Holy Fuck
Latin
Young Turks/XL Recordings
This is friendly techno, with a real life drummer as well as drum machines. Nice to chill out to, but not good for dancing. It just sails gracefully to nowhere, with a beat so monotonous that it’s hard to concentrate on it. In the end, great background music, and nothing much else. [www.myspace.com/holyfuck]
Andrea Weiss
The National
High Violet
4AD records
Nothing quite fits together on this album, for all the right reasons. For example, depressing lyrics are offset by music that is hope filled, glorious, beautiful and soaring.
Nothing makes quite sense lyrically, whether the rather unclear meanings are about love or life, but the music picks up the slack, and makes the lyrics meaningful, filling the gaps with insight. The singing here is rich and reminiscent of Michael Stipe, yet the REM comparison doesn’t quite fit, because the band has its own sound and doesn’t emulate REM. Finally the lyrics are smart, and well-written, but a little too insular. This said, the overall sound of the music and lyrics is great, and proves to be just as rewarding at their last album Boxer. [www.myspace.com/thenational]
Andrea Weiss
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
The Modern Folksinger. An interview with Mark Erelli.
I’ve been listening to Mark Erelli since his first album. He is an amazing songwriter, and singer, and his new album, Little Vigils. continues his string of great albums. The Darwin Song Project is also very good, a celebration of Darwin as a person and his work. The album that was drawn from the concert, Origin of the Species, is fun and very serious at the same time.
I recently interviewed Erelli, and found his answers thoughtful and insightful. And I apologize for misinterpreting one of his songs.
Andrea Weiss: Nature in its spiritual form seems to inform the lyrics of the songs, to form an atmosphere of the natural world. How important is that realm to the album?"
Mark Erelli: There's a lot of natural imagery on this record, both on a larger, landscape scale (e.g. oceans, mountains, etc) and on a more finely detailed level (e.g. life cycle of a parasitoid wasp). Nature is a big part of how I observe and interact with some notion of an infinite force, which is how I would loosely define spirituality. Now that I have a son, I'm understandably sharing with him some of the ways with which I interact with nature, and as such, it is on my mind a lot. On Little Vigils, nature is very much the backdrop against which many of these songs unfold.
AW: The album seems to say that people should take nothing for granted. Do you intend that to be the theme of the album?
ME: Yes, this is the larger subtext behind the phrase "little vigils." I use it in the opening track, "August," as a specific reference to checking in on my sleeping son every night before turning in myself, a moment to keep watch over the most important thing in my life. After I made the record, looking over this group of songs I see that same idea woven through each one. It's like I'm reminding myself to pay attention, live life fully and consciously, and keep watch over the things that make life so rich and fulfilling, lest I take them for granted or they slip away.
AW: How much of this album is based on your own personal experiences?
ME: From the above, I guess this is obvious, but most of these songs have very personal origins and meanings for me. However, there is a healthy degree of universality here--this is stuff we all can relate to. I'm fairly certain that comes across, because I think of my songs as drawing much of their strength from the fact that I am not much different from anybody else. I don't view myself as some rarified artist doling out insights to the less enlightened. The stuff I write about is what anyone could see and feel if they were tuned in to the world.
AW: Did the album start from the Darwin Song Project, or from a different place?
ME: I had other songs written before the Darwin Song Project, but had not written much in the 7-8 months before that experience. The project really shook things loose for me from a writing perspective, and helped me finish up the batch of songs that came to be "Little Vigils."
AW: Was it fun making the album, especially since you had worked with most of the people on it before?
ME: Making this record was a blast. It's hard to compare to the process of making my previous records because I'm more experienced and confident now, and I'm not as anxious or stressed out that things will fall apart. I had worked with all the guys in the band in other formats, like bluegrass bands or as other artists' sidemen, so there was a good foundation of friendship and mutual admiration. To be able to work together on something that wasn't just a one-off show or random club date and dig into something a bit more substantial and extensive, I think was really enjoyable for everyone. Plus, when you have all your friends in a Maine farmhouse for four days, with whiskey, bb guns and rock n' roll...if you don't have fun you are most certainly in the wrong line of work.
AW: How do you feel your songwriting has evolved over the years?
ME: I'm not sure how or if the finished product of the song I write has changed, but I know the way in which I go about writing songs has changed substantially. I used to have plenty of time to sit and stare out the window with a guitar and a cup of coffee, waiting for inspiration. Nowadays, with a young son and another on the way, I have to work much more quickly, and I steal moments to work on songs bit by bit whenever I can.
AW: The Darwin Song project is very pro-evolution and anti-religion, was there a desire to push the envelope on that subject?
ME: With all due respect, I disagree with the entire premise of this question. The songs on the Darwin Song Project focus far more on the personal life of Darwin as a father and husband. There are many more references to the fact that religion and science can co-exist, or at least comment on different areas on the continuum of human experience, than there are disdainful dismissals of faith. Even my song "Kingdom Come," ends with Darwin professing his wish that he could believe in heaven so as to be closer to his devout wife. In general, I have no desire to write a song with the sole purpose of pushing envelopes or upsetting people, but I also feel it is dangerous to censor myself by not writing about something I feel deeply about for fear that it might anger someone else. All I can do is write the best song I can, offer it up as honestly as I'm capable, and then hope nobody labels me inaccurately.
AW: Was the Darwin Project album fun to record?"
ME: The Darwin Song Project is a lot more fun now that it's in the rearview mirror. While we were writing the songs and preparing for the live show where they would be recorded, it was so stressful that basically half of us were making ourselves sick with anxiety and rundown with colds! After we'd come through successfully on the other side and the project was completed, I think everybody looks back on it as a lot of fun, but we probably didn't feel it when we were in the middle of doing it.
AW: Is Darwin an influence on you?
ME: Sure, in the sense that any original thinker who comes up with an earth-shaking theory that entirely restructures the way the human species looks at itself! I have always been into the nature, I played in the woods a lot as a boy, so his ideas resonated with me once I got to the point in school when they were introduced. As I have researched Darwin 'the man' more, I can see a lot of his qualities as a father and a husband that I would be grateful to emulate.
AW: Did you really have a band like the one in Basement Days?
ME: Yes, I really did. Several, in fact. I didn't make up much in that song, not even the names of my former bandmates! I may have thrown a couple of songs in there that we didn't actually play simply because they preserved the rhyme scheme, but 99% of it is true, including the bit about the fire department shutting down a local gig because of our smoke machine.
AW: What do you think of young folk singers like Neko Case?
ME: I think she is the latest in a line of truly unique and iconic American voices, stretching from Roy Orbison and Willie Nelson, up to more recent singers like Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Iris Dement and Patty Griffin. These artists could sing the phone book and make it sound otherworldly.
Watch the video for "Basement Days" here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lOUA907xsE&feature=player_embedded
Mark Erelli
Little Vigils
Hillbilly Pilgrim Records
The top-notch playing on this album can shift on a dime to folk, to country, to rock. Erelli and his band are well versed in all three styles, and the playful, yet serious music they make is both fun and insightful. Even when the lyrics are downcast, like on “Hemlock Grove,” the music illuminates the lyrics to give the song a haunted feel, a feeling of experience, and lessons learned. There is even a roaring guitar solo in the Springstein- like “Basement Days,” about Erelli looking back on his teen years, and all the rock bands he played in, even one that had the plug pulled on them in a church basement because the fire alarm was set off by their dry ice machine.
The natural world and spirituality are woven into a theme of never taking anything for granted, whether it’s keeping an eye on his son while he sleeps, starting over by leaving some place, like “Columbus Ohio,” or Darwin as a man and a scientist. And Darwin provides a good and interesting twist to the subject of spirituality.
Erelli was invited in 2009 to perform on The Darwin Song Project, a concert and album celebrating the 150th anniversary of Darwin. The album that is drawn from that concert, the Origin of the Species, is highly recommended, both for the rollicking folk music, and the lyrics examining Darwin’s work and his life as a husband and father. All sides are examined, including religion, which at first glance sound anti-religious and really aren’t. His two songs, “Kingdom Come” and “Mother of Mysteries,” which also appear on Little Vigils in a band format, are very much in this vein lyrically, just delightfully expanded and musically lively
This is a wonderful, thought provoking and versatile album, one that has meaning, and yet never seems weighed down. One of the best and strongest albums I’ve heard all year.
[http://markerelli.com]
Andrea Weiss
I recently interviewed Erelli, and found his answers thoughtful and insightful. And I apologize for misinterpreting one of his songs.
Andrea Weiss: Nature in its spiritual form seems to inform the lyrics of the songs, to form an atmosphere of the natural world. How important is that realm to the album?"
Mark Erelli: There's a lot of natural imagery on this record, both on a larger, landscape scale (e.g. oceans, mountains, etc) and on a more finely detailed level (e.g. life cycle of a parasitoid wasp). Nature is a big part of how I observe and interact with some notion of an infinite force, which is how I would loosely define spirituality. Now that I have a son, I'm understandably sharing with him some of the ways with which I interact with nature, and as such, it is on my mind a lot. On Little Vigils, nature is very much the backdrop against which many of these songs unfold.
AW: The album seems to say that people should take nothing for granted. Do you intend that to be the theme of the album?
ME: Yes, this is the larger subtext behind the phrase "little vigils." I use it in the opening track, "August," as a specific reference to checking in on my sleeping son every night before turning in myself, a moment to keep watch over the most important thing in my life. After I made the record, looking over this group of songs I see that same idea woven through each one. It's like I'm reminding myself to pay attention, live life fully and consciously, and keep watch over the things that make life so rich and fulfilling, lest I take them for granted or they slip away.
AW: How much of this album is based on your own personal experiences?
ME: From the above, I guess this is obvious, but most of these songs have very personal origins and meanings for me. However, there is a healthy degree of universality here--this is stuff we all can relate to. I'm fairly certain that comes across, because I think of my songs as drawing much of their strength from the fact that I am not much different from anybody else. I don't view myself as some rarified artist doling out insights to the less enlightened. The stuff I write about is what anyone could see and feel if they were tuned in to the world.
AW: Did the album start from the Darwin Song Project, or from a different place?
ME: I had other songs written before the Darwin Song Project, but had not written much in the 7-8 months before that experience. The project really shook things loose for me from a writing perspective, and helped me finish up the batch of songs that came to be "Little Vigils."
AW: Was it fun making the album, especially since you had worked with most of the people on it before?
ME: Making this record was a blast. It's hard to compare to the process of making my previous records because I'm more experienced and confident now, and I'm not as anxious or stressed out that things will fall apart. I had worked with all the guys in the band in other formats, like bluegrass bands or as other artists' sidemen, so there was a good foundation of friendship and mutual admiration. To be able to work together on something that wasn't just a one-off show or random club date and dig into something a bit more substantial and extensive, I think was really enjoyable for everyone. Plus, when you have all your friends in a Maine farmhouse for four days, with whiskey, bb guns and rock n' roll...if you don't have fun you are most certainly in the wrong line of work.
AW: How do you feel your songwriting has evolved over the years?
ME: I'm not sure how or if the finished product of the song I write has changed, but I know the way in which I go about writing songs has changed substantially. I used to have plenty of time to sit and stare out the window with a guitar and a cup of coffee, waiting for inspiration. Nowadays, with a young son and another on the way, I have to work much more quickly, and I steal moments to work on songs bit by bit whenever I can.
AW: The Darwin Song project is very pro-evolution and anti-religion, was there a desire to push the envelope on that subject?
ME: With all due respect, I disagree with the entire premise of this question. The songs on the Darwin Song Project focus far more on the personal life of Darwin as a father and husband. There are many more references to the fact that religion and science can co-exist, or at least comment on different areas on the continuum of human experience, than there are disdainful dismissals of faith. Even my song "Kingdom Come," ends with Darwin professing his wish that he could believe in heaven so as to be closer to his devout wife. In general, I have no desire to write a song with the sole purpose of pushing envelopes or upsetting people, but I also feel it is dangerous to censor myself by not writing about something I feel deeply about for fear that it might anger someone else. All I can do is write the best song I can, offer it up as honestly as I'm capable, and then hope nobody labels me inaccurately.
AW: Was the Darwin Project album fun to record?"
ME: The Darwin Song Project is a lot more fun now that it's in the rearview mirror. While we were writing the songs and preparing for the live show where they would be recorded, it was so stressful that basically half of us were making ourselves sick with anxiety and rundown with colds! After we'd come through successfully on the other side and the project was completed, I think everybody looks back on it as a lot of fun, but we probably didn't feel it when we were in the middle of doing it.
AW: Is Darwin an influence on you?
ME: Sure, in the sense that any original thinker who comes up with an earth-shaking theory that entirely restructures the way the human species looks at itself! I have always been into the nature, I played in the woods a lot as a boy, so his ideas resonated with me once I got to the point in school when they were introduced. As I have researched Darwin 'the man' more, I can see a lot of his qualities as a father and a husband that I would be grateful to emulate.
AW: Did you really have a band like the one in Basement Days?
ME: Yes, I really did. Several, in fact. I didn't make up much in that song, not even the names of my former bandmates! I may have thrown a couple of songs in there that we didn't actually play simply because they preserved the rhyme scheme, but 99% of it is true, including the bit about the fire department shutting down a local gig because of our smoke machine.
AW: What do you think of young folk singers like Neko Case?
ME: I think she is the latest in a line of truly unique and iconic American voices, stretching from Roy Orbison and Willie Nelson, up to more recent singers like Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Iris Dement and Patty Griffin. These artists could sing the phone book and make it sound otherworldly.
Watch the video for "Basement Days" here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lOUA907xