If it seems like
Olivier Jarda popped onto the East Coast music scene out of nowhere, let the
obvious assumption reign. Besides a few years of silence and a Wikipedia page
which lays out life-turns like a cautiously self-penned autobiography, Jarda’s
musical sphere was a tough one to peer in on. But no more! After working as a climate
policy analyst in Washington, Jarda’s change of heart found him moving to
Halifax and writing Good Luck Cartel, a full-blooded collection that should
bolster his enigmatic profile.
Bearing understated
songs that cherish verse as much as any chorus, Good Luck Cartel’s promising
future in the orbit of college radio doesn’t rely on quirky songwriting. In
fact, Jarda’s unforced vocals – which echo the nonchalant earnestness of Walter
Schreifels – and brooding approach to songwriting makes this follow-up LP a
potent grower-album. While buzzing opener “Speed Of Light” and “Ship Of Fools”
offer sharp hooks to nod along to, it’s Good Luck Cartel’s deep-cuts that
motivate the collection best; “Piece of Fiction” crests a bittersweet goodbye
over piano and acoustic guitar while “Into the Lake” gets downright sinister
on an electric, late highlight. Over these tracks, Jarda submerges his pop
instincts into accessible songwriter vignettes – the sort that assembles loyal,
frothing fanbases. Lyrically, this disc is bursting at the seams.
A balanced yet
unassuming rock record of symphonic edges and provoking sentiment, Good Luck
Cartel looks to permanently supplant any lingering queries about Olivier
Jarda here in 2012. Riffs can be borrowed and postures come easy, but nobody
can fake an authentic, original voice. With bits of Springsteen and John K.
Samson peppered in for good measure, Jarda’s truly made his mark on me.
Ex-Confusion’s first
release through n5MD disguises any overt relationship to the Oakland imprint’s
oeuvre, perhaps because in many ways it aims at disconnecting from the greater
expectations of an ambient-electronic scene inching toward the mainstream.
While it’s awesome that Ravedeath, 1972, a popular ambient record of recent
memory, can gather attention without compromising Tim Hecker’s compositional
integrity, it still hinges on a particular discourse – namely Hecker’s approach
and ethos to fractured noise as creation. Embrace, on the other hand, offers no
talking points to guide our attention, instead laying flat a universe of blurred
sound accessible from any direction.
Beatless and
amorphous – that isn’t n5MD’s typical approach, which in turn creates much of
Embrace's peculiar allure. The half-awake tonal fog of “Grass Harp” invokes
up-and-coming drone artist Kyle Bobby Dunn before grasping at tangible albeit
still hazy figures on the piano-led “If There Is Love” and “Sketches For the
Truth”. In spite of the occasional lean toward post-classical balladry,
Ex-Confusion communes almost exclusively via vapors and only his keen restraint prevents
a track like “One Of Us” from floating into the ethers.
Seldom does an
instrumental album ask for so few words of comment or critique but verbal
praise truly feels inept in Embrace’s case. Without striving forward in any
bizarre or exciting way, nor letting its ambience falter into sleepy, ho-hum
indifference, Ex-Confusion creates potent clouds of emotional music to be felt
and absorbed. Over these forty-five minutes, talking proves to be refreshingly
counterproductive.
Cloud Nothings
aren’t complicated, I keep insisting, but critiquing them on their own merits –
removed from time and influences – somehow is. Only in 2012 could their new
album, a rag-tag collection of adrenaline-fueled indie-rock, feel like a
statement; a rebuttal aimed at our currently vaporous pinnacle of electro-rock
nonsense. It isn’t that Attack On Memory doesn’t care about sounding good – after
all, having Steve Albini on board pretty much negates any real punk sentiment –
but it's Cloud Nothings’ defiance to the day’s tweaked trends that makes these eight
songs so inviting.
Even on its own
terms, Attack On Memory’s ambition gives preference to visceral intensity over
considered musicianship. The extended breakdown and resurrection that lends to
“Wasted Days”’ nine-minute trek sounds almost entirely improvised, spent
mindlessly caterwauling and thrashing about, and it works on the premise that
pretension destroys authenticity. Say what you will about the emo-tinged
heartstrings being pulled on “Fall In” or “Stay Useless”, the two songs forming
the LP’s pop-oriented centerpiece, but they’re honest representations of Cloud
Nothings’ brash approach – tuneful and direct.
The rush of
dissonant energy exuding from any single track on Attack On Memory grabs
whatever dormant teenage brainwaves we’ve held onto and shellshocks them into
submission. Like the last record that jolted me back to my rock-and-roll roots,
The Hold Steady’s Boys and Girls In America, Cloud Nothings’ nihilistic
indifference and sharp riffs provide a needed contrast to the pro-tooled habits
of modern indie-rock.
Will Whitwham first
gained recognition as songwriter in The Wilderness Of Manitoba, a folk troupe
that – as seen from this promotional video – really muses after nature. Taking
inspiration from the trees, animals, breezes and soil is actually more direct
of a conduit for universality than singing about love; it’s a constant that
most humans cannot readily ignore and an escape for those of us feeling
particularly disconnected between the grey shades of urbanity. While it’s a
valid argument to state that few genres are as adept at conveying the rustic reality
of our surroundings quite like folk, one can’t help but acknowledge that it was
an oversaturation of natural imagery that facilitated the death of new age.
With The Wilderness
Of Manitoba already carrying so much feel-good, post-hippie sentiment, Whitwham’s
chosen moniker of Lake Forest suggested, if not an overbearing allegiance to
doe-eyed solemnity, a perversion of art’s most resilient muse. Luckily Silver
Skies doesn’t hammer its listeners with earnest nature-bound metaphors so much
as relaying vignettes of love and loss next to an autumnal backdrop. Committing to
traditional composition with sparse but recurring melodic touches, Whitwham
crafts sweet understatement on “Escape the Moon” and “Silver Stars”.
Besides satisfyingly
folky arrangements, Silver Skies also features grander approaches to Whitwham’s
songwriting, most notably on the “Birds Of Prey”, with its haunted Elliott
Smith reminiscent piano interplay, and “Ohio”, where a whole lot of echo
introduces Lake Forest’s more obvious comparative point: Bon Iver. As a
cottage-bound, lonely-guy record, Silver Skies does a respectable job of
keeping off of Justin Vernon’s over-puffed coattails. Although veering for a
similarly peaceful solitude, Whitwham and Vernon arrive at different ports on
account of their distinct sensibilities. Tracks like “Whispers” and “An Autumn
Sun Will Set the Land On Fire”, while less audacious than Bon Iver’s work,
succeed as equally grounded mood-pieces that yearn to connect, human to human.
Any natural imagery spotted along the way settles nicely, where it should, into
Silver Skies sleepy ambience.
Oh, Field Music.
Every other year the Brewis brothers unveil a new record of McCartney-sized
hooks, precise instrumental shifts and tuneful segues, which is hailed as a
modern masterpiece and then shrugged off by the end-of-year lists’ deadline. Hardly
a jilt on the part of the UK press, I too have personally treated Field Music
with unstable parts admiration and neglect. The dynamic song-craft nearly
bursting the seams of Tones of Town and Measure caught my ear immediately but wore
off just as instantly. (For what it’s worth: the only Field Music release I’ve
held onto over the years doesn’t even get a mention on the duo’s official
website – and in Write Your Own History’s case, my loyalties remain rooted in
nostalgia.)
Is it possible that
Field Music’s original approach to pop music, whereby they collect a myriad of
colourful ideas then imbed and stitch them to a cohesive composition, fares
more memorably on a technical level than in our music-loving consciousness?
Field Music’s reputation as novel songwriters is undeniable even in the
Americas, yet they’ve failed to gather many perks that other English bands from
the mid-00’s post-punk arena who’ve already peaked and crumbled. The band’s
inability to keep pop simple may be key to the giant divide between critical
success and commercial wherewithal.
Well even if Field
Music’s orchestral and proggy dissection of pop music provides merely a
temporary delight, I can’t deny that Plumb has transfixed me yet again.
Tightening their focus after 2010’s bold, twenty track affair Measure, David
and Peter Brewis lust after a slightly more aggressive vein of complicated pop
this go around, as heard on the Zeppelin-esque guitar licks that climb over
“Start the Day Right”’s woozy strings. With chamber-pop tendencies being
relegated to Field Music’s always-cluttered margins, gorgeously unpolished
guitar tones become central on tracks like “(I Keep Thinking About) A New
Thing” and “Is This the Picture?”. Each song still carries the duo’s knack for
whimsy (“Ce Soir”, “A Prelude to Pilgrim Street”) while branching into the
unexpected (the funk-tinged “A New Town”), and yet none of it feels overwrought
or showy. Field Music will always be eccentric but Plumb stands to make their
niche more universal as the most focused showcase in a career reconstructing
pop.
Embers From the Underground, the interview feature which went on a bit of a sabbatical in 2011, returns this week with Paul Federici, an impressive talent hailing from St. Catharines, Canada. Being that he and I share the same hometown, it should come as no surprise that Mr. Federici and I met years ago through a mutual friend. What gives this entry in the EFTU series an added twist, however, is that through tracking Paul down and getting some thoughts on the making of his debut, Relative Importance (album review below), I've actually learned far more about him than I'd ever discovered in passing social circles. Stream the full album here and read on about his creative renaissance... (Photo by Matt Scobel)
SCQ: I'll begin by
blindsiding you with a Leonard Cohen comparison: you've released a debut album
in your early thirties. How long have these songs been gestating? Do you feel
that the experiences gathered throughout your twenties have enriched this
material or perhaps merely delayed it from seeing the light of day?
PF: "First
off, I love Leonard Cohen – he and Bob Dylan are two of my Dad’s favourite
artists and though I didn’t quite “get” their music and poetic lyrics when I
was younger, I grew to realize that my Dad was a pretty cool dude who was
definitely onto something. To be honest, the only song that was really
gestating was Conveniently Yours, which I wrote in 2008 and turns out it
was kind of turning point song for me. I wrote a lot in my early 20s, though I
never had much faith in myself or my music, and I produced a few homemade
“records” for friends and family filled with songs that left me feeling that I
wasn’t quite hearing what I wanted or hoped and like I’d never get it “right” –
that frustration and perfectionist thinking led me to stop for a few years until
a friend heard some of the old recordings and asked why I wasn’t still writing.
That got me thinking again – I tried to simplify things and wrote a few new
songs, one of which was Conveniently Yours, and it just felt right. I
always believed in that song and it made me realize how much I missed being
around the creative process. As for the rest of the album, 6 of the other songs
on the disc were written in the 3-4 months leading up to the recording of the
project when I hit a real low point in my life emotionally; I hadn’t even
picked up a guitar in months but as soon as I did all these songs kept coming
out and the music really helped me through. Actually, at the time of recording
the producer and I agreed on only 7 songs for the project, but I find that recording
and being around the studio/process tends to inspire me and ended up writing Without
You midway through and I just really wanted to include it because I felt it
fit the theme of the album. (I intentionally left it as the 8th song on the
track listing because it was last to be written, same reason Conveniently
Yours is 1st.) As for the age thing, I’ve always been a late bloomer I guess,
and maybe I just needed time and experience to get to the songs that meant a
lot more to me."
SCQ: What prompted you to record professionally? How did you go about choosing the
studio and collaborators that aided in the creation of Relative
Importance?
PF: "As I mentioned I hit a real low point in my life last year. I had finished my
Master’s degree in clinical social work and I ended up with a job in
Mississauga managing a crisis network, which really burnt me out and left me
quite depressed. I started to take stock of where I was in life, what I wanted
and where I was headed – I guess I did all of the things that I thought were
expected of me, but I was just so unhappy in the end that I felt like I needed
to follow my heart and take some chances. Music was always in the back of my
mind, and I didn’t want to have the “what ifs” later in life if I had never
even really tried. Maybe hitting such a low emotionally was a good thing
really, because I ended up with songs that I believed it and I felt like I
didn’t have anything to lose - I was already so unhappy that even if people
hated the record or ridiculed my efforts I’d know that I had at least taken a
swing, and really I didn’t care as much about critics anymore because I was
doing this for myself. Ultimately the timing just felt right, and I knew that
if I was going to record that I wanted to do it the right way and make the
songs as good as they could be (and if they failed then so be it, at least I’d
know then.)
