Underrated Silence - Ulrich Schnauss & Mark Peters (No Ripcord Review)

Underrated Silence

Ulrich Schnauss & Mark Peters

Bureau B Records.

No Ripcord Rating: 7/10

SCQ Rating: 76%

Two weeks before the debut full-length between Ulrich Schnauss and Mark Peters hit store shelves, I caught a charter bus to Montreal to attend its listening party. For those of you on the island city wishing you’d known such an event was about to go down, relax. For one thing, it was a relatively secret gathering between an iPod, my friend and I. Besides that, we spent about half of the album preview laughing at the song titles. “Yesterday Didn’t Exist”, “The Child Or the Pigeon”, “Gift Horse’s Mouth”; it wasn’t the names, so much as their music’s inability to even broadly illustrate why these songs were titled as such, that made Underrated Silence a bit of a lark. Unlike the romantic dusk of “Sunday Evening In Your Street” (from 2001’s Far Away Trains Passing By) or the rush of confidence that sends shivers throughout “On My Own” (from A Strangely Isolated Place) – tracks that actually form emotions beneath the surface sheen – these collaborative tracks initially resound the randomness of their titles as if floating in from different galaxies.

Needless to say, Schnauss and Peters’ choice of song-titles can’t really be at fault here, not when the more popular (and irresponsibly tossed-off) accusation of “sonic wallpaper” seems applicable. And let’s face it, Ulrich fans: although 2007’s Goodbye found Schnauss’ trademarked shoegaze-fueled songcraft striving for new levels of crossover potential (“Stars”, “Medusa”), it veered just as often toward a beatless, sterile ambience (“Einfeld”). Marking the collaborative spirit of Mark Peters – bassist, keyboardist and guitarist of The Engineers – doesn’t deter Underrated Silence from grasping after the latter approach, one that largely shuns the gear-shifts that made Schnauss’ early work so exciting. In effect, the listener’s wading period, whereby one treads through the more atmospheric end of Schnauss’ style, might encourage the impatient among us to toss up the “sonic wallpaper” defense. Not even staunch admirers of this project would blame them; my Montreal-based friend and I – both longtime Schnauss fans – couldn’t pinpoint at the time why we were joking about a song-title like “Amoxicillin” but it’s plausibly because the composition itself offers so few contagious ingredients.

If listeners forget the hype implicated in the four years since Goodbye, forget the fruits of Schnauss/Peters’ earlier partnership on Enginners’ In Praise Of More, and treat Underrated Silence as a joint experiment, they’ll uncover a surprisingly enjoyable detour. Once acclimatized to its mellow focus, tracks such as “Rosen Im Asphalt” and “The Messiah Is Falling” even unveil terse undercurrents of drama to deepen otherwise ear-pleasing synth work-outs. It remains a pretty transient collection – like their curious titles, these tracks feel beamed in from planets entirely remote from one another – but Schnauss’ sheen unifies it as, bare minimum, a pleasant journey through the haze. Just don’t expect to see anything too clearly.

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

12 Desperate Straight Lines - Telekinesis

12 Desperate Straight Lines

Telekinesis
Morr Music/Merge Records.

No Ripcord Rating: 7/10
SCQ Rating: 76%

Within a brief spat of radio interference that linked the second and third tracks of Telekinesis’ sophomore release, something interesting happened. No sooner had 'Please Ask For Help' rounded out its New Order thrust of treated guitar and bass when '50 Ways' launched into the power-chords and glorious distortion that defined Weezer’s Blue Album. From sleek to stomp in a blink, Telekinesis (Michael Benjamin Lerner) isn’t just testing his own immaculate sense of sequencing; he’s jumping decades, taking us from the pop heights of one retro-cool era to another with his compact songwriting as the lead guide.

Suggestive though it may be, the familiar angles on 12 Desperate Straight Lines avoid labeling Lerner as a chameleon for precisely that law of compression. Apologies: if Telekinesis’ Myspace page has any sway, Lerner prefers the term “minimalist”. It’s a tempting descriptor when the vast majority of this sophomore’s songs pulse on a skeletal palette of no-bullshit rock hardware: drum-kit, a little bass, and a few guitars. Still, a cheeky studio veneer is never far off. Enter ace-in-sleeve Chris Walla, who counters the raw immediacy of songs like 'Country Lane' and 'Car Crash' with simple electronic effects that add considerable lifespan to Lerner’s quick takes. Once Walla’s touch has been recognized, it’s hard not to shake the sonic similarities between 12 Desperate Straight Lines and Narrow Stairs (on 'Patterns') or, say, the last two Tegan and Sara records (with 'Dirty Thing', 'Fever Chill'). Walla has more than a few hit records under his producer-hat and this little scorcher should bejewel him another.

So, okay, Telekinesis’ “minimalist” tag holds just as flimsily as it would for any of those other Walla endeavors but Lerner’s direct songwriting minces all of these college-rock influences into a surprisingly versatile record. There’s very little lyrical wallowing permitted here, as even the revisited theme of lovers left in different cities is relayed through our protagonist’s road-weary, matter-of-fact shrug. And in an indie-rock landscape where so many bands climb to eminence on the shoulders of pseudo-academic attention-seeking, a shrug and a good pulse can go a long way.

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

Future Weather - The War On Drugs (No Ripcord Review)

Future Weather

The War On Drugs
Secretly Canadian Records.

No Ripcord Rating: 6/10
SCQ Rating: 66%

In a crudely reductive way, anyone’s record collection can break down into two camps: albums we rely on for public consumption (house-parties, get-togethers) and albums we rely on for personal satisfaction. Every host should instinctively play to their crowd’s communal preference, meaning that my obsession for introverted electronica gets roundly ignored every time people pack my fridge with beer. Oh, the trials of amateur deejaying. So when The War On Drugs first stole my heart with Wagonwheel Blues, they managed the task by merging two unique and combative listening experiences into one. Their muse clearly rooted in classic rock but bearing a spacey reverb so rich it nearly swallows the whole procession, The War On Drugs presented a hybrid so seamlessly built, you could just as easily socialize or zone-out to its chameleon-esque company.

As word of Future Weather surfaced, promising a heavier use of keys and ambience following Kurt Vile’s no-surprise departure, I rejoiced in what ostensibly sounded like a nudge toward their cosmic end. 'Comin’ Through', with its steadying Tom Petty-approved bassline, and 'Brothers', leveled in exploratory guitar-jams, both prove that The War On Drugs’ perfect fusion of a template allows some elbow room for extra experimentation, but these are exceptions to the rule. Typically this gauzier finish forces a sacrifice, as how 'The History Of Plastic', which consumes nearly a third of Future Weather’s run-time, lumbers through a studio’s trick-bag with nothing to show for it. What’s worse, its final two-and-a-half minute stretch of disconnected sounds cap off an EP loaded with empty space.

Segues and reprises embody three of these eight tracks but none are built to sustain themselves, or even add any majesty to their parent song. 'Comin’ Around' finds the band loosely jamming around the perimeter of 'Comin’ Through' whereas 'Missiles Reprise' muddles needlessly between the chords of 'Baby Missiles', which itself operates a lean A to B trajectory with familiar organ-work and grinding percussion. Yes, some of these grooves still beckon the open road, but our intended destination is getting a little murky.

The War On Drugs haven’t undergone any major songwriting shifts with Future Weather and yet a quiet divide over direction steals the bite of these songs. It’s almost as if Adam Granduciel and Co. isolated their dual strengths - the riffs and the sound-collages - into separate songs, streamlining their classic-rock tunes while letting vacuous sound-collages fend for themselves. Perhaps Kurt Vile was the engineer capable of fusing these song-pieces or maybe The War On Drugs are simply withholding the best cuts for their upcoming 2011 full-length. Sadly, neither of these excuses warrants buying this vinyl-only 12” at a dollar-per-minute rate, especially when a solid half of Future Weather feels so aimless.

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

Total Life Forever - Foals (No Ripcord Review)

Total Life Forever

Foals
Sub Pop Records.

No Ripcord Rating: 8/10
SCQ Rating: 85%

I’ve never heard Antidotes in full and, as it turns out, I don’t need to. For all intents and purposes of this review, that 2008 record may as well not exist since I’m not even going to blather about contrast and how its brass-addled, white-boy funk has been discarded this go around. It hasn’t. Upsetting as this may be to fans that sleep with a copy of Antidotes under their pillows, the album’s most memorable attribute is that even Foals didn’t care for it, at first shuffling Dave Sitek’s production efforts under the rug before outright dismissing it during recent press circuits. Another strike against Antidotes’ presence is that Total Life Forever essentially guards that same white-boy funk, less angular but increasingly dance-ready.

If there’s one hidden impression worth taking from the “controversy” surrounding Antidotes, it’s that Foals set their bar rather high. They were courageous enough to follow their ideals by shelving Sitek’s production and they’re serious enough about evolving to openly simplify their sound. That discipline shows on the surprisingly conventional Total Life Forever, which forsakes much of their earlier chin-scratching artiness for trendier dance-rock rhythms. Whatever the band’s intentions, you can’t fault opener 'Blue Blood' for appealing to a wider audience when its bouncing bass and crisp guitar chimes radiantly over Yannis Philippakis’ heartfelt vocals. Alternating between dewy atmospherics and guitar tones so brittle they border on electronic, tracks like 'After Glow' and 'Alabaster' make-up the general trajectory of Foals’ songwriting by rising to a percussive climax. Whether inspired by funky outbursts or frenetic emotions, Foals seem to be drawing more directly from the NME’s recent graduate class, utilizing the earnestness of Bloc Party and the soaring choruses of Friendly Fires as a template. That these newfound similarities with other successful British indie acts unveil themselves naturally amid Foals’ own idiosyncrasies is no fluke, rather proof that these lads are capable of far more than simply fitting in.

Considering the determination Foals have already shown over their young discography, it’s possible that this record could just be flexing their pop muscles. Yet Total Life Forever’s knack for dance-rock is so infectious and eager-to-please, it‘s almost troubling. Outside of the odd instrumental ('Fugue') or flirtation with excess ('Spanish Sahara'), the record seems hypnotized by its strict formula of repetitive choruses and building intensity until the final two tracks, 'Two Trees' and 'What Remains', remind what a compelling voice Foals can offer the Brit-rock universe. Beautifully ethereal yet firmly rooted in careful dynamics, these distinct, late highlights should serve as a wake-up call suggesting that by blindly embracing pop structures, Foals are weighing appeal against integrity. The difference? Integrity lasts much longer.

This review was originally published on No Ripcord...

Foals - This Orient by wwwta

High Places VS Mankind - High Places (No Ripcord Review)

High Places VS Mankind

High Places
Thrill Jockey Records.

No Ripcord Rating: 7/10
SCQ Rating: 67%

Reviewing High Places’ full-length debut with any clairvoyance seemed impossible without accepting a series of inevitable paradoxes, that: (A) its craft would be commended, if not always enjoyed, (B) each song worth complimenting would be negated by a disappointing nemesis-track, and (C) ultimately High Places has to choose you… you can’t play-repeat your way over its hurdles. If there was any consolation to that 2008 review, it was the grim acknowledgement that I wasn’t alone in my indifference. Fan reception offered no easy consensus, with half the camp professing their preference for the singles collection 03/07-09/07, while the self-titled LP’s score on Metacritic showcased a careful tedium that, in most cases, shrugged that High Places deserved the benefit of the doubt.

That doubt, as I pinpointed throughout my lengthy judgment-call with High Places, boiled down to a disconnect; that for all their promising rhythms and clattering collages, the duo of Rob Barber and Mary Pearson couldn’t commit to a hook long enough to imbed emotion into what were otherwise charmingly hopeless curios. High Places VS Mankind, while likely not titled as a rebuke toward their divided fanbase, again faces the task of assembling a full-length capable of matching the high watermark set by their too-good-too-soon singles compilation.

No differently than how 03/07-09/07 supplanted some of the self-titled record’s status, how this proper sophomore settles with you will depend on what you liked about High Places in the first place. If you favoured the structured focus of songs like 'Namer' and 'Gold Coin' that tied their recess-singalongs to fractured pop hooks, High Places VS Mankind offers your kind of progression. And mine, too. Blazing through the opening gates with 'The Longest Shadow' and 'On Giving Up', High Places take their school bus of bizarre electronics clubbing, locking Pearson’s flighty vocals into deep-set grooves of live bass and guitar. When the duo isn’t streamlining its auxiliary percussion into New Wave-inspired heartbeats, they’re treading dangerously close to forming a fluent album with 'The Channon' and 'Canada'; the former a cloud of dense loops and harmonic experimenting, the latter track delivering a speaker-blown melancholy, crawling across gray horizons, post-everything.

When you consider that Barber and Pearson labeled their self-titled record’s genre as “Children’s Songs” on iTunes, the steps taken on High Places VS Mankind can’t help but feel like a graduation of sorts. Recalling only bits of their awkward past-flirtations with electro-pop, this new material feels ripe with a formative momentum that only occasionally misses the mark (the elementary musings behind 'On a Hill in a Bed on a Road in a House', we can do without). This follow-up isn’t quite as quirky, sure, and the same fan-divisions will argue whether the band has strayed toward commercial outlets. To a degree, they have, although not at the cost of their best assets. Unlike previous efforts, High Places are committing themselves to a scene, trendy as it may be, and writing songs that equate to more than electronic whirls and bangs.

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

Boca Negra - Chicago Underground Duo (No Ripcord Review)

Boca Negra

Chicago Underground Duo
Thrill Jockey Records.

No Ripcord Rating: 6
SCQ Rating: 64%

For any hot-blooded music adventurist, avant-jazz records should harness high expectations for the sole reason that all rules are, in effect, broken. As long as its listeners are acquainted with jazz and excited by its standard forms, its fluent rhythms, this futurist sub-genre should be a cakewalk of subjecting classic templates to radical reinvention. This premise of endless possibilities, while exciting when spouted off in jargon, doesn’t often translate well to tape. What happens post-structure? How does one weigh traditional jazz trademarks against an unbridled desire to dive into sonic unknowns? In other words, if avant-jazz is by definition the evolution of jazz, how does its soul usually get lost in the shuffle?

