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Animal Collective – Fall Be Kind (In Real Time)

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on November 18, 2009

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Animal_Collective_Fall_Be_Kind Animal Collective - Fall Be Kind (In Real Time)

Haven’t done a real time review in a while, and hey, Fall Be Kind just leaked. Let’s see what’s up. Here’s a live blogging of my thoughts, revisited only for editorial clarity or to fix grammatical errors…

Graze (5:22) - Dang, kinda sounds like a Disney film. Like, this fits in well in Aladdin specifically. A ballad sung by Jafar. Dreamy piano drops in at the 2-minute mark. Kinda John Tesh-y. The synth swells and whispy vocals a minute later is similar to Mercury Rev, but like, kinda bad Mercury Rev (via All is Dream). The song’s climax picks up where “Brothersport” left off… safari music. Reminds me of this big exhibit they had at King’s Island when I was a kid, where they’d blast fun Afrobeat while you ride the tram through the various habitats of savannah creatures. The hippos were my favorite. They liked to chill.

What Would I Want? Sky (6:46) - Heavy, trippy, multi-layered percussion and driving rhythm with an almost trip-hop/psych-hop flavor. I like having Avey Tare back in the foreground on throat duty, though the aforementioned visceral Disney tones prevents him from unleashing his vocal chords via “People” or “Grass.” Chorus melody is a little corny, though, and kinda sounds like Metric. The vibe, though, is unlike anything they’ve done before. Wish the shiny production was taken down a notch. It doesn’t suit them. Good track for the most part, though.

Bleeding (3:28) – Space rock backdrop and Noah/Dave vocal interplay that doesn’t really head anywhere after…. what, about three minutes. But if “Bleeding” was a minute and a half long jam… this would’ve been a cut. Almost reminiscent of “Banshee Beat,” but sans some of the mysticism.

On a Highway (4:36) - The creepy voice and drones sound promising. Turns into a relaxed song about smokin’ hash, road trippin’, and not wazzin’ your trousers. Kinda forgot about it playing because I was reading this article on insane, abandoned Cold War projects. Ended up being boring all in all. The song, not the article.

I Think I Can (7:10) - A sort of trance beat anchors this song, with huge percussion dropping in and Panda-led vocal harmonies. Just like Merriweather Post Pavilion. Actually, almost exactly like MPP.

Final thoughts: Looking forward to all the flaming that will occur in the comment sections, but whatever. Maybe it’s because I was listening to George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass and Wire’s Pink Flag this morning, two albums so perfect that it’s hard for anyone to follow it up. But maybe Animal Collective just doesn’t have it anymore. No more insane vocal yelps from Avey or destroyed song structures. Just cartoon pop with some cool sounds every now and again. I know they’re all husbands and dads now, but maybe the drugs were doing good things to their collective headspace circa 2004 (and AC was smart enough to hide their stash on tour, LOL KING KHAN!). I mean, I dunno… it is what it is. Animal Collective are a group with ample talent and an adventurous spirit, and I’m sure they will have a sort of “return to form,” even without repeating the successful forumlae found on Sung Tongs. In the interim though, I’ll probably just go back to listening to the new Tune Yards record and continue about my day. I’d like to see more “What Would I Want? Sky,” por favor. Less Sebastian from The Little Mermaid. Plz?

Fall Be Kind is out on Domino on December 15. JUST IN TYMEZ 4 CHRIMMMASSS!

MP3 :::
Animal Collective – What Would I Want? Sky [excerpt only - don't wanna get Web Sheriffed]

Tune-Yards – Bird-Brains

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Kenny Bloggins

on November 17, 2009

in Praise and Malaise

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614HfnEQFVL Tune-Yards - Bird-Brains

There’s a method to the madness, I tell ya. The blog ran a contest a couple of weeks ago, asking our readers what they’d like to see more of. A sort of suggestion box or comment card. A common theme was “shorter reviews.” Alright then, I’ll try to keep the brevity rocking hard on this one.

In a nutshell, Tune Yards (which is officially denoted as tUnE-yArDs, but since typing toggle case is kind of an ass pain, I’ll stay with MLA style) is one of the most schizophrenic and beautiful records to grace these ears this year. Bird-Brains is completely demented and angular, kinda like Xiu Xiu, but without treading the blurry line between “artistic vision” and “just fuckin’ around” that Mr. Stewart always straddled firmly. Perhaps a better description might be To Live And Shave in LA meets expressive female vocals and a folk-centric headspace. Bird-Brains, on the surface, is mostly constructed from spanish guitar, drum machines, found sounds, broken samples, and a sort of totally fucked, anything-goes “playfulness with artistic purpose” that almost evokes the ethos (though not necessarily the sound) of Captain Beefheart and Sun City Girls. And with this pallette, Tune-Yards explores the vast strata of freak folk, druggy pop, and musique concrete. As a taste, “Lions” almost resembles a sea chanty, “Sunlight” is a sort of brooding acid pop, “News” is a sunny kitchen sink sing-along with panged lyrics and general vibe of “just dropped off a song to the studio on the way to the store,” “Fiya” is a perfect stab at early psych folk, “Jamaican” builds a barely danceable beat around a recording of what I believe to be a child’s cough and a drill, and “Real Live Flesh” is sorta dubby. And that’s less than half the album represented. Oh yeah, almost forgot… there’s yodeling to be found on “Hatari.” Wowzers. So to that end, I love this record. Anything that’s challenging for me to describe always gets two thumps up and repeated listens on the ghetto blaster. I have no idea what’s happening half the time, and that keeps the intrigue level strong.

This statement might sound snobby, but whatever, it’s gotta be said. A lot of people are going to say they like the Tune-Yards album because it’s picking up a little buzz and it’s considered, ya know, arty. And these people will be goddamn liars. This album is as difficult as a Throbbing Gristle record. It just happens to have hooks and deceivingly positive vibes.

So don’t go into this listening experience expecting Dirty Projectors or Grizzly Barrrrr or whatever the fuck. Tune Yards are next level. You’ve been warned.

Anyway, Kenny Bloggins thinks 4AD should give all its St. Vincent budget to Tune-Yards to keep writing, recording, and touring. This shit is gospel. And it’s available this week, so go see about it.

For fans of: Tickley Feather, Xiu Xiu, Holy Modal Rounders with beats

MP3 :::
Tune-Yards – Sunlight
Tune-Yards – News

Dragon Turtle – Almanac

Published

Michael Hansen

on November 13, 2009

in Praise and Malaise

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dragon_turtle_almanac_wb Dragon Turtle - Almanac

Dragon Turtle, the duo of Brian Lightbody and Tom Asselin (of Lewis & Clarke), is the newest project to arise from the enigmatic La Société Expéditionnaire. Their debut full-length Almanac, is an expansive 45-minute trek that explores an alternating fear and awe of the natural world, and everything in between. They didn’t pack lightly either, hoarding a curious mix of folk, kraut rock, post rock, and small touches of world music.

The maiden voyage of “Causality” pushes off with warm cider acoustic picking, muffled distant bongos and various textural percussion. Mountain-enveloping swarms of foggy synths drift in and idle as quiet wails in the background provoke riffs to thaw out slowly from the mix. Other tracks like “Moon Fallout” follow suit with cloud-bursting strings and downtrodden vox that somberly consent to the ebb and flow, setting up thematic contrast for the desolate episodes that explode like glorious outbursts of cabin fever. So even when ambient side paths like the 11-minute “Hourglass” seem static, and probably run on for longer than they need to, they still manage to artfully contribute tension to the tracklist. This is definitely an album that makes more sense when listened to in one sitting.

At times, the mingling of antiquated instrumentation evokes the hermetic splendor of the Microphones opus The Glow Part 2, while the anxious kraut pace of “Island of Broken Glass” marries fireside calypso, dislocated melodies, and charred guitar work into something that could easily be mistaken for the collage work of Faust. This is exampled especially on the claustrophobic vignette “Apophis”, sporting bizarre french speak-singing, banjo twiddling, and choppy samurai licks.

What we have here is very much a studio-crafted album, with many exhaustive hours spent in the band’s personal hideout One Forest, experimenting and harnessing the perfect textures for their cause. At times, the obsession with pure sound can borrow a limb from their focus on composition. A few cuts like the oddly naked pensive noodling of “Hometime” feels like an afterthought, or a puzzle piece that didn’t quite fit but was jammed in anyway. Almanac is not perfectly conceived, nor is it always spectacular, but it is consistently immersive the entire way through, culminating in some of the most intense moments of frantic beauty to come out of my speakers all year. The unique sound space that these two have carved out is worthy of your attention alone. Highly conceptual with little pretension, and passionately constructed, these ten tracks turn over enough gems along the way that I am already salivating for their next release. Not an album to miss out on.

Almanac is available now through the folks at La Société Expéditionnaire.

For Fans Of: The Microphones/Mt. Eerie, some Faust, Six Organs of Admittance

MP3 :::
Dragon Turtle – Island of Broken Glass
Dragon Turtle – Moon Fallout

The Big Pink – A Brief History of Love

Published

Kenny Bloggins

on November 4, 2009

in Praise and Malaise

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The%20Big%20Pink%20-%20A%20Brief%20History%20of%20Love The Big Pink - A Brief History of Love

The Big Pink currently enjoy an astounding wave of Intarwebz hype, but I certainly won’t let that affect my opinion of the their debut A Brief History of Love. However, the record itself just happens to suck, all things considered. No, the hype didn’t ruin the listening experience. It just epically blows, hype or not.

Yes, The Big Pink is a true and accurate nod to shoegazing, and yes, I love shoegaze and second-wave shoegaze. However, it’s bad shoegazing, dude. It’s The Jesus and Mary Chain AFTER Darklands. Ya know, when they made rad videos for “Sidewalking” and shit, with, like, their name on a big marquee behind them while the Reid brothers are fuckin’ rawwwkin’ (one of the few unintentional hilarious decisions of the Creation camp). Gross…

There are some worthwhile moments on this album, such as “Velvet,” wherein the band combines their natural pop-centric attitude with truly thick distortion swells and harmonies, coming off more like The Catherine Wheel or The Boo Radleys than, ya know, an even shittier version of Pop Will Eat Itself or somethin’. Maybe The Big Pink could rename themselves Pop Will Shit Itself. That would be poignant. But even if the whole album was packed with songs like “Velvet,” no amount of quality songwriting on A Brief History of Love can make up for “Dominoes.” That song gave me gastric pains. As Jeffrey said while we were listening to the record in the office, “it’s like Jesus Jones goes on a date with Kevin Shields, and JJ tells everyone they slept together, and Kevin is totally embarrassed.” Gotta do better next time, 4AD.

So yeah, this record is doo doo. I’m totally bummed. Gonna listen to the new No Age EP instead for a pick-me-up. Laters.

For fans of: Jesus Jones, Shitty-period Jesus and Mary Chain, The Jesus (circa Big Lebowski)

Fagen-Becker Quality Rating

MP3 :::
The Big Pink – Velvet

White Rainbow – New Clouds

Published

Kenny Bloggins

on October 22, 2009

in MP3 and Praise and Malaise

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krank137 White Rainbow - New Clouds

Effects pedals tweaker Adam Forkner, a.k.a. White Rainbow, has a lot going on for a relatively new artist. Besides touring Europe and supporting Deerhunter, dude also fist bumps Pauly Shore (see the Possibly Relevant links below). But what’s probably most relevant is that his new body of work for Kranky, New Clouds, is a funky, technicolor, rainbows-and-gumdrops psychedelic score for modern dance. Four songs, 60ish minutes long, and genre ambiguous, New Clouds is a beautiful and driving aural jaunt that, at the sake of sounding like a cheesedick, you just sorta get lost in. This is good vibes head music for folks who’s got, what Bad Brains called, that P.M.A. This album got my day started this morning.

I’ve tossed around the label “ambient music for people who don’t like ambient music” more than once, but it’s undeniably a good label for White Rainbow. There are no lyrics or verse/chorus actions (as you would expect from music often reviewed on this blog), but there’s lots of melody, lots of lush instrumentation, lots of texture, intricate rhythm, vague vocal chants, and a tension-and-release dynamic that makes New Clouds almost pop-oriented at times. If you haven’t peeped ol’ Rainbow yet, think of him as a shoegazey version of Growing that spent more time in the woods meditating, collecting cool threads, and partaking in the good peyote. And like Growing, who spent time frightening the Hot Chip fans on a supporting string of dates, White Rainbow also opens for a group infinitely inferior to him (Yacht… bleh) on a southeastern Asia vision quest. But hey, I can jive with whatever spreads his krautrock forest gospel.

