments echoed through shut-in history and film-snippets. A few months on, Poler Bear’s sophomore arrives as foretold and, sleeved in hand-stitched, original art glory, So Long, Lonesome embraces the bounty of spring.

Whereas Se Denouer took warm melodies and froze them in still-life patterns of guitar, So Long, Lonesome allows Robinson’s guitar melodies to unfurl from their rigid confines and blossom as they like. Part of this thaw can be heard in Poler Bear’s new emphasis on piano, which deepens the resonance of ‘Capucine’’s guitar rumination and twinkles like a mist over ‘Dents & Cracks’. The greater implication of a glacier-sized melt is felt in how So Long, Lonesome dwarfs its predecessor, running nearly eighty-minutes with the bonus track included. Of Poler Bear’s epic tracks (five of which breaking the ten-minute mark), ‘Mountains Like Diaphragms’ best balances his old melancholy and newfound love for longform mood pieces, tying found-sound television chatter and mournful vocals to some of the sophomore’s most minimal soundscapes. If the first three minutes of ‘The Howling Heart Is the Giant’ sounds familiar, Robinson proves himself capable of manning such mammoth arrangements by walking his pretty guitar-figure into a heavy fog that eventually rewrites the melody. It's easily one of Robinson's finest accomplishment yet.

For a record packed with such elegant nuances, it’s a shame that many are used to score the conversations of children. While I’m sure So Long, Lonesome carries a prevalence of kid’s talk with purpose – perhaps Robinson recently became a father, or maybe these songs were written in longing for the simplicities of childhood - the frequency becomes a burden on this listener. The daydream-approved ‘Capucine’ may relegate these children to a distant choral but the pretty, rain-drenched piano of ‘Fear & Trembling’ falls prey to roughly recorded snippets of an incoherent child, whining and laughing, that sour the song’s mood. By the time we get to fifth track ‘Geru Fouy’, a tremendous exercise in near-staccato guitar stutters and harmonics, we’ve already been subjected to about eighteen-minutes of fade-in-fade-out toddler-talk. And yes, ‘Geru Fouy’ continues that trend with what sounds like a Kindergarden linguistics class, their unsteady voices registering high in the mix. As with Se Denouer, these songs hint at emotional secrets beneath the sweet sorrow but as surely as Robinson’s songs invite, the constant influx of children repels focused listening.

That one glaring issue aside, this follow-up deserves focus on the strides Robinson is pacing in so short a time. While I compared Poler Bear’s former record to an early Constellation release, So Long, Lonesome sounds more akin to Temporary Residence’s roster and, to put plainly, a lo-fi Fridge album. That’s a compliment as far as I’m concerned; one earned by the dreamier tones that give colour to ‘I Call Ye Cabin Neighbors’, and the instrumental whole of ‘Geru Fouy’. Aspects of Poler Bear’s more concise material remain audible (take the thin acoustics of ‘Our Eyelids’ and the title track) but So Long Lonesome thrives when taking that half-step closer to post-rock’s romantic centre.