Boca Negra, the fifth release by Rob Mazurek and Chad Taylor, doesn’t answer any of my genre-existential questions so much as further enshroud them. Yet still, I’m oddly satisfied. Even amid this record’s most loosely structured, grating moments – the aimless improvisations for 'Green Ants', the shrugging effects on 'Roots and Shooting Stars' – Boca Negra carries the flexible spirit of jazz in tow, maintaining its soul instead of crawling the nihilistic wasteland avant-jazz efforts often settle for. This - for lack of better word - authenticity vindicates some compositions that initially sounded slapdash, transforming the randomly bonkers tones of a track like 'Left Hand of Darkness' into a svelte, almost romantic rumination. Other songs unveil their treasures more generously; 'Hermeto' is a melodic coda of interloping keys and 'Confliction' hammers its baggage over traumatic piano chords before fading into a wasp’s nest of tight bass, deft percussion and shrill horns. By challenging their audience with constant dynamic shifts, Chicago Underground Duo inevitably render Boca Negra a prickly affair – hard to unravel, tougher to comfortably lose oneself in – and that makes rare moments of uncluttered beauty all the more pleasurable. Finale 'Vergence' utilizes electronic textures more honestly than its predecessors and basks in the after-hours glow of its minimal beats and sweeping ambience without losing a pinch of avant-jazz cred. The result truly dwarfs the cathartic outbursts employed throughout much of Boca Negra, and transcends my jargon about revolutionizing a genre. No thesis, no bells or whistles; Vergence just goes out and creates anew.

My high expectations for Boca Negra, misguided as they were, have been consoled, if not met, by the realization that if any act can legitimize avant-jazz beyond its narrow niche (never mind my aforementioned doubts), Chicago Underground Duo have the verve and creativity to enable it.

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

Causers Of This - Toro Y Moi (No Ripcord Review)

Causers Of This

Toro Y Moi
Carpark Records.

No Ripcord Rating: 7
SCQ Rating: 71%

A few months ago I read an interview with Bradford Cox in which the Deerhunter ringleader/Atlas Sound mastermind playfully sounded off on glo-fi, and what he suggested was a crown stolen from him. Whether he’s serious or not, there’s a solid case lurking behind his claim for birthright. Not only was Atlas Sound’s 2008 debut a haze-riddled bedroom record of groundbreaking proportions, it even featured a song entitled 'Ready, Set, Glow'! I’d take sides but the point is already moot. Between that interview last fall and the present day, glo-fi or chillwave or whatever you want to call it has become an eye-rolling gag, having opened the floodgates for a bevy of well-meaning but hopelessly hazy bedroom acts seeking a place in the sun. If the powers that be awarded Cox his glo-fi subgenre now, I don’t think he’d show.

So what about Toro Y Moi (AKA Chazwick Bundick) and his quietly anticipated full-length Causers Of This? Well, strange as it seems, despite close personal ties with other chillwave acts and assuming the tag – essentially guilty by association – Toro Y Moi doesn’t belong in this subgenre mess. At least not compositionally; by utilizing a throng of 80s-inspired signifiers and beats cut-up like a dreamier Flying Lotus, Causers Of This flirts with retro R&B records as often as any sound pigeonholed to the summer of 2009. 'Freak Love' sounds like a late-nineties boy-band cassette after it spent five minutes in a swimming pool, with pre-sets thrown into a sweltering, undulating atmosphere and a break-beat slowed down as if accidentally sexed up. Such effective sound-manipulation lies at the heart of Bundick’s technique, which evokes the speaker-in, speaker-out psychedelia of 'Blessa' and the stuttering, hip-hop beats that carry him through these thirty-two minutes. In his most surprising moments, as on 'Lissoms', Bundick creates a buzzing instrumental that smoothly (almost invisibly) incorporates vocal samples and a ton of eerie synth-undercurrents without sounding like a grab-bag of random, well-spiced sounds.

It’s easy to commend this album on the sole basis that despite coating his tracks with an incomprehensible amount of tripped-out trickery, Toro Y Moi still branches out into less protected songwriting. 'Low Shoulders' takes honourable shots at Studio’s Balearic-inspired dance while 'Imprint After' finds him verging on the grating vocal-stylings of Passion Pit. The majority of Causers Of This, however, can be translated by the example of 'Fax Shadow', a track so overwhelmed by its own technical prowess, it forgoes seeking out the merits of a functioning song. To call Bundick’s method a collage approach would be offering the benefit of the doubt; to call it blenderized is closer to the truth. We could sit here all day pondering what songwriting is more authentic, the kinetic instincts of stitching stylish sounds together or patiently fleshing ideas beyond thirty-second intervals, but I’m sure a new subgenre name is already prepped to bail us out.

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

Opiate Sun EP - Jesu (No Ripcord Review)

Opiate Sun EP

Jesu
Caldoverde Records.

No Ripcord Review: 6
SCQ Rating: 60%

Despite his insanely prolific schedule and involvement in no less than five bands (among them the notable Napalm Death and Godflesh), not even Justin Broadrick can escape the inevitable clutches of predictability. By the time his Jesu moniker had turned four years of age, the ex-metalhead had crossed eleven releases off his to-do list… including three in 2008 alone. And with each split release or extended-play unveiled within months of each other, Jesu’s sneak-attacks grew increasingly linear, showcasing a speedy change-of-heart from sludgy post-rock to industrial electronics. One year since his synthetic love climaxed on Why Are We Not Perfect EP, Broadrick breaks the chain with Opiate Sun; a left-turn for home that should reward old fans without completely deafening his newer following.

Announcing his return to hard-rock roots, opening track ‘Losing Streak’ is a well-paced collision of crashing cymbals and guitar distortion that recalls the fist-pumping bravado of Silver. That song’s sanguine vocal hooks are compounded on the following title track, which drives a slower, penetrating groove for Broadrick to imbed with slowburning guitar arpeggios. By the time ‘Deflated’ kicks in with its chugging metal verses, any doubts that Opiate Sun was designed to be Jesu’s return-to-form EP should be sailing out the window. Of course, the “metal” in Jesu remains largely cosmetic, its wall-to-wall guitar blasts, always chest out to confront first-impressions, are merely make-up to disguise Broadrick’s identity as a romantic songwriter. And that’s why I love Jesu; his albums are so boisterous and eardrum-splitting, it’s easy to forget that what Broadrick is really force-feeding us is his own vulnerability. Giving that complex songwriting some subtlety in the form of minor electronics may have upset early followers but it also balanced and progressed his sonic palette. Such studio frills are omitted and ultimately missed on Opiate Sun, replaced with a stubborn volume that negates Jesu’s understated third-dimension. These four songs properly house Broadrick’s comfort zone but, despite his effective songwriting, Opiate Sun feels like a retread of raw, less imaginative years.

Why Are We Not Perfect no doubt had its share of growing pains but its electronic veneer allowed clearer dynamics, better soundscapes and a wider horizon of Jesu possibilities. And although Broadrick’s latest offering manages a break from that trajectory, the most striking sneak-attack is that instead of appearing courtesy of Avalanche Recordings (his own imprint) or regular Broadrick label-of-choice Hydrahead, Opiate Sun arrives in stores thanks to Caldoverde – the home of Sun Kil Moon maestro Mark Kozelek. As random as it initially seems considering the instrumental incongruities dividing folk from hard-rock, these two artists have much in common; both reside within the stretched-out purgatory of slowcore emoting, often muffling their vocals beneath modest compositions. In the end, Broadrick manages to withhold some unpredictability… partly because he rejected his own label in favour of someone else’s but mostly because Opiate Sun is homogenously fighting his greater strengths and, bizarrely enough, those that compliment the Caldoverde roster.

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

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... )

Love 2 - Air (No Ripcord Review)

Love 2

Air
Astralwerks Records.