New Clouds is a beautiful record, and surprisingly upbeat. Use it to get your day started. Or use it as the centerpiece in bong-rippin’ activities. New Clouds goes both ways. And it just dropped this week on Kranky. Go see about it.

For fans of: Belong, Growing, Cloudland Canyon

POSSIBLY RELEVANT :::
Most Psychedelic Times with White Rainbow, Pauly Shore, and the Hurdy Gurdy Bro
[Photos + Video] Deerhunter, Dan Deacon, and No Age with White Rainbow and More – 8.4.09 – Southgate House, Newport

MP3 :::
White Rainbow – All the Boogies in the World (excerpt)

Phantom Family Halo – Monoliths and These Flowers Never Die

Published

Kenny Bloggins

on October 10, 2009

in Praise and Malaise

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pfh-12jackgatefold-w-spine-web Phantom Family Halo - Monoliths and These Flowers Never Die

Louisville’s Phantom Family Halo adds another page to archtype-laden book of rock folklore. Right before their long-awaited grand statement to the world drops, the sprawling 2 LP Monoliths & These Flowers Never Die, and they begin their nationwide vision quest with Russian Circles, the band’s auxiliary drummer, Tony Bailey, suddenly passed away. As an esteemed and prolific member in the local music community, the news sent shock waves through the city. However, the band did not utter a word about it publicly. Phantfamlo never discusses peripheral information in any capacity, even when directly relating to the people in the band, and they’ve always kept things close to the chest. Undoubtedly this adds to their mystique. Monliths, despite its foreboding mood, is congruent to this attitude. The grainy, dry psychedelia found within evokes both an intimacy and mystery not often found in this genre. If you knew nothing else about them, you’d probaby be baffled as to who they are, where they came from, and what they want from you. They probably like it that way. Phantom Family Halo doesn’t float above the horizon line like the flower power groups do – they’re standing behind you.

Monoliths & These Flowers Never Die is a bold, majestic record that’s viscerally formidable and fresh – a crafty stew of swampy acid rock, haunting soundscapes, immense space, a slight gothic flavor, and eternal heaviness. Five songs in is a track called “Dec 2012,” and I’ll be damned if I can find a better brain-burning soundtrack for the apocalypse.

Opener “Blackouts and Runaways” truly makes use of playwright Bertolt Brecht’s assertion of “The past inside the present,” citing that “the rapidity of change and the increase of knowledge in the modern world have forced us to see history in a new light: not as a finalized past but as a process in which the new continuously transfigures the old.” Without sounding pretentious and wanker (I promise you I’m not going in this direction), Phantom Family Halo has synthesized this idea to great effect. “Blackouts and Runaways” meshes conventional garage rock/harsh vintage psych and hauntological retro-futuristic electronic flourishes to create art without a time stamp, a warped perception of what rock music used to be (as we understand it), and a proclamation that fears the future. In other words, it’s fucking heavy, and it sets the tone for the rest of the album – an body of work that’s chronologically ambiguous yet sonically pointed.

The motorik 10-minute opus “Monoliths” scares the shit out of me. It’s the sound of someone looking into your window after dark, donning a masquerade facepiece and wielding a nine inch blade, making your balls retract ten-fold. No one has written more paranoid krautrock saturated in impending doom. “Third World War” is nothing but pure mindfuck. A twinkling, bucolic melody carries you through over a minute of serenity before pure menacing proto-metal and a blanket of vehement, Link Wray-style reverberated vocals dicks you in the dick. And yet, songs like “Alive and Well” peak out from around the corner – a playful, aurally credulous three-minute ballad that mixes a bit of Boards of Canada atmospheric synths with orchestral samples that, aside from the melodic vocals, wouldn’t sound out of place on Aphex Twin’s Richard D James album.

There’s a surprise at every corner. And while the instrumentation can be somewhat sparse and rigid, each movement through the album’s massive 18 songs reveals strata of mysterious sounds, cavernous imagery, and lush evil. Monoliths & These Flowers Never Die an invigorating and exciting listening, while at the same time, provokes your eyes to constantly dark around for predators all the while. It’s weird and it’s awesome. It’s the heat-induced forest fire ruining the hippies’ fun during the summer of love. Most importantly, Monoliths & These Flowers Never Die does not easily fit in any genre or subgenre, acting more as an anthropomorphic, mercurial, growing beast that is certainly one of the most profound statements out of Louisville in years and, and in my opinion, one that holds up well against any given heavy hitter in the experimental rock field. Get lifted.

