North Lakes isn’t a
folk band; that’s the realization these Prince Edward Island natives arrived at
shortly after touring for their debut album Cobra. Two years later, Grand Prix
is the summation of that insight, a quick dose of high-octane rock and roll.
Chocked full of classic rock chords and speedway-on-cocaine tempos, the likes
of “Avalanche” and “Vixen” ascend bar-band riffs and ride them until they’ve
lost their punch.
Since the element of
surprise usually topples around the two-and-a-half minute mark, that makes
Grand Prix’s twenty-four minutes a pretty swift kick in the ass. Melodically
“Vixen” has the upper hand on the competition, trading spoken-word swagger and
jangly guitar with a memorably boisterous chorus. While everything preceding
that closing track carries a comparable confidence, tracks such as “Grab Me By
the Lapel” and “The Holy Water” thrash about in a bid to defend vulnerable
centers. By no means are North Lakes trying to dress these songs up; each feels
pretty upfront in their passion for straightforward, drunk-in-the-sun jams but
that’s precisely where this album should remain – in the midst of lost weekends.
North Lakes make
some convincing Can-Con noise with “Hands-Off Director” and “Baptism In
Burgundy”, enough so that I’d feel lame delving into some perceived mastering
flaws because I don’t think fans are going to care. For some, Grand Prix will be lovable as much for its limitations as for its strengths.
An oft forgotten joy
of buying from Bandcamp is that you receive a kind Thank You email courtesy of
the artist you’ve just supported. It isn’t really the musicians writing you a
personal note of gratitude of course but, with the state of the industry and
the financial effects it imposes on artists, the email still feels genuine enough
to give you good vibes all evening. On the other hand, the Thank You email one
receives from buying on Chris Reimer’s Bandcamp page induces an unsettling mix of emotions; the same
disbelief, sadness and confusion felt across the independent music scene when
the untimely death of Chris Reimer, Women guitarist and burgeoning solo artist,
was announced in February.
Opening my inbox to
find an email from “Chris Reimer” with his thanks was enough to resurface those
surreal sentiments, but The Chad Tape goes miles further in explaining exactly
what we’ve lost. “Trees Die In Switzerland” lurches into earshot with a
detuned acoustic dirge and distant flute melody married by some low-end
feedback rustling around. The graceful, understated nature of it reveals that,
for one thing, The Chad Tape is a collection of ambient music. But moreover,
Chris Reimer had a keen ear for the challenging genre that anyone can do, but
few do well.
The dichotomy
applied to “Trees Die In Switzerland”, where a soothing lead shares space with
undercurrents of despair and seclusion, deepens many of the tracks collected
by Reimer’s loved ones. “Finnish Song (2)” evokes a barren landscape where
found-sounds clatter across its plain while, on “Overweight Motorcycle Cops”,
some outdoor field-recordings are caught between a tragic violin arrangement
and some curious synths loitering nearby.
The latter track,
which fades out within a minute of getting really interesting, reminds
listeners that The Chad Tape was unfinished at the time of Reimer’s passing.
Although it’s impossible to know how this record might’ve sounded as a complete
artistic statement, The Chad Tape echoes the approach Reimer, Chad VanGaalen
(who mastered this cassette), and the rest of Women brought to that band’s stunning
catalog: dense but seemingly vacant production, a hopeful yet menacing duality, and illuminating hooks despite all of the music’s dark corners. Which is to say, The Chad
Tape wouldn’t sound unfinished if not for our tragic understanding to the
contrary; at most, its current incarnation would’ve probably earned a few more ‘avant-garde’
accolades, had Reimer lived to receive them.
The Chad Tape is
limited to 200 copies and going quickly. Proceeds from physical and digital
sales will benefit the Chris Reimer Legacy Fund, which provides music and dance
scholarships to children. Support and listen here.
I traveled once to
Banff, Alberta, and was lucky enough to drive through the Rocky Mountains.
Their foggy snowcaps and rocky ledges aping upward were stupefying to stand
witness to. But after hours winding around their beauty, it all began to lose
scale; only so many successive highs and sprawling vistas can motivate someone before
the stimulation turns over, in effect draining the sightseer until they’re
transient gazers merely taking photographs to appreciate later. Similarly
Lights Out Asia only know how to make epic records and eventually that poses a
problem. Listeners can appreciate the band’s vision, to create shimmering aural
worlds to wander through, but with each likeminded marathon, the scale wobbles;
big downgrades to average, explosive crescendos become expected and the whole
weight of the project turns tedious.
Lights Out Asia (now
the duo of Mike Ystad and Chris Schafer, since guitarist Mike Rush departed)
have taken to the boundaries of their collective imagination to find ways of
contextualizing this scale; 2010’s In the Days Of Jupiter went into the far
reaches of space and this 2012 effort occupies a mysterious,
almost-definitely fictitious island. An inventive association with terrain
makes sense for a band so adept at creating atmosphere but it can’t ground
Hy-Brasil’s seventy-minute runtime when it’s sonically still up in space. This
new odyssey sounds exactly like In the Days Of Jupiter – and, in no small way,
like earlier albums – as if Lights Out Asia haven’t traded in so much as a
pedal or guitar-effect since they signed to n5MD five years ago. Right out of
the gate, that stagnancy kills any conceptual elements Hy-Brasil had considered
playing with.
Geographical
indifference aside, a track like “Running Naked Through Underground Cities” reveals
that the n5MD mainstays still have ample fuel in the tank with a richly
hypnotic, four-by-four bass line pushing a smeared synth track of Schafer’s
remotely romantic, multi-tracked vocals. Concise but yearning, it sits near the
crest of the band’s high watermark, 2007’s Tanks and Recognizers. Unlike that
record, however, where two alien languages – post-rock and electronica –
assembled into something at once cohesive and earthshakingly combative,
Hy-Brasil’s merger feels rooted in habit, not catharsis, and nullifies both the
ferocious and atmospheric halves of the Lights Out Asia brand. As a result, supposedly
emotional slow-burners like “An Imperfect System” and “They Disappear Into the
Palms” drift redundantly by.
It pains me to see
Lights Out Asia let their trademark sound and ambition drain into the same
bloated framework, where more upsurges and climaxes mean increasingly less and less. At this
stage the best thing Lights Out Asia can do is record a four-song EP using only
acoustic instruments and analog electronics. Sure it would mean retooling the
whole process and educating themselves on some new hardware, but the results
would accomplish more than this reverse shock-and-awe. They’d be establishing fresh
contrast to a discography that, after Hy-Brasil, sorely needs a change in direction.
August, while still
very much a summer month, is when I habitually begin collecting records that'll keep me company during autumn. Like some process of reverse hibernation,
I store up all of these anticipated release dates for that day the humidity falls, a cool breeze begins rising and I can step outside revitalized.
What I’m trying to
say is that August is a stupid time to unveil Skeleton Crew Quarterly’s Summer
Records feature; the anticipation is long gone and the season’s hottest days
are already waning. Had I not spent the past two months living out of suitcases
and being separated from my laptop, my music or both, SCQ’s Summer Records 2012
would’ve posted sometime in June. Still, by no means should these three titles be
restrained by dwindling temperatures when each stunner will be blasting from
Skeleton Crew Quarterly’s new office well into the colder months.
Have a listen,
breathe in these summer days and welcome the change in the air.
At the present
moment, it’s easy to take a band like Tanlines for granted. Upon first listen,
they cater to the same blog-fueled craze for 80s reinvention that’s virtually
too crowded a scene to pick names out of. From that assessment alone, Tanlines
efficiently checklists a myriad of obvious qualifications: lots of dated
synths, echoed drum patterns, and morose but catchy choruses. But what stubbornly
renders Tanlines essential listening in 2012 can be deduced less from that
New-Wave formula but how the Brooklyn–based duo toys with it.
Coarsely put, Jesse
Cohen and Eric Emm filter Cut/Copy’s vein of anthemic 80s-for-indie-kids’ cool
down to its most visceral gears. By deconstructing much of the gloss and
frills, Mixed Emotions boasts strengths that pack a more human punch than your
average, overproduced synth-athon. Emm’s vocals, which add an impassioned
urgency to each track, sit front and center on defused techno highlights “Not
The Same” and “Brothers” while Cohen keeps the record’s percussive flair
inimitable by adding a tribal sense of momentum to even-keeled tracks like
“Lose Somewhere” and “Real Life”.
Mixed Emotions still
has a luxurious vibe that comes naturally to fun electro-pop records, showcased
most exquisitely on “Rain Delay”, “Abbey” and the sentimental “Nonesuch”, but it's never used as a means of covering for one-dimensional songwriting. Tanlines is worthy
of honing the 80s muse because their hands-on approach never confuses man with
machine.
Simon Scott’s first
release on the 12K imprint deserves mention firstly for being his most
personal. Below Sea Level is the culmination of two years the former Slowdive
drummer spent visiting the Fens marshland in eastern England – a spot both
agriculturally controversial and sentimental to Scott’s childhood – to track
field recordings and expose the musicality of his memories. The results lay as
the backbone to these seven tracks, over which Scott blurred guitar and
synthesizer, in real time, during his stays there.
As well as
representing Scott’s childhood and ancestral ties, Below Sea Level proves a
remarkable merger of purely organic soundscapes and leftfield electronics; in
short, because it’s often difficult to dissect which is which. Tracks two and
three (note: each track is numerical as sequenced) bleed like reedy drones
under the wavering of looping harmonics and swathes of digital backwash. But
just as often, Scott steps back from the ambient tussle and lets the landscape
speak back in birdcalls, amphibian croaks, water ripples, and nearby machinery.
The reality of Scott’s location causes a virtual standstill during track four,
overwhelming any traditional song-form, whereas it weaves a bubbling catharsis
into track seven’s celestial electronics. Best yet are the tracks where Scott
fingerpicks some guitar into the aural scenery, providing bucolic timbres of
psychedelia that are simple but inspiring.
To those few
listeners aware of the territory’s conflicted history, Below Sea Level will
likely plumb deeper emotional depths but even oblivious fans should ascribe to
the record’s stark and seasonal affinity. In some cases, Scott seems to be
playing for the present moment, merely coexisting with a complicated patch of
nature. In its most satisfying moments, however, Below Sea Level sounds like a poignant
farewell.