No Ripcord Review: 7
SCQ Rating: 75%

As a result of my late-appreciation for Air, which had me backtracking from Talkie Walkie into their early groundbreaking efforts, I’ve only had one full-length - Pocket Symphony - to anticipate in advance. As nuanced as that 2007 release moved the French duo into cinematic mood-music terrain, its sedated feel had me kicking myself and wishing I had been actively listening to Air during their more adventurous years. That longing has been rewarded with Love 2; a record that churns out futurist lounge like a jukebox painted in neon lights that read “Eat My Beat”. Seriously, that’s one of the song titles.

There’s no mistaking that Nicolas Godin and J.B. Dunckel have returned from the dreamy Pocket Symphony with their sights set on living it up and… rocking out? ‘Do the Joy’ swaggers in with a guitar-line vaguely reminiscent of Kid Rock - only fuzzed out, less obnoxious, and accompanied by a bunch of lazer-synths and incoherent robots - which adequately reclaims their 90s mix of laid-back cool and 10 000 Hrz To Legend weirdness. Telltale reminders aside, Love 2 has little time to toy with Air’s legacy when the duo are filtering 60s surf-rock into their patented space-rock (so… space-surf?) on ‘Be a Bee’, or wind-milling glam-rock riffs over shimmering piano codas on ‘So Light is Her Footfall’. While the majority of these heavier galactical-jaunts crowd the record’s first half, there’s no denying that Air sound more confident than ever, capturing the lavish sophistication of their 00’s albums without sacrificing the guitar.

The spontaneity of Air in starry-eyed band formation hardly detracts from their role as staunch defenders of glamorous electronic-pop, thankfully. ‘Missing the Light of the Day’ bubbles along driving synth-stabs and computerized vocals while the shuffling triphop beats of ‘You Can Tell it to Everybody’ pace the sappier details of Air’s eternally bleeding heart. Even ‘Sing Sang Sung’, which skips breezily through sticky acoustic strings and feather-light lyrics, maintains the same unifying, iridescent veneer that renders ‘Tropical Disease’ the most desirable, swanky disease one could hope to contract. Not that any of this should be wildly unexpected for fans; besides being awesome, Talkie Walkie found Air resigned to being their innocuous, cheesy selves and this dependability has made them such a viable product. You know what you’re getting into with an Air album and, accordingly, any complaints made thereafter should be greeted with the friendly rebuke: “yeah dude, it’s AIR…”. How Godin and Dunckel masterminded this immunity to fair criticism is almost certainly a stroke of luck, not genius, but Love 2, in all its fey-posh-loveliness, deserves the benefit of most doubts.

What is surprising about Air’s latest is its tourist approach to genre and sound, hopscotching back and forth between exotic jams ('Tropical Disease') and chilled-out complexity ('African Velvet'). Following Pocket Symphony’s cohesive-to-a-fault sullenness, it’s perhaps a knee-jerk response that Love 2 is easily the band’s most eclectic offering. Yet despite some overbearing cosmetic differences, these two albums are joined in their sketch-like compositions, as if Godin and Dunckel’s strategy was to ride an idea until all its sonic possibilities were explored. Playing Hyde to Pocket Symphony’s Jeckyll, Love 2 is not only the latest chapter in Air’s space-rock adventure, it’s a sequel that triumphs its predecessor.

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

New Leaves - Owen (No Ripcord Review)

New Leaves

Owen
Polyvinyl Records.

No Ripcord Review: 9
SCQ Rating: 86%

In his detailed lyrics of innermost uncertainty and near conversational delivery, Mike Kinsella has arguably bridged an intimacy with fans stronger than early Bright Eyes or modern-day Ryan Adams. That’s no faint praise. Whereas those troubadours often write songs to future or ex-lovers, this Chicago native strips his songs of pretension to the far-end where only he should be blushing. And that’s because, ironically, this project given the name Owen is really the Mike Kinsella show; a perpetually updated journal that delves so deeply into the man’s vices, guilty pleasures and reckless desires, every narrative is tainted by his twisted perspective, however funny or hungover. In that respect, it makes sense that listening to a new Owen record is like catching up with an old friend, one who is unapologetically nostalgic and frank, but rarely off the mark.

So when this summer’s Seaside EP, a limited release of rare tracks and b-sides, found ‘I Woke Up Today’ tapering out with a poignant realization (“either I just got kicked in the teeth / or time has changed me”), it registered as a monumental, lyrical cliff-jump for long-time fans. Just like that, the quarter-life crisis that had been boiling beneath the marriage-and-picket-fence existence of At Home With Owen was at once assured and destroyed, giving New Leaves the respectable task of moving into our strange, unsure notions of adulthood. Kinsella confirms as much while drinking with college kids on ‘Never Been Born’, discovering his bones feel older when he’s away from home by closing “it’s a young mans game / and about time I quit”. By no means does this chapter-turning imply that Kinsella has been assimilated into big-box suburbia, thank god, as this self-described “house-broken, one-woman man” remains as stubborn and confused as ever. Between skirting responsibility in favour of playing his guitar (‘Too Scared To Move’) and refusing to cater to demanding fans at his shows (‘Curtain Call’), New Leaves presents the same unflinching Kinsella we’ve grown to love. Only now, we’re growing up with him as well.

Beyond his newly domesticated surroundings, At Home With Owen also found him trading in his mother’s house – a regular recording spot for previous releases - for a full studio, which fleshed out his guitar-based tunes with a variety of strings and keys. Those production techniques have been fully embraced here, fleshing out Owen’s trademarked acoustic flourishes with punchy electric guitar on ‘Good Friends, Bad Habits’ and warm strings on the uptempo ‘Amnesia and Me’. These pillowed arrangements sweeten Kinsella’s occasional bitterness on ‘A Trenchant Critique’ with its vaguely electronic percussion and string-laden backing and truly startle listeners on ‘Brown Hair in a Bird’s Nest’'s gorgeous climax, as the orchestration tenses up over Kinsella’s “I didn’t lie to you…” confession before unfurling elegantly upon his admission “…I just didn’t tell the truth”. Despite the lovely veneer of New Leaves, Owen’s lyrical bite remains as devastating as ever.

Like Rembrandt’s self-portraits, Owen’s discography directly reflects the growing pains that time and age introduce, documenting the successive stages of confidence, cowardice and acceptance that most artists tend to cheat. And while Mike Kinsella remains a potty-mouthed contrarian at heart, time is dulling his self-righteous streak into something quite dignified. New Leaves may tackle some subtle rites of passage - small in scope but difficult for most men to deal with – but they’re approached with such delicate grace, it’s hard to question that this may be Kinsella’s finest hour yet.

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

Higher Than the Stars - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (No Ripcord Review)

Higher Than the Stars

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Slumberland Records.

No Ripcord Rating: 4
SCQ Rating: 46%

Being a hipster used to be pretty straightforward. I mean, I’m no trendy dresser and my opinions aren’t anchored to a megaphone but if someone is describing “some hipster event” or “my hipster friend”, chances are I’ll really enjoy that show and dig their friend. So why do I hesitate embracing being outted and comfortable in my hipster-status? Because like anything old enough to be dated, hipsterism has gone postmodern! C’mon, you know the suspects: the kids who drop a few hundred to dress like bohemians, the hood-wearing teens who picked up Saturday = Youth cause they thought the breakfast club on the cover were band-members, the people who see that ‘Hipsters Must Die’ t-shirt in Urban Outfitters and fail to see the irony. And, in no small measure, the surface-level pastiche that boils to the root of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart.

I wasn’t always so disapproving; last winter’s self-titled debut had its share of allure, like ‘Stay Alive’s lovelorn and gauzy chorus to ‘Come Saturday’s, spritely and, uh, equally gauzy chorus. And although the press treated them as if C-86 hadn’t happened and been mimed already, I could appreciate small accomplishments like crossing ‘Young Adult Friction’s early twee pleasantness with a dose of tried-and-true NY cool, or ‘Gentle Sons’, easily their gutsiest song to date. Besides giving my dreary February an optimistic soundtrack, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart presented a band largely content to posture on auto-pilot.

Whereas EPs are often seen as outlets for experimentation or as homes for orphaned tracks, Higher Than the Stars aims to accommodate the literal meaning of Extended Play, simply offering more of the same fey pop albeit a tad less homogenized. Proceedings open with the twinkling title track which, beyond the faintly audible strum in the mix, is virtually devoid of six-strings. It’s a commendable decision that finds the quartet’s stargazing no less potent amid such thunderous absence. An early hint at The Pains of Being Pure at Heart moving closer to dream-pop is scoured, however, by ‘103’; a two-minute blast of distorted guitar slabs that, predictable they may be, manages to disguise some goofy, faux-dramatic lyrics. Despite that crater, Higher Than the Stars recovers on the good graces of ‘Falling Over’, which boasts a bass riff and brisk percussion reminiscent of the Smiths’ early swagger. When the EP lags again on ‘Twins’, it isn’t the songwriting to blame so much as the boring arrangement which, as usual, dismisses actual dynamics between instruments in favour of smothered, compressed guitar chunks. Leave it to Saint Etienne to point out these sonic crimes with a remix of ‘Higher than the Stars’ that frees that track’s compelling melodrama with svelte keys, a defined rhythm and up-front vocals.

Beyond flirting with the notion of branching out, The Pains of Being Pure At Heart cling to the same stubborn formula on Higher Than The Stars EP, following each adventurous half-step with a cowardly sprint back to their comfort zone. An EP has never broken a band commercially or critically and even if it could, this isn’t a flagrant low-point anticipating collapse. Instead, this middling release finds the fashionable foursome happily re-writing familiar hooks and expecting hipsters to lap it up. Now this is a super-young group of musicians who’ve been working at a fever’s pace, so in no way am I suggesting that The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are past their prime. What I am saying is that the songs on this EP already feel old, excavated from the self-titled record and surgically removed from the romanticized 80s. If The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are in this for the long haul, they’ll have to do more than retro posturing. They’ll eventually have to create something new.

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

Girls Come Too - Still Life Still (No Ripcord Review)

Girls Come Too

Still Life Still
Arts & Crafts Records.

No Ripcord Review: 8
SCQ Rating: 80%

“I like the idea of carpet burns and shower curtains and cum towels, you know? I like to find the beauty in all that, the poetry in all that. That's what I like to write about, the fights, the humanity, the breath, the sound of the breath. I find something glorious about that.” – Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene, Pitchfork Interview, 2007.

One listen through Still Life Still’s debut disc and off I went, rifling through dusty interviews on the web in search of what is re-printed above; namely, a keyhole into Kevin Drew’s lovable dysfunction. This carnal yet romanced viewpoint, which contributed deeply to such BSS-oriented classics as ‘Lover’s Spit’, ‘It’s All Gonna Break’ and ‘TBTF’, has an unforgettable quality not easily sidestepped or ignored. Hell, the fact that I remembered the two-year-old interview in which this excerpt was borrowed should suggest as much. Yet it preludes this review not because Girls Come Too has found its home on the much-beloved Arts & Crafts label (which he co-founded) and not because Drew helped record and mix this debut (although he did). Instead, the ringleader’s quotation sprung to mind because Still Life Still – lyrically, musically, ideologically – encompasses Drew’s visceral raison d’etre. These are sweat-soaked bottle-shards that adequately illustrate an undying lust, one that cuts itself for pleasure, and then cuts again for wanting it.

Of course, as aggressive and impetuous as this East York outfit sound, we’re talking Arts & Crafts, not hardcore punk, and these songs perfectly adhere to the Toronto-based label’s shimmering indie-rock paradigms. ‘Flowers and a Wreath’ draw clear parallels to the spacious mid-tempos and poetic rants of Spirit If…, while ‘Planet’ drifts post-coitus casual, layering bittersweet vocal refrains with the latent urgency of ‘Shampoo Suicide’. Yah sorry, there’s no escaping the Broken Social Scene comparisons; Girls Come Too evokes the collective’s more straight-forward leanings but puts their own cathartic stamp on it with dense, go-for-broke jams and, well, a heavy dose of eroticism. In other words, if you had a beer for every time vocalist Brendon Saarinen sang about sex, you’d be en route to hospital by the record’s last third. What pushes this hormonal preoccupation to the point of aural pornography is ‘T-shirts’, a track that helps distinguish the band from their Arts & Crafts colleagues at the risk of polarizing fans with lyrics like “If you don’t mind my cum on your tits / then I don’t mind your blood on my dick”. Now I don’t take issue with the lyrics so much as how they’re the foundation of a song that is basically a repeated chorus. As a two-minute rush of shock-me-now triggers, ‘T-shirts’ comes dangerously close to a demo or, worse, a gimmick, one that would tarnish Girls Come Too if the other ten songs didn’t stand on their heads the way they do. ‘Knives in Cartoons’ drives a spikier rhythm over dance-ready percussion while ‘Wild Bees’ is the morning-after reflection, offering acoustic details and a touch of dew-eyed sentiment.

Ultimately Still Life Still transcends by disguising their gorgeously moody jams behind “shower curtains and cum towels”, a strategy that first grabs listeners’ attention with lyrical jabs, but eventually unveils an instrumental tenderness that undercuts their sex-stained veneer. Girls Come Too is an orgasm for the heart and proof that while these songs are ideal for the hotheaded, almighty present, this band is looking well beyond the one-night stand. As longtime romantic Kevin Drew can attest, this band is too damned bright to get completely lost in their libidos.

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

Mister Pop - The Clean (No Ripcord Review)

Mister Pop

The Clean
Morr Music

No Ripcord Rating: 5/10
SCQ Rating: 57%

As surely as curious youngsters are digging through their parents’ old Zeppelin and Creedence LPs, curious hipsters are downloading early Clean albums. It’s as inevitable as the past is recyclable; the closer indie-rock came to mining late 70s alt-punk, the wider The Clean’s comeback platform unfurled. And given the fact that Morr Music has recently dedicated itself to modernizing New Zealand’s indie rep (last year’s Surf City EP, this year’s all-star covers double-disc of New Zealand’s alternative scene), it’s no surprise to find Mister Pop arrive via the popular German imprint. Yet for all that groundwork laid – not to mention the anticipation of The Clean’s first album in eight years – Mister Pop feels, well, off-topic… as if Morr’s twelve-month-long surf-rock pandering was built to teach a fatalistic lesson: you can’t go home again.

