Some of what I've been listening to lately..

• Wye Oak - Citizen. This is their third, and latest, record - came out in March. Sadly, I'm having a hard time loving it the way I love their previous record ("The Knot"). The songs on this seem fuller, but smaller; they do more, but in less space. These songs are polished, but it's the jagged edges that make the previous album great - the dreamy, quiet parts would explode into crushing, crashing, not-quite-chaos, then relax back into dreamy. These songs just don't get as quiet nor as loud, and there is less open space - it's usually filled in with keyboards or guitars or something. Ultimately, I think, the difference is that "Civilian" it has less tension than "The Knot". But, that said, it's actually a really good record(!), overall, and some of the songs are great: "Holy, Holy, Holy" which feels like a "Knot" song, and "Dogs Eyes" and its Pinback-style metronomic groove and chaotic breaks, the loud folk title track - all great (and appear in that sequence). It's just not as jaw-dropping, on the whole, as the previous record.
  Four laquos: ««««

  See also: Wye Oak covers Danzig

• The Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree. This is my first Mountain Goats record. The usually-derisive commenters at the A/V Club rave about the Mountain Goats. So, thinking they Mountain Goats must therefore be awesome, I bought this.

  Within two minutes it was obvious that the star of this show is the lyrics. It's definitely not the music, which rarely goes beyond simple and pleasant, and seems to work hard at staying in the background. It's not the singer's voice, which is neither technically pretty enough to be admired, nor quirky enough to be interesting. That leaves the words: the earnest, personal and melodramatic words. They remind me of Michael Cera movies: the adventures of late-teen/20-ish kids with sad doe eyes who sometimes discover something amazing about themselves and bravely run down the safe streets of their own neighborhood at night in celebration; or they go to a party, fall in love with the most unassuming kid in their school, and learn something about themselves; but mostly they just sit on the steps and think twee, melancholy thoughts about themselves. This is the first record that's ever made me feel old.
  One laquo: «

Let's listen to... Belly!

You are experiencedwelcome.

The studio version of this is on an early-90's Hendrix tribute record called "Stone Free". Lot of good stuff on there. ex. Jeff Beck + Seal doing "Manic Depression", MACC (aka Temple Of The Dog) doing "Hey Baby", Pretenders doing "Axis...", etc..

Let's listen to Tenpole Tudor!

Yu R WelKm!

My favorite X records of the year.

1. Erykah Badu - New Amerykah, Pt.2
   Jazzy, freaky soul. Pretty wild stuff. Way outside my normal zone, but it's awesome. Gonna have to get some more of her stuff.
   

2. LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening. Feels strange to be listening to something, in 2010, that sounds so much like it could've been made in 1988. But, my only real complaint is the length of the songs: half of them are over 7 minutes long. Other than that, it's catchy, clever, fun and doesn't scare my wife out of the room. Win!
   

3. Spoon - Transference. For some reason I always think I dislike this. But then I play it and realize it's actually pretty good.
   

4. Carolina Chocolate Drops - Genuine Negro Jig. A mix of old-time jug band, bluegrass, traditional Piedmont folk. It's got a nice spontaneous feel and sounds like they had fun playing this.
   

5. Vampire Weekend - Contra. Though that Honda commercial is quickly killing the song "Holiday" for me, it's still a fun record.
   

6. Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record
   It usually loses me in the second half, but I really like the first half.
   

7. Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest. Sounds like a mixture of a bunch of things that I love but could only find in bands that either don't exist anymore (Syd Barret, Neutral Milk Hotel) or don't sound like that anymore (Rogue Wave). They all combine to form a sound I wish more bands would pick up. Until some do, this will suffice.
   

• David Bowie - Hunky Dory - The only song I really knew from this one was "Changes", so I didn't really know what to expect from the rest of it. I'd heard his early stuff was folky, singer-songwritery, so I kindof thought it would be low-key and not really Ziggy-esque. Well, surprize! It sounds pretty much exactly like Ziggy, but with the strut and swagger turned down a couple of notches. So, that's cool. I finally got to hear the original "Quicksand", which I'd only known from Dinosaur Jr's (excellent) cover - which also incorporates the flamenco guitar bit from Hunky Dory's "Andy Warhol" as the intro. Also cool. I like it. It's nice to hear something that sounds like Ziggy without having to listen to the great, but overplayed, Ziggy again.
  Three laquos: «««

• Neil Young - Le Noise. This is a recording made by someone who loves the sound of electric guitars. There are a couple of acoustic things, but most of the songs sound like he plugged his guitar into a fuzz box then plugged that straight into the recorder - a huge, dry, chunky roar. Sometimes he adds some phase effects, or a chorus or whatever. And over that, he sings about war, drugs, how the White Man killed everything, etc. - stuff he often sings about. But it's just vocals and guitars. And it sounds like he probably recorded it quickly, without a big studio - a basement recording maybe. The electric playing is loose and spontaneous, the guitar sounds are raw, the mixes are funky, demo-quality. It's like hearing Neil's version of the kind of thing amateur musicians all over the world do all the time. A couple of the songs are pretty good, especially the acoustic "Love And War". But mostly it's just interesting, to me.
  Two laquos: ««

• Cee Lo Green - The Lady Killer. I bought it on great reviews, but aside from that hyper-catchy "Fuck You" song and maybe the 70's-throwback "Satisfied", it's just not my thing. I'm just not a fan of the modern R&B.
  One laquos: «

• Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man - Out Of Season. Beth Gibbons is the distinctively witchy voiced singer for the trip-hop group Portishead, and she did this record back in 02, while Portishead was on hiatus. Here, instead of doing the beat-based, electronic thing, she went for more traditional styles: jazz standards, Nick Drake-ish folk, R&B. Still, Gibbons' voice and the darkness of the songs (lots of hushed, slow, minor key things) and their arrangements keep things solidly on the eerie side.
  Three laquos: «««

• Stereolab - Not Music. I like Stereolab, but I honestly can't tell their albums apart. Except for "Dots And Loops", which was the first one I ever bought, they all just blend together. At best, I can distinguish their early stuff (which rocked a bit) from their later stuff (which is much smoother). And this could be any of their later records. Though I know it just came out, it feels like I might already own this. I can't tell.
  Two laquos: ««

• Deerhunter - Halcyon Days. Thank you, commenters, for alerting me to this band. Within 30 seconds, I was thinking that this was the sound I wish Rogue Wave had evolved into. Take the psych-folk that RW used to have and break it down a bit, add more space, add some effects and a touch of electronics, but don't add any sugar. Take away sweetness, in fact. Love it.
  Four laquos: «««

1. Them Crooked Vultures - The Crooked Vultures - It's John Paul Jones [Zeppelin] on bass, Dave Grohl [Nirvana, Foo Fighters] on drums and Josh Homme [Queens Of The Stone Age and Eagles Of Death Metal] on guitar and vocals. That's a hell of a mix, on paper. Josh Homme, because his singing and guitar work has such a distinctive melodic style, tends to dominate the songs. And so a lot of it sounds a lot like QotSA. And that's fine, because I like QotSA. Grohl is a monster drummer, and he doesn't let up on this. Jones has never been a really flashy bass player and he pretty much keeps to the background here - which is fine since Grohl and Homme provide plenty of flash. Good stuff, especially if you're a Queens Of The Stone Age Fan.
   Three raquos: »»»

2. Rogue Wave - Permalight - Two albums ago, Rogue Wave was a low-key, slightly psychedelic, folk-rock band - strumming their quirky somewhat-melancholy songs on acoustic guitars. Now, they're a shiny alternative pop band with keyboards and loud electric guitars. The change happened with their last record, "Asleep at Heaven's Gate", when they ditched the strummy acoustic folk feel of their first two records in favor of a bigger, louder, thicker sound. But that record felt tentative, as if they weren't sure about the new sound. It never really rocked, and it didn't have the intimate feel of the previous stuff either.It just kinda sat there. Well, they're over it now. This one comes out swinging, loud and proud: happy chirpy keyboards are everywhere; the drums are tight, precise, compressed; the guitars are loud; dynamics! background vocals! A few of the songs actually rock - though in a giddy, singsong way. It's better. They're not the Rogue Wave of their first records (the one that I love), but they've committed to this new sound and that makes them a better Rogue Wave than they were last time out.
   Three raquos: »»»

3. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Some Loud Thunder - Their first record was unexpected and quirky and catchy. This one is long on quirky but way short on catchy, and the sound is no longer unexpected. So, it just kinda drags.
   Two raquos: »»

4. Bauhaus - In The Flat Field - Wow. Wha wha wha what a great re re record. I'm pretty bummed that I waited 30 years to get it. This would've kicked ass in college. The drums and bass lock down the song; Peter Murphy sneers and bellows his horror-show lyrics; Daniel Ash's guitar howls and screeches over all of it. That's the formula, and they mostly stick to it - maybe a little too tightly. Plus this is the re-issued version with all kinds of extra songs and takes, so it goes on a lot longer than the original. Still, the formula really works - the parts are all great, and work great together. You just need to be careful to not take too much of it at once.
   Four raquos: »»»»

• Arcade Fire - Funeral. So, I recently really listened to Arcade Fire for what might be the first time. Previously, I had only heard a couple of songs here and there and I thought they sounded something like Magnetic Fields. And that was enough to keep me from wanting to hear more. Then they did a couple of songs on The Daily Show last month; and while I didn't really get into the songs, the fact that they didn't sound much like what I thought Arcade Fire sounded like was enough to get me to give the band a second chance. And then I bought this record, and discovered that most new bands sound like Arcade Fire.