Phantom Family Halo’s Monoliths & These Flowers Never Die is available now on beautiful vinyl or in digital download format courtesy of Karate Body Records.

For fans of: Six Organs of Admittance, Fever Ray, Spiritualized, Boris

Fagen-Becker Quality Rating
steelydan1 Phantom Family Halo - Monoliths and These Flowers Never Die

As some footnotes to the review above, why don’t you go on and have a real taste yourself. Here is some video of “These Flowers Never Die” from their show at Lisa’s Oak Street Lounge last July that I went to and had a sweet time. Of course, sadly, this footage is some of Tony’s last. But, tour’s still on. I’ll post those dates closer to their leave after the holidays.

POSSIBLY RELATED :::
Phantom Family Halo is Awesome (7.16.09)

MP3 :::
Phantom Family Halo – Blackouts and Runaways
Phantom Family Halo – Alive and Well

Atlas Sound – Logos

Published

Michael Hansen

on October 5, 2009

in Praise and Malaise

. 0 Comments

atlas-sound-logos-cover Atlas Sound - Logos

Bedroom recordings/one man bands can obviously suffer from a lack of third party editing, indulgence, and impulse. But sometimes these caveats can also prohibit the growth of an entirely original, immersive, and painstakingly personal product. Seems like the ideal position for music junkie/nerd hero Atlas Sound, whose love for hushed, ghostly melodies have turned him into one of rock’s most beloved wet blankets. Bradford Cox doesn’t exactly share this sentiment anymore, though, and with his second album for Kranky, we find the project head trying to outrun his introverted nature on Logos.

The result is an album that is autobiographical not by it’s lyrics, but by the source of it’s sounds, it’s homages, collaborations, and cerebral passageways. It’s not self-mythetization so much as process of association. As children, we learn who we are by pretending to be others, and similarly Atlas Sound has begun to find it’s own unique shape through it’s loving mimics and costume changes. On “Quick Canal”, the soundtrack to a light-headed departure from our atmosphere, Cox recruits Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier for vocal duties. His sparse production of bio-luminescent synths and an unrelenting kraut shuffle allows his teenage hero to gracefully develop her siren call over Cox’s idiosyncratic groundwork. Another symbiotic marriage is formed on “Walkabout”, the albums sunniest cut. With the help of recent tour mate Panda Bear, the two successfully transform the Dover’s “What Am I Going to Do”, into a big beat ode to childhood of hiccuping organs and blissed out vocal camaraderie. But while this will be considered the album’s leading single, it would be a shame to let Cox’s commanding presence on the solo tracks go unnoticed.

Atlas Sound’s approach has always been admittedly loose and comprised largely of first takes. “There are songs on here I don’t even remember recording,” he said in a recent interview with Stereogum, but never before has this technique been so adaptive and fitting as it is now. Take the title-track “Logos” for example, which ends the album on a note of confidence (and is my current vote for song of the year). The churning synths explode over a swing beat and descending bass line, all filtered through a garage rock lens. Cox’s vocals, picked up from some passing transmission, hang on to the beat like he’s experiencing slight lag time through his head phones. His verses curl and drag, adding and cutting syllables at the drop of a dime, all fueled by a bravado that makes it impossible to have it any other way.

As a man with such an efficient connection between his ideas and his process, we loose the courtesy of presentation, but in it’s place we gain the opportunity to witness occasional moments of phenomena that only flows when you’ve desensitized yourself to the red recording light. Consequently, Logos has trouble holding on to a cohesive statement. Rather, each track seems to have been selected for how well it captured an individual mood. Birthed across the world in various studios, back stage at Deerhunter shows, hotel rooms, or forever lost locations, it plays more like a collection or anthology than an album. Cox seems to be utilizing a supposedly “baselined” music industry to take some risks on Logos, and I think everyone would benefit to try the same. If there’s one album you pay for this year, this should be it.

Logos in available October 22nd through Kranky Records, and is currently being supported by a tour with Broadcast.

Fagen-Becker Quality Rating

MP3 :::
Atlas Sound – Quick Canal (with Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier/Monade)
Atlas Sound – Logos