So erase your expectations of disaffected guitar riffs and proud loser anthems; The Clean aren’t interested in revisiting the past or living up to their pulse-pounding heyday. Instead Mister Pop aims for a psychedelic pleasantness where economic, mid-tempo tunes occasionally cross offbeat, worldly instrumentation. As with any record capable of alluring both carpoolers and stoners, the results here are varied. Lead single ‘In the Dreamlife U Need a Rubber Soul’ best characterizes The Clean’s aged jangle-pop, as relaxed vocals and unwavering structure offer melody but few surprises. The Clientele-esque rattle of ‘Back in the Day’ and Velvet Underground rip-off ‘Factory Man’ follow suite accordingly, showcasing dime-a-dozen chord progressions and lazy lyrics. Sure, nobody mistook The Clean for poets in their prime and I can look beyond each song’s chorus being a verbatim repetition of the song’s title, but clunkers like the spoken-word rambling “I’m not here for a long time / I’m just here for a good time” (‘Back in the Day’) or the aimless “A real-life factory man / and I’m no better than he cause I’m a factory man too” (‘Factory Man’) call into question whether this release is just a cash-in for the band. Thankfully Mister Pop retains some of the quartet's forward-thinking sensibilities with the effects-laden ‘Tensile’ and the barely audible no-wave backbeat of ‘Are You Really On Drugs’. To crudely divide Mister Pop’s straight-forward pop from its synthesizer-driven instrumentals, The Clean manage to give us a few decent guitar riffs. Of course, coming from an eight-year absence, that’s a polite way to infer disappointment.

Where this album truly feels loved by The Clean is on the instrumentals, which are multilayered landscapes of eloquent synths that provide the real personality to Mister Pop. Organic yet mystical, these lyricless passages reintroduce some much-needed uncertainty with the krautrock push of ‘Moon Jumper’ or ‘Simple Fix’s lush swansong. How these twee-approved embellishments help the record are hard to prove, seeing as none of them give Mister Pop the edge it sorely needs. Yet, in the least, the gentle sighs render Mister Pop as intermittently pretty as it is prosaic, and point toward a new, if unstable, direction for the band.

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

1999-2004 - Royal City (Autumn 2009)

1999-2004

Royal City
Asthmatic Kitty Records.

No Ripcord Rating: 8/10
SCQ Rating: 79%

The hazards of B-side compilations are known and revered like almighty tablets of truth; discount these fair warnings and risk feeling ripped off. Such releases are commonly (I.) excused as label cash-ins, (II.) composed of experiments gone awry or rough ideas abandoned and (III.) destined for completists and die-hard fans only. Having obeyed these tablets of truth faithfully throughout the years, I admit my approach to 1999-2004, the posthumous rarities compilation by Royal City, was guarded by a few preconceptions.

And yet I couldn’t ignore the tizzy this release was causing from the band’s hometown of Guelph, Ontario, through their adopted city of Toronto. Magazines and bloggers alike were issuing exclamation-mark riddled statements of “FINALLY” while a collective of well-known Canadian artists recently held a concert-vigil consisting exclusively of Royal City covers. So why all the commotion about a B-sides album? Are the band members reuniting? Is this some mythological album recklessly buried or shelved by a disputing label? No, none of the above. These are last remnants… the odds and sods of a band five years dead, tied lovingly into a hardback package courtesy of Asthmatic Kitty. Its spine smells of suffocated library books, its title reads as an epitaph, graceful but unadorned. That this collection of scraps has been feasted upon so ravenously by press and fans should suggest Royal City were underappreciated during their tenure, and in these twelve songs, Asthmatic Kitty makes a solid bid to multiply the band’s devotees.

As if sequenced to be a revelation, 1999-2004 kicks off with a full-blooded take on Iggy Pop’s ‘Here Comes Success’, matching their knack for folk-rock dynamics with vocalist Aaron Riches’ punk roots. With ‘A Belly Was Made For Wine’ and ‘The Nations Will Sing’, the record settles into mid-tempo rarities that are as welcoming as they are slapdash, sounding impressively live off the floor. Yet the heart of this record recedes from sporadically sunny harmonies, choosing to dwell predominantly in moodier arrangements that reveal Royal City’s true gifts.

Make no mistake, 1999-2004 is a ceiling-watching, wine-drinking assault on one’s fleeting sense of nostalgia. You can feel the supple descent of guitars squeeze your heart as ‘Postcards’ finds Riches refusing all pictures and postcards, both being needless reminders that he’s “blue”. It’s a rain-soaked testimonial to little moments spent alone, an intimacy revisited in the acoustic ‘I Called But You Were Sleeping’ and again in ‘O You With Your Skirt’; a song of such bittersweet memory, its piano-accompanied chorus and wailing harmonica warrant its consideration as one of the year’s best songs… written eight years ago. And speaking of nostalgia, their take on The Strokes’ ‘Is This It?’ is a banjo-led lament, tempered and dreamy in its simplicity.

Of course, such a release occasionally admits its B-side status, digging out a few audible throwaways like the four-track recorded ‘Can’t You Hear Me Calling’ or the endearing ‘Dog Song’; the former merely breathing into harmonica, the latter floating on field-recordings and static. Yet these sketches lend their vulnerable acoustics well to this collection’s autumnal vibe, achieving a cathartic but unconscious rite of passage.

Some of Royal City’s aforementioned die-hards might think I’m a poor advocate for this release, having wandered into the band’s epilogue after missing their story (as well as their three much-loved albums). Yet 1999-2004 is no common compilation, feeling as varied and vital as a new album and, in the process, completely derailing my guarded misconceptions. Yet for those either as new to Royal City as myself or haunted by the hazards of B-sides, be not afraid. 2009 might be Royal City’s most successful year yet.

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

Luminous Night - Six Organs of Admittance (Autumn 2009)

Luminous Night

Six Organs of Admittance
Drag City Records.

No Ripcord Review: 8/10
SCQ Rating: 82%

School of the Flower, my first encounter of Six Organs of Admittance, was the kind of listening-experience that filled a void I’d never actually felt. Pensive and mystical, folky yet at times nearly ambient, that record followed me on snow-scuffled walks to winter’s end. It was a work of chilling comfort, where the instrumentation – not just the lyrics – communicated an ethereal connection with nature, a transition from the isolation of winter to the fruits of spring. Ever since, Ben Chasny’s work as Six Organs of Admittance has held a defiant vacancy in my mind. As influential as School of the Flower was, my perpetual intrigue is more likely caused by the man’s constant output, having issued no less than nine releases since that 2005 album. So when the prolific wanderer offered nothing new last year, I should’ve seen Luminous Night coming.

Commonly, artists of such productive nature inadvertently dull their own impact, spreading their creativity thin over multiple projects instead of patiently crafting one prime set of songs. RTZ, a triple-disc compilation of unavailable tracks released in January, should have been that marker of creative exhaustion, but instead acts as a mopping-up of Chasny’s early lo-fi career. Luminous Night is, without doubt, the commencement of a new chapter; an eloquent package that finds Chasny’s sound fully realized without abandoning those irrefutable Six Organs… trademarks. Each of these eight tracks thrive off their bigger arrangements – most of which are full-band excursions featuring viola, flutes and subtle electronics - as well as the increased studio production heard on Shelter From the Ash. ‘Actaeon’s Fall (Against the Hounds)’ ushers in like opening credits from a period piece, an instrumental of old English folk that separates Luminous Night from earlier works. Those hints of antiquity are complimented by the forward-thinking ‘Anesthesia’, which laments its vengeful lyrics with background hues of psych-folk guitar-work. It’s a beautiful and provocative track made all the more alluring by Chasny’s vocals, which are markedly emboldened, carrying the same poise but with greater command. Dividing the record in half is ‘Cover Your Wounds With the Sky’, a trinkle of piano over drones that prove how capably Six Organs of Admittance can juggle avante-folk with starry ambience.