  But who or what does Arcade Fire sound like to me? I mean, as opposed to all the bands who sound like Arcade Fire. Well, after listening to this record a few times, plus seeing them play live (on TV anyway), two bands immediately come to mind: Broken Social Scene and the New Pornographers. All three of these bands are large (in terms of members), Canadian, and they all do a lot of dense, large-scale, multi-part anthems:

  Arcade Fire, Neighborhood #1.
  New Pornographers, Bleeding Heart Show.
  Broken Social Scene, Forced To Love.

  And since I like BSS and The New Pornos, and because I think Arcade Fire's sound is close to those two bands, I obviously must like Arcade Fire, too. Right?

  Right. Mostly.

  But! I think Broken Social Scene is the more interesting of the three. And I think the New Pornographers' best songs are better than anything I've heard from either of the other two.

  What bugs me about Arcade Fire is that I hear their sound everywhere. Probably 75% of the new bands I've heard in the past couple of years have songs that sound exactly like Arcade Fire songs. Here's the formula:

  1. Moderately brisk drums, very straight, very steady.
  2. One instrument, strings probably, plays a simple and very slow moving melody, often using very long notes. Major key. Big dramatic resolutions.
  3. Another instrument might play a quicker, simple repeating melody in the background.
  4. The singer cries. (This is very important!)
  5. The volume slowly builds until the chorus when the whole thing explodes and the singer cries as loud as he can. (also very important!)
  6. Repeat.

  Three raquos: »»»

• Sam Prekop - Old Punch Card. Prekop is the singer and rhythm (non-lead?) guitar player for the Sea And Cake (and he also shows up on Broken Social Scene's new record, which was produced by the Sea And Cake's drummer, John McEntire - and the two bands are touring together this fall). Prekop has put out two solo records which sound a lot like stripped-down, mid-period, Sea And Cake records (while the solo stuff by the other guitar player, Archer Prewitt, sounds nothing like SnC). I love those Sam Prekop solo records. Love em. So, I was pretty excited to see a new Prekop solo record was coming out.

  I imported the CD into iTunes and played the first track - wide eyed, big smile, anticipating. And I hear electronic bleeps and boops and clicking and sweeping. And I think... my, this is a long intro... And four minutes later, that track ends and it wasn't an intro to anything. OK, so he did a Musique concrète track. Track two will be a real song! Bazzztttt... booooop. Whirrrrr. OK maybe iTunes imported the CD incorrectly. Maybe the MP3s are corrupt. Maybe...? I play the CD directly, skipping iTunes. Same thing. Bad CD? Did Thrill Jockey screw up and send me a data CD ? check the printing on it, nope, says it's Prekop's new CD.

  I check the Thrill Jockey description of the record and...

  Old Punch Card is the third solo album by Sam Prekop with a completely unexpected sound unlike anything he's created before.
  ...
  The ideas and implementation of Old Punch Card (the album title alluding to the electronic, faintly mechanic origins of the music) were the result of an entirely new challenge: to do something completely different from anything else he's ever created. To facilitate this end, Prekop implemented a series of strict guidelines for the recording of the album. No vocals, no guitar (though he slipped in this regard on one track), and no beats. Most of the sound material is generated by a modular synthesizer. By its very nature, it excels at some things and not at others. It's very difficult to play a conventional chord, while on the other hand, it excels at creating completely unanticipated sounds and is rather effective when it comes to "chance" composing strategies.

  Yeah. Wish I'd read that first.

  As I said above, I love me some Sam Prekop solo stuff, but I just just can't even listen to a whole album of this stuff.
  Zero raquos. (oh how that hurts to write).

• Leon Redbone - Champagne Charlie. This was his third record (1981), and like the two before it, it's a collection of ragtime, Dixieland, jazz, blues, country and standards from the early 20th century - all done in Redbone's trademark spare and laid-back style. It's not quite as fantastic as his first, "On The Track" - for that matter, neither is his second. But I think it's really just a matter of song selection - the performances here, and on "Double Time", are good - he just used all his best material on that first record.

  Three Yen: ¥¥¥

• Tokyo Police Club - Champ. This one is a little more mellow than their previous releases. Keyboards do more of the driving, letting the guitars sit back a bit. But, it's still full of that quirky TPC charm: twitchy, jumpy, a little off-kilter, with smart lyrics and bristling all over with little hooks.

  Three Yen: ¥¥¥

• Robyn Hitchcock - Moss Elixir. I played the hell out of this one when it came out, in 1996 - so much that I haven't wanted to hear it at all for the past 13 or 14 years. But, on a whim, I played it while making dinner the other night and was pretty much blown away. As it was playing, I was surprised that I remembered all the words and all the music, but was even more surprised that I'd forgotten how good the songs were. For this one, he replaced the busy, new-wavey, Egyptians with Deni Bonet's violin and some occasional horns, and that let the unusually-straightforward lyrics take center stage. There are a lot of stories here, and some of them sound very personal, tragic even (ex. "The Speed Of Things"), but Hitchcock is still opaque and clever enough to stop his words from becoming maudlin. There are a couple of weak spots (ex. never much liked "Filthy Bird"), but all in all, it's a bright spot in the list of his often-spotty 90's albums.

  Four Yen: ¥¥¥¥

• Bad Company - Bad Company. No really. "But, cleek," you protest, "haven't you already heard all those songs a hundred thousand times on classic rock radio? Why pay to hear them again?" Because, dear reader, I like them. I've always loved Paul Rogers' voice, and that unucluttered simple no-nonsense vibe of theirs. And, now that I can hear it when I want to hear it, instead of having to wait 20 minutes between plays on my local 70's rock station, I'm struck by the sound of the recording; it sounds like the record was recorded quickly, simply and without much in the way of post-production. It sounds like they're playing live in a small room, at a moderate volume, with the guitar turned a touch too low. That's awesome to me. Makes it seem much more like listening to a recording of a band, as opposed to a song-based rock-flavored music product (now with 10% live content!). And the difference between the intimate, unassuming sound of this and something like Boston's first record, where there are 15 guitar tracks and constant screaming, squealing, thundering, swooshing, etc.... whew. Night and day. Plus, every time "Ready For Love" comes on, I get to sing "Weddy Puh Nuhhhb! Oh baby, I'm weddy puh nub."
  Five raquos: »»»»»

• Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record. I like BSS, but I can barely tell one song from another. Aside from a few exceptions, their songs all kind of run together into a big pool of pure BSS. The songs on this album are distinguished somewhat by having been produced by John McEntire (drummer and producer for Sea And Cake, Tortoise, etc.) so there's a little of that tight, compressed, somewhat electronic vibe that his bands all share. But it's only a touch. This is still unmistakably a BSS record; most of the songs follow the BSS formula: big and dense and loud, where bits of slowly-moving melody (usually buried in noise) alternate with catchy melodies played loudly and clearly. They do it so well, though. It's hard for me to not like it.
  Four raquos: »»»»

• Nirvana - Live At Reading. Damn, this is a loud one. And frantic and sloppy and grungy! Makes me bummed I never bothered seeing them when they were around.
  Three raquos: »»»

• Frightened Rabbit - Winter Of Mixed Drinks. Scottish indie-rock! Reminds me a lot of another Scottish band, We Were Promised Jetpacks, and not just because of the singer's accent! But, I think I like this one better. It's got a lot of that swelling-swelling-swelling-to-a-grand-anthem thing that bands seem to love these days. Thankfully, it also has some nice melodies to support that swelling. It's a bit overproduced, IMO, though. There's a lot of unnecessary strings and dinky little sounds here and there, and the arrangements are definitely stadium-ready. I think I'd much prefer hearing the band just play, rather than hearing the market-tested handiwork of someone trying to hit all the summer-music festival checkboxes:

  [x] - First song starts slow and builds to thunderous climax
  [x] - Lots of wordless chants for the crowd to ohhh-ohhh-ohhh along to.
  [x] - Strategically-placed quiet-loud bits so we can show off the lighting rig.
  [x] - Banks of slow repetitive sections for maximum flag waving
  

  Still, not bad.
  A weak three raquos: »»»

It's been ages since I last did one of these, so there are a lot of records here...

• Gang of Four - Entertainment (remaster). I don't know how many other people do this, but I maintain a kind of multi-dimensional map of bands in my head, where bands are arranged by style and influence and membership, etc.. For example, Bauhaus, Love And Rockets, Tones On Tail, and Peter Murphy are all in a clump (because they all share members), with lines extending from them back to Bowie, T. Rex and the Velvet Underground (their influences), then sideways to other goth bands of the 80s (peers who share those influences), and forward to bands like Interpol and Marilyn Manson (bands who were influenced by them). It's a big web. I actually used to arrange my CD collection in a 1-dimensional version of this; it was nearly impossible for anyone else to make sense of, though.

  Most of the time, when I hear a band for the first time, their influences are obvious, and so their spot in the web is also obvious. And, most bands have lots of influences, but influence relatively few other bands - not everybody can be a pioneer; truly influential bands are rare, and, well, I've heard most of them by now. But now and then I come across a band I've never heard before that is so obviously the primary influence on so many bands I do know that it changes the shape of a big chunk of my web; connections form all over the place, and bands that I thought were pioneers turn out to be much less original than I thought. Gang Of Four is one of those bands. Ten seconds into the first song on this record, it's clear that this band touched dozens and dozens of others: newer bands like The Rapture, Bloc Party, Futureheads, Franz Ferdinand, etc., and older bands like Big Black, Pixies, Mission Of Burma, Bauhaus, The Cure (all of which were hugely influential in their own right). And bands like REM and the Chili Peppers cite them as huge influences (though I don't hear it). In my web of bands, they are a hub. But, do I like it? Yeah, mostly. It's hard and abrasive and unforgiving and twitchy: very very early-80's "post-punk". So it takes a bit of effort, unless I'm really in the mood.
  Three raquos: »»»

• MGMT - Congratulations. Their first record was full of funky retro-80s hooky pop tunes. This one is full of itself.
  One raquo: »

• Robyn Hitchcock & the Venus 3 - Propellor Time. Of all the RH & V3 records, I like this one best. It's very relaxed and softly country-flavored, a lot of acoustic sounds. It's not exactly restrained, but a bit lazy, maybe. Robyn sounds sleepy through most of it.
  A weak three raquos: »»»

• T. Rex - Electric Warrior (remaster). There are only like three songs on this one. They just played those three songs in different keys with different lyrics, over and over, to fill out the album. But what songs! Audacious infectious simplicity.
  Four raquos: »»»»

• Talking Heads - Speaking in Tongues. This one is new to me. For some reason, I never got around to it, when it came out in '83. Love the Heads, of course, but it still took a few listens before I could get past the mid-80's dance-party sound; that huge gated snare, the funky guitars, the bubbly chirping keyboards and the bright shiny production; it could be a Morris Day and The Time or a Was Not Was record. I guess that was the sound of the times. Maybe that's why I avoided it - I've always hated that sound.

  I know nearly half of these 9 songs from their "Stop Making Sense" incarnations ("Burning Down The House", "Girlfriend Is Better", "Swamp", "Slippery People") and I much prefer those versions. Here, they seem a little small and a bit too polished. Still, it's not a bad record. It's actually a really good record. And it does have one of my favorite Heads' songs: "This Must Be The Place", which I think is in the film version of "Stop Making Sense", but I've never seen the film. It also ran over the closing credits of the movie "Wall Street", I don't know why I remember that.
  Four raquos: »»»»

• The Dave Rawlings Machine- Friend of a Friend. He's the accompanist half of the band called "Gillian Welch". For the Dave Rawlings Machine, Rawlings is the band leader and lead vocalist while Welch plays rhythm and sings backups. The song selection isn't much different from a Gillian Welch record - there are a bunch of old-time pre-"Country" country songs, along with some newer things which sound like the Old Crow Medicine Show (who play on the record, along with people from Bright Eyes and from Tom Petty's band), bluegrass staple "The Monkey and the Engineer", a medley of a Bright Eyes song and Neil Young's "Cortez The Killer", etc.. It's pretty good.
  Three raquos: »»»

• Love And Rockets - Express (remastered). My roommate in college had this one, and we played the hell out of it. I recently picked it up again, on a whim. I wasn't sure if this would age well, or if it would sound like something that should have been left in '87. But, except for a couple of things that I didn't like back then either, it holds up; and many of the songs are still fantastic. Even the songs I don't like are at least interesting, since all the songs are festooned with interesting little sonic curlicues, mostly from Daniel Ash's guitar wizardry - he's an under-appreciated player, IMO. It's been a long time since I heard the original, so I might be imagining this, but I think the remaster sounds a lot brighter and crisper.
  Five raquos: »»»»»

This is getting long, and I still have four or five more to go.... I think I'll save them for another time.