It's Never Been Like That - Phoenix (RIPPED OFF '07)

It’s Never Been Like That

Phoenix
Arts & Crafts Records.

SCQ Rating: 78%

Something I purchased in January of 07, I immediately understood why their third album was featured in several year-end lists of 2006. I recall sitting on my bed, beginning to memorize lyrics and melodies as I played the record repeatedly, and being blown away that I was so comfortable and familiar with an album I had only owned for several hours.

I can’t recall an album latching itself onto anyone who casually hears it like It’s Never Been Like That since Weezer’s Blue Album. It’s quirkiness and brevity matched with such power-pop sensibilities comes off nearly as flawlessly. Unlike that seminal 1994 release, however, I cannot vouch for any Phoenix song to have the lasting impact as any given song off that self-titled effort. While ‘Long Distance Call’ or ‘Courtesy Laughs’ play well blaring from your car stereo or any social gathering with friends, it won’t be chosen when you’re on your own, opting for a night alone. Despite the often sunny disposition of Weezer’s debut effort, there was considerable depth in the band’s songwriting and River Cuomo’s lyrics which made it ideal for both drunken celebration and worthless self-pity.

So why make a comparison between Phoenix and Weezer, back when Weezer mattered? For two reasons: 1) I’d wager this band is capable of writing an album superior to this one; as fun as INBLT but deeper in mood and complexity, and 2) because INBLT lacks that dimension that divides flippantly off-the-cuff indie records from classics. The fact that this record requires a particular listening environment is what keeps it from greatness.

The Humbucking Coil - B. Fleischmann (RIPPED OFF '07)

The Humbucking Coil

B.Fleischmann
Morr Music Records.

SCQ Rating: 80%

I had wanted to purchase this several times throughout 2006, but failed to locate it until by accident in February of 07. Zangief and I were on a record-run during a weekend of drinking; he picked up Deerhoof’s Friend Opportunity, I grabbed Mr. B.Fleischmann. The two day venture was mostly soundtracked by Do Make Say Think and Xiu Xiu, but on the morning I left, I connected to the mellow electronic tones which felt all too nostalgic as I stared over the winter balcony into a city I’d lived in for quite some time, and would be leaving for far longer.

B. Fleischmann has long been an essential contributor to the Morr Music sound, and ‘Broken Monitors’ proves how indispensable his relaxed beats are to the German label’s impressive catalogue. The focus of Humbucking Coil is Fleischmann’s interest in the guitar, and throughout this tight eight-song collection, he weaves its subtle tones into memorable slow-grooves. For those who argue it can become homogenous, they’re not wrong; Fleischmann turns the same trick here more than twice. But it’s hard to argue with such lovely results, especially with collaborator Christof Kurzmann taking occasional vocal duties. It’s a well-planned album and a must-listen/first-step for anyone interested in discovering electronica.

At Home With Owen - Owen (RIPPED OFF '07)

At Home With Owen

Owen
Polyvinyl Records.

SCQ Rating: 81%

Another early January purchase, I eagerly picked up Owen’s latest after nobody responded to its exclamation on my 2006 Christmas list. Falling hard for Owen’s earlier EP No Good for No One Now, I was merely interested in this new release until I heard ‘Bad News’ on the internet and officially changed my record-buying priorities. Not only Owen’s first studio-recorded collection of songs, but also noteworthy in his newly married, reluctantly domesticated lyrical references, At Home With Owen proves he’s still a smartass in his relationship woes, but with age, he’s garnering some wisdom as well.

If his previous output (mostly recorded in a bedroom of his mother’s house) begged the question of what songwriter Mike Kinsella could do with a studio, At Home With Owen’s expansive sound answers quickly, as heard in the echoed piano and thudding percussion of ‘Bad News’. Kinsella remains as quick-witted lyrically as he is reliable musically, with ‘The Sad Waltzes of Pietro Crespi’ beginning like a classic Owen tune until warm strings rise and swoon the song into a beautiful close.

Most touching of all is the feeling that Kinsella is looking further down the road these days. Never one to mince words, his lyrical verve leans more toward rites of passage: marriage, commitment and death, which resonates best on ‘One of These Days’, which comments on the passing of Kinsella’s father amid a cascade of twinkling piano and folky guitar. Mixing his indie-edge in such soft arrangements makes this album his most accomplished to date.

When the Angels Make Contact - Matt Mays (RIPPED OFF '07)

When the Angels Make Contact

Matt Mays
Warner Canada Records.