If School of the Flower had one glaring misstep, it was the title track’s excessive mantra, which circled itself for thirteen minutes (thereby amounting a third of the album’s running-time) while constantly teasing my skip button. This love of repetitive ragas is ever-apparent on Luminous Night but here Chasny has managed to ingrain them with style, locked in groove under a striking viola solo on ‘River of Heaven’. Even with a title so grand, 'River of Heaven' is the closest thing to an epic here, rounding out nicely at seven-plus minutes (unlike The Sun Awakens’ twenty-three minute ‘River of Transfiguration’). With each composition given equal attention and detail, the result is Six Organs of Admittance’s best-conceived offering… lavishly scored and, in some cases, downright sinister. For exit music, we’re confronted with ‘Enemies Before the Light’, a claustrophobic drone that unleashes Chasny’s electric and leads a squall worthy of upsetting any chance for a pretty fade-out. This isn’t psych-folk anymore, for whatever that term was worth. This is goth-folk.

In true form, Luminous Night illustrates the innate mood of a season – in this case, autumn – and although released in the dog days of August, this eleventh official album carries the same nomadic sentiments that feel as honest and imperative as the dying foliage around it. Sequenced beautifully to balance lyrical narratives with haunting instrumentals, it’s another Six Organs of Admittance album… but so much more.

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

Harmonium - The Soundcarriers (No Ripcord Review)

Harmonium

The Soundcarriers
Melodic Records.

No Ripcord Rating: 6/10
SCQ Rating: 63%

Let’s get down to brass-tax for a moment: we all love a good runaway. Ducking out the backdoor, faking a sick day, skirting confrontation, letting sleeping dogs lie. I mean, here we are riding the crest of Foreclosure-America, Recession-Globe, Jihad-Tora Bora, Indie-label Bankruptcy… all of which are jagged rock-tips spiking over black oil and glacier-fresh water. Man, 2009 is one hell of a harsh buzz-kill. Screw it… what say we ditch our day-jobs, borrow your uncle’s van and drive on down the coast? My brother’s shacked up on a farmhouse an hour from San Fran with some draft-dodgers and grass; we can stay with them, live off the land, find some girls, get spiritual. That’s right: I’d say it’s high-time for a 60s revival! When the world’s got you blue, when the pressures of daily life corner you, take that backdoor. Revivalism is the great escape.

Were those naive impressions – captured by The Mamas and the Papas, The Byrds, etc. - really the 60s or was that decade simply the catalyst for every wide-eyed band to mimic and adorn their backwards-looking pop with narcotic-fueled cover-art? In other words, is Harmonium, the first full-length by Nottingham’s The Soundcarriers, a pastiche of flower-power stereotypes or an authentic revivalist record? It’s a question of purpose and integrity, one that this Nottingham-based quartet skillfully rebuffs with ‘Time Will Tell’s patient, percussive build of organ and keys that, when peaked, unleashes a molasses-thick bassline to anchor Leonore’s angelic timbre. Followed quickly by the lingering keys and sporadic bass-momentum of ‘Uncertainty’, Harmonium launches forward like a glorious hybrid of Stereolab and early, Legal Man era Belle and Sebastian. And although the sequencing proves hampered by the constantly mellow groove, The Soundcarriers hit a bullseye with ‘Been Out to Sea’, a track that, despite its title, pushes lazily forward like a humid, desert stumble to cymbal-crashing redemption.

For all the Stereolab or Belle and Sebastian comparisons in the world, Harmonium’s loveliest tracks can only affect so much as throw-back songs. After all, it’s one thing to drink from the same retro well as those artists, but another thing entirely to craft something new from the much-celebrated decade. The vocals on the rather stalemate ‘Volcano’, for example, are no easier to decipher than your average Black Moth Super Rainbow vocoder-overdose, but at least that Pennsylvania-based band is embedding hippie-culture with more freakishness than it can handle. And as soothingly sweet as Leonore’s vocals are a dead-ringer for Trish Keenan’s (of Broadcast), it’s a comparison that finds The Soundcarrier’s hopelessly conservative, unable to either adapt their muse with modern ideas or think beyond songwriting constructs that were radical fifty years ago.

With their clear love of 60s soundtracks and sky-bound psychedelia, combined on ‘Let It Ride’s breezy finale, I can’t deny that I dig what the Soundcarriers are aiming for. Harmonium is as sunny and affable for outdoor get-togethers as it is sexified for one’s swinging bachelor pad. And perhaps I’m pushing what is clearly a talented band to reach further, to surpass their inspirational zeitgeist at the risk of conformity, but a new direction, however uncharted, is always more commendable than taking the revivalist backdoor.

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

Haunt the Upper Hallways - The Declining Winter (No Ripcord Review)

Haunt the Upper Hallways

The Declining Winter
Home Assembly.

No Ripcord Rating: 4/10
SCQ Rating: 47%

Objectivity can be fleeting. Despite my attempts to ignore the band’s name, their snowy cover-art and even their blizzard-loving promotional video, I still hear Haunt the Upper Hallways as a wintry retreat from all civilization. Perhaps it’s unavoidable too… that this Leeds-based group’s clear admiration for cold weather should taint these compositions so. Yet when a band clings to a muse so stringently that it occupies their very identity, I have the habit of pulling back and reassessing. After all, I’m writing and you’re reading this for the music within these beautifully packaged sleeves… so I ask why The Declining Winter couldn’t trust their songs to capture and relate this winterized imagery on their own?

The answer to that question lies in wait throughout Haunt the Upper Hallways, the fourth release by Richard Adams (formerly of Hood) and his ensemble compiled from other bands. As a rising chord progression falls into circular pattern, the title track opens the disc in tense, full-band form with light cymbal taps, accompanying violin and distant voices. Besides its steady build, the track needlessly approaches six minutes and dwarfs most of the subsequent sketch-like tracks… in length if not in quality. The band fares better on focused arrangements like ‘My Name In Ruins’ and ‘Where the Severn Rivers Tread’, the latter succeeds best in evoking their restlessness with shackled rattling and violins crawling over each other before the band tightens into a smooth post-rock trajectory. Despite these frigid folk tunes, the most interesting material on Haunt the Upper Hallways is the segues; ‘Drenched’, all treated layers that might’ve once been vocals and ‘Red Brick Houses’, which loops violins amid growing urgency, are unformed and explorative, representing brief reprieves from this disc’s consistent ‘cabin fever’ vibe.

So why all the snow-blind overkill from The Declining Winter? Well, it’s an easy way to contextualize a lightweight album. In one respect I give props to The Declining Winter for proudly cornering their music into such a narrow and bleak framework but sadly, Haunt the Upper Hallways is as one-note musically as their imagery, no more or less creative than the wintry snapshots of roadways and branches posted on their website. Most of the guitar-based tracks are claustrophobically similar and, for a disc of thirty-one minutes, this mini-album feels gratuitously over-padded. Sure, the remix of ‘Carta’ would be an appropriate finale, what with its manipulated codas providing a warmth indicative of spring (or dare I say it… the declining winter…), but it extends an uneventful six minutes and is then followed by an instrumental mix of another Haunt the Upper Hallways track. For a release of such unique proportions – a 7” bundled with a CD – where the rules are already bent in their favour, why stretch their already thin album thinner? The answer, I’ll wager, is lost in the packaging.

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

Wait For Me - Moby (No Ripcord Review)

Wait For Me

Moby
Mute Records.

No Ripcord Rating: 5/10
SCQ Rating: 56%

As far as artistic relevance goes, Moby has been virtually inactive for nearly a decade. Much of this indifference wasn’t his fault. So the guy became a poster-boy for selling out… but selling out from what, obscurity? It isn’t as though Moby was taken seriously by electronic purists in the first place and besides, this was the 90s; a period of decadence that the 80s is credited with but the 90s pushed to the brink. And tellingly, Play sold over nine million units – a near impossibility by today’s standards – while Moby licensed away all eighteen of the album’s songs for a multitude of movies, TV shows and car commercials. By the time 18 arrived in 2002 with his star-padded video for ‘We Are All Made of Stars’, the indie-rush had already resorted to the garage-rock of yore, and Moby’s soft backlash turned to public disinterest.

Having donned a few metaphorical wigs since, from Hotel’s sterile guitarist to Last Night’s urban DJ, Moby’s new album Wait For Me carries a similar pretext. And while these announcements of genre-hopping begin to sound gimmicky – say, indicative of a once-affirmed artist reaching for inspiration, one music-style at a time – I embraced the idea of Moby-gone-ambient. Described as more personal and insular than past efforts, Wait For Me is a self-produced, bedroom record hell-bent on orchestrated moodiness. On paper (or website, where Moby initially posted the album’s details), this sounds appropriate, as if his microscopic moments of still-life beauty had found sanctuary from his otherwise genial clubbin’ focus. On record, however, these intentions are complicated by an unavoidable truth; namely, that Mr. Richard Melville Hall lacks the compositional chops for anything one would consider understated. What is an ambient album without subtlety? For that matter, what is an electronic album – an implied mood-piece, at that – without texture?

Indeed, what reads like a new direction with Wait For Me is actually stripped-down, bare-boned, predictable Moby, who by aiming for the same aural pleasure-centers, achieves the same tried-and-true results. An immersive opening of finger-picked, morose guitar sinks suddenly into a mid-tempo instrumental (‘Scream Pilots’) that recalls to a fault the elementary-level piano twinkling that made ‘Porcelain’ so popular. A smoky-voiced female carries ‘JLTF’ through another series of simple piano progressions while Moby contributes his Bowie-lite vocals on ‘Mistake’, a New Order-esque anthem that begs to avoid making the same errors of the past all over again. Urg… is now the right time to just level with him? With such rigid, pace-keeping use of percussion and a bevy of comfortable chord movements, Wait For Me is listenable – at times downright likeable – but tantamount to Moby’s past mistakes.

What makes this déjà-vu frustrating is that Wait For Me begins its sorrowful dive in rather graceful form, setting the tone with a mournful synth piece before engaging some tiptoed bass and restrained breakbeats in ‘Pale Horses’. Carrying effortlessly into the compressed guitar and live drums of first single ‘Shot in the Back of the Head’, Moby’s ability to evoke a feeling, a time and place – however syndicated – earns our attention outright. Then the wheels start coming off; ‘Study War’ reclaims the banal art of littering spoken-word samples over sappy orchestration, allowing what sounds like an old Evangelical to repeat, ad nauseum, “the battle will be over”. There’s no context, nothing to connote an impression that this “battle” is anything more than universal rhetoric, or proof that Moby isn’t through reducing gospel to repetitive nonsense quite yet. And that’s without exploring the ankle-deep spirituality of the title track’s lyrics, which progress as such: “I’m going to ask you to look away / I love my hands but it hurts to pray”. In their generic artifices, these tracks betray the quiet resolve of Wait For Me’s better material, reminding us that as intelligent as Moby (the humanitarian, the all-around nice guy) is, he’s inexplicably taxed to create anything deeper than healing music for drama kids.

Despite the inclusion of those clunkers, Wait For Me remains Moby’s most interesting album since Play, trading his ADD stylistic jumps of that 1999 breakthrough for a more meditative, cohesive affair. A risky move, one that pays off (with the mysterious ‘Ghost Outfit’, the elegant ‘Isolate’) as seldom as it truly screws up. Between these two extremes lies the majority of Wait For Me, which hugs the middle of the road with such caution, it’s strenuous to either love or hate. In a desert-island neck-and-neck, this would easily be my Moby album of choice, not because it’s his best, and not because its cover-art is only useful for building a campfire. Here’s a record you can zone in or out of with equal concentration; that’s about as close to ambient as Moby will ever get.

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

Harmony Handgrenade - Oxygen Ponies (No Ripcord Review)

Harmony Handgrenade

Oxygen Ponies
Hidden Target Records.

No Ripcord Rating: 7/10
SCQ Rating: 73%

“When life gives you lemons… make them hand grenades!” is the anonymous claim headlining the Oxygen Ponies’ website, and despite the twenty-one members who contribute to the band, the source of such a statement could only be Paul Megna. The centerpiece of an orbiting – and overwhelming – mythology, Megna’s biography is vividly crafted to include tales of childhood trauma, being shot in the neck by a sniper, saving his girlfriend during a suicide-attempt, and bailing on his wedding. To boot, the ringleader of Oxygen Ponies is dutifully compared to all-stars of 20th century misery, citing Megna’s place next to Elliott Smith, Leonard Cohen, and Nick Drake. If such a biography fails to proclaim Megna as the king of understatement, it’s no surprise that Harmony Handgrenade goes one further; a boisterous, dramatic and occasionally jarring collection that, as suggested, forms impressive sonic-weapons out of sour memories.

For all the stories and theories about this songwriter’s enigmatic persona, it’s Megna’s voice, drowsy yet ferocious, that sells his oft-unfathomable history. Such sorrow is palpable despite the jaunty tempo of ‘Tryna Get to Heaven’, and equally in-limbo between hopeless and hopeful on the stirring ‘Love Yr Way’, which moves from lilting acoustics to a full-band crescendo of choir and strings. As often as compositions retaliate suddenly, Harmony Handgrenade crests on rock-steady American folk-rock, treating these ten tracks like heavy heaves or quiet sighs. ‘Fevered Cyclone’ is a white-flag call to a lover, replete with ambling percussion, yet one track later, on the bar-band riffs of ‘The War is Over’, Megna appears to have moved on to seduce a new complication. One can’t help but suggest that these conflicts and lemons in his life lay at the roots of his muse, as Oxygen Ponies’ best tracks are commonly his moodiest. ‘Villains’ delves into minor-key guitar patterns and twinkling piano that should creep and comfort one’s overcast day, and while it plateaus out much like its “long drive home” lyrical refrain, the arrangement sheds sunlight and, eventually, sheer volume on the road ahead. Moments this heartrending forcefully outweigh the few casual rockers (‘Smile’) and overblown arrangements (‘Grab Yr Gun’) present, coming to identify Harmony Handgrenade as the powerful sophomore album of, yes, a potential songwriting genius.

Perhaps the most relevant aspect of Paul Megna’s curious biography is that he starred in an off-Broadway play as Kurt Cobain, during which Jeff Buckley trained him on a Fender and Megna began writing his own material. It’s a true account that questions how Oxygen Ponies have remained an undiscovered act these past years. While I haven’t any leads as to why that is, I can tell you an autobiographical story of my own. In the twilight hours of a misty July night, I wearily took to the streets and haphazardly decided to indulge my first listen of Harmony Handgrenade. Miles from sleep in a hometown where taxis are mirages, I should’ve entrusted my tired ears to something familiar, yet not only did my first impression of Oxygen Ponies insist on a second listen, I eventually arrived home having spun the record three times. If anything will jolt this band out of obscurity, it won’t be stories of sniper-wounds or comparisons to Nick Drake. It’ll be Harmony Handgrenade… the one statement that matters.

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