As for choosing the studio I really went through the process pretty much
blindly, looking up websites, making cold calls, listening to a lot of samples
and trying to find a studio that I felt comfortable with and one that would fit
well with my style of music. I met quite a few people, but as soon as I set
foot in Catherine North Studios I just felt at home and Michael Chambers (who
won 2011 Engineer of the Year at the Hamilton music awards during the project)
was just incredible from the start. Really the work that has come out of the
studio (City and Colour, Whitehorse) speaks for itself, and I also thought it
would be really cool to record in Hamilton since my father grew up there and
the album title was based on an old poem he wrote – so in the end it all just
made sense. In terms of collaborators, I came into the project with an open
mind and trusted Michael’s input, direction and talent – he proved to be an incredible
mentor and producer whose finger prints are all over this record, and he
ultimately chose the other musicians who participated."
SCQ: Presuming that these songs were born in the merger of voice and guitar, how
did Relative Importance's various embellishments unfold? Did you
mentally mark a clear line in the sand with regards to how many musical
contributions a composition should have?
PF: "Song writing for me is a very spontaneous process, and yes the roots of all my
songs come from a combination of voice and guitar together. Once I feel I have
a song mostly arranged in my mind I create demo recordings where I really
finish writing by adding harmonies and other parts to try and make the songs as
“complete” as I can on my own, but each song takes on a life of its own. In
that sense I’m very particular about the sound and feel of the song, but it’s
hard for me to envision other instruments and contributions as I’ve never
played in a band, and writing has always been a solo effort. Given that, coming
into recording I was very open to feedback and input and really trusted
Michael’s opinions and vision for the songs. There were times where we tried
different arrangements and ideas, some of which worked and others didn’t, but
it was a collaborative process going on feel and a willingness to experiment in
the spirit of trying to make the songs as good as they could be in our minds."
SCQ: Many of these songs feature a nostalgic or mournful narrative often laced, I
sense, with a contented air to the way their personal loose ends played out.
When performing these songs, do you find you've developed a closer bond to the
muse behind your songwriting -- as if opening old wounds -- or, alternately, a
disconnect from revisiting these songs on a regular basis?
PF: "I would agree that these songs are nostalgic and mournful in many ways as that
was the frame of mind I was in during the writing process for the record. I
feel like songs in general tend to be a bit of a photograph or time stamp
reflecting where you were emotionally at a particular time, and for me these
songs were written when I was unhappy and questioning a lot of things in my
life. I didn’t strive to give a contented air to the personal loose ends, in
fact I often like to end the chord progressions unresolved or write in
suspended tunings that have an ambiguous feel because I don’t think the world
is black and white and I believe that many of the pains and struggles you
experience in life are chronic and something you’ll always be fighting. Overall
though, I feel that this whole process of recording and getting back to writing
has definitely helped me learn more about myself and how I write – it’s
definitely something I’ve dissected (maybe even too much) but I rarely aim to
disconnect with the songs. Instead I sometimes I feel I’m at a point where I’m
just ready to move on and new ideas, melodies, lyrics, themes etc. inspire you
again. After a long haul of putting your ideas under the microscope of the
studio that glow the songs once had when you first wrote them wears off
and then you strive to recapture that again with newer material. But like
I said, I look back on these songs as pictures in a way of where I’ve been so
I’ll always appreciate them for what they are."
SCQ: What has been most rewarding about releasing Relative
Importance so far? And what comes next?
PF: "I
don’t really know if I can narrow it down to a single most rewarding thing
about releasing the album. What immediately comes to mind is the amount of
positive feedback I’ve received on the album not only from family and friends,
but from album reviewers who have been incredibly flattering, and
college/university radio stations like Brock Radio, Conestoga College Radio,
Humber College Radio who have generously supported the record. Hearing my songs
on the radio has been such a cool feeling, and one of the best moments so far
was learning that Relative Importance made it to #1 on CFBU Brock
Radio’s charts as of February 22, 2012. Ultimately it’s been a great
feeling to just accomplish the goal of recording the record – no matter what
happens I’ll always have this to look back on. Maybe the biggest thing is that
I’m just following my heart, and ready to take chances again. What comes next?
I’m going to keep writing and hopefully record another record, keep grinding,
and find a way carve out a living at this. One day at a time."
In many ways, St.
Catharines is a city constantly reevaluating itself. Surrounded by rural
offshoots but dwarfed by neighbouring metropolises like Hamilton and Buffalo,
the mid-sized “Garden City” continues to consolidate its reputation as a powerhouse behind two
realms: the white collar Niagara School Board and the blue sweat pushing the
manufacturing sector. Nonetheless, St. Catharines is also home to an
independent scene that has been flourishing over the past decade; having first
established nationally recognized outfits like Alexisonfire and Raising the
Fawn, the annual SCENE Music Festival has also grown into a massively prolific
one-day bash that would act as the musical climax for just about any city.
It’s the sort of conflicted place only a record like Relative Importance could come from; its soft nuances
bundled with the no nonsense assuredness of a songwriter who knows his voice and
exactly what he’s yearning to connect with. The clarity of that conviction
comes across with ease on “Conveniently Yours”, a mid-tempo track bolstered by
Federici’s multi-part harmonies and a pulse that begs to breath new life into
rock-radio. As well equipped as his backing band sounds given the prospect
of radio chart success, it’s the former quality – Federici’s voice – that anchors
Relative Importance’s eight songs. “She Is Lost” and “True” would be highlights
on the grounds of their arrangements alone – one, a steady and melodic tale of
restlessness, the other a melancholic folk song – but Federici’s layered vocals
overtop create an added dimension of harmonies that takes the traditional
songwriter’s material to another level.
Since Relative
Importance’s release in January, Federici’s voice has been venturing further
and further from home. (According to his website, the record even cracked
the Alternative Rock charts in Sinzig, Germany.) In spite of his growing
reputation, little about these songs suggests that Paul Federici’s approach
would change upon the doorstep of a bigger fan-base. When one hears this record
in an intimate setting, it becomes clear that upgrading his sound might indeed
prove counterproductive since Relative Importance’s heart lies in its grounded and
restrained execution. Besides solid song-craft, it’s Federici’s quiet
confidence that may just bring the disparate halves of his hometown together at last.
“Ambient” – a genre
of music that defies the structure of pop music to arouse contemplation and
emotion. Of course, the word “ambient” also preserves journalistic integrity on
a daily basis and has gotten me, and I suspect a lot of music critics, out of
some tight spots. There’s no need for guilt or denial; with every laptop a
virtual home studio these days, who’s to say what every sonic embellishment is
composed of and whether said adornment comes courtesy of a traditional
instrument, or modern software program?
Peter Kutin’s third
release, Ivory, didn’t catch my ear because I knew it was composed almost
entirely of guitar – no, I only found that out later. But what drew me to his
enigmatic explorations was certainly textural, as if Kutin’s approach to
“ambient” leaned less on float-y distraction and more on weighty
instrumentation. “White Desert” lays down a hotbed of subtle atmosphere, dotted
by treated blurs of guitar, static and what sounds like field recordings from a
beach, before introducing a softly descending bass figure that compliments an
imagined vista. Alternately “After the Plague” stretches over brittle chords
and into an increasingly drone-fed landscape, seemingly losing its form if not
its potent emotion. In what I reckon is among the best compliments I can offer,
you needn’t even pay attention to Ivory’s song-titles; artistic license aside,
a track called “After the Plague” applies as much to its ambient quality as any
nonsensical title you could lovingly label it with.
Giving the
aforementioned highlights additional presence, Kutin diverts attention by
occasionally forging new territory. The classically inspired “Sombre”, which
loops a violin piece through smeared orchestral layers and rainy field
recordings, keeps Ivory’s approach from stagnating and uncovers some intriguing
points of navigation. Patient and immersive, Kutin’s made one of the year’s
most self-assured ambient records without abandoning the possibilities of his
core instrument.
Last spring’s Street
Halo was very much a victory lap. Brisk but powerful, it procured enough subtle
tricks to warrant a pat on the back for progressive leanings but essentially
cemented the same sound we’d all lost our shit over four years prior. That’s something
worth celebrating, even in the wake of dubstep’s mainstream perversion; the convincing
evidence that insists Burial remains the sole proprietor and executioner of
such a gritty, bleak and yet beautiful palette of urban restlessness.
Barely a year on,
the mysterious beat-constructor returns with another three-pronged EP of
sprawling, nomadic dubstep and the results are equally breathless. Kindred EP expands
upon its predecessor’s spacey dimensions – in such a way that Street Halo’s longest
run-time in effect becomes this EP’s shortest – and that aural real estate
affords weightier compositions. “Loner” breaks from Burial’s trademarked
wood-block approach by instilling a comparatively simple drum-machine loop to
feed a flurry of samples and morose-keyed momentum. “Ashtray Wasp” preserves
that drive, with four-by-four beats thudding beneath a wide array of voices and
murky instrumentation, but it’s the title track that really steals the show
here. “Kindred”, besides incorporating some industrial noise to its edges,
probably boasts Burial’s best use of vocal samples ever, creating an esoteric
link of voices that form one devastating hook after another.
Burial’s wise enough
to steer clear of laying down too much at a time but by occasionally stripping
his compositions down to scratch, he occasionally risks dropping his audience
into structure-less limbo. “Ashtray Wasp” takes that permanent detour,
presumably as a means to avoid overwhelming listeners, and the track’s piano-led
ending – a pale echo of its earlier force – ultimately deepens the artist’s
craft (although perhaps at the expense of his fans’ expectations). No matter
how you hear it, Kindred EP won’t resonate like another unexpected victory lap,
instead presenting itself as a complicated evolution that nonetheless reasserts
Burial’s reign over all things dubstep.
Zach Braff's hyperbole sort of damned the Shins, sure. James Mercer’s quirky underdog songs
may have fit well into Garden State’s sad-sack hum but they hadn’t the shoulders
to bear the big budget indie flick’s over-the-top assertion that The Shins could
“change your life”. Likewise, the makers behind Garden State didn’t have to concern
themselves with sponsoring 2007’s Wincing the Night Away, still two years off, which
would lament insomnia over a collection of mostly low-key chamber-pop
arrangements. The pressure had peaked and a collective burnout was overdue; in what
would amount to no big surprise, Wincing the Night Away was handled delicately,
indecisively and mostly forgotten.
Whether I too was
subconsciously suffering ‘Shins Burnout’ at the time, I can’t really say, but
it’s clear that I underestimated Wincing the Night Away beyond its underwhelming
role as breakout clutch hitter. Quite honestly, I cannot call to mind many
records that have unguarded themselves with the patience and mystery of that
moody outing; it reveals as much in a post Broken Bells universe as it did back
in the winter of 2007. One thing I can say without hesitation is that Port Of
Morrow won’t engage such a debate-rich discourse.
For all of the
questions that encircled an imminent Shins album in 2012 – above all, whether
the entirely new ensemble surrounding Mercer could maintain The Shins’
distinctive sound – Port Of Morrow has a humbling effect on listeners; it’s as
tuneful as the best Shins’ material and yet eclectic enough to rarely stay in
one spot for long. Every bouncy, radio-rock candidate like “No Way Down” or
“Bait and Switch” gets balanced by Mercer’s songbird sensitivity, which makes
highlights of “It’s Only Life” and “September”. And with ample doses of playful
choruses and sonic revelry at play, Port Of Morrow earns its keep more as a
welcome return than as a cohesive masterstroke.