SCQ Rating: 85%

This I did get for Christmas in 2006, and quickly became immersed in my third Matt Mays album in as many years. It’s a strange album, given that it’s a soundtrack to a movie that was never completed, but it’s a Neil Young-strangeness that awards some props to a young artist who shows little regard for what genre fans might like to pigeon-hole him into.

After conquering folk, roots-rock and Springsteen-grandeur on his first two albums (one mostly acoustic, the second entirely electric), When the Angels Make Contact finds Mays mixing the aforementioned with electronic instruments, hip-hop and frankly, the best production (courtesy of El Torpedo’s Tim Jim Baker and Mays himself) for some of Mays best songs. Perhaps because of the unfinished film’s subject matter (a biker who searches the brink of mortality for his lost love), songs like ‘Spoonful of Sugar’ and the title track feel emotionally troubled compared to Mays’ earlier work, while ‘Rough N’ Tumble Come Down’ sounds down-right dangerous in fantastic fashion.

Truthfully, some of the songs within this 18 track behemoth are so convincing, I’ve occasionally daydreamed about how perfect this record would’ve been had he ditched 40% of the album (the soundtrack-y interludes, mostly) and kept the absolute essential ten songs. It would’ve been a contender for album of the year, or at the very least, my #1 Truly Ripped Off Album of 07.

"Oh You're So Silent, Jens" - Jens Lekman (RIPPED OFF '07)

“Oh You’re so Silent, Jens”

Jens Lekman
Secretly Canadian Records.

SCQ Rating: 87%

Purchased shortly after Christmas 06, this album became my sudden obsession. It was like a new relationship; one I would study over the details of daily listening and weigh the aspects I loved versus the occasional thing that irritated me. And while this collection of vinyl and singles contains both things I love and disregard, it’s so charming in its sequencing and raw melancholy that I couldn’t help but fall in love with it. It’s better than the recent Night Falls Over Kortedala, which featured on my Top Albums of 2007, but sadly, Jens released this in 2005 and I was probably lost in Broken Social Scene at that time.

Luckily, Lekman was as sample-happy then as he is now, with several of these samples completely lifted from its source artists (Lekman openly admits to this, stating that he only stole them because he couldn’t afford to pay the $$$ to ‘borrow’ them). As is expected, these samples are used perfectly, from the Belle and Sebastian swagger of ‘Black Cab’ to the Avalanches’ influence of ‘Maple Leaves’. With a songwriting talent as diverse as Lekman’s, the only way to really identify one of these samples is if you’ve heard the original; otherwise it fits in as another great song in this young crooner’s catalogue.

At seventeen tracks and compiled of several 7-inch singles and EPs, “Oh You’re So Silent, Jens” is surprisingly fluent albeit a few mediocre tracks. ‘Pocketful of Money’ suffers from a baritone-heavy chorus that quickly itches your stereo-remote finger, while ‘F-Word’, with its recordings of neighbourhood alley-cats calling out, is simply overshadowed by the songs around it. For those aching over last year’s Night Falls Over Kortedala, I beseech you to hear this compilation album of Jen’s finest folk and balladry.

You, You're a History in Rust - Do Make Say Think (RIPPED OFF '07)

You, You’re a History in Rust

Do Make Say Think
Constellation Records.

SCQ Rating: 84%

“What!?!”, you say, “but that album came out in 2007!!”

Yeah, I know. That’s why it’s by far the most Truly Ripped Off record on my list. There was little doubt that History in Rust belonged on my Best of… list back in the Spring of 07, when a friend burned it for me (as he had scored an advanced copy at their London show in February), but because I hadn’t purchased it before finalizing my year-end list, the rogue CDR in the group had to go.

DMST’s latest became a personal record for me during a two-week trek of Nova Scotia. Wandering the streets of Halifax and its barren outskirts, I kept History in Rust in my headphones to keep warm and decide whether I wanted to put down roots in this port-city. The fragile beauty of opener ‘A With Living’ and ‘A History In Rust’ present a pastoral folk-rock that felt perfect for walking the rural backroads of Eastern Canada, while ‘Bound to Be that Way’ and ‘The Universe!’ shake off any rust with shredding instrumentals.

You, You’re a History in Rust stayed with me on my trip back to Ontario and subsequent move to Toronto. Forgive me, DMST… but know that as last month, I finally purchased your late great record and it inspired me to raise my hat to all of those uncelebrated in the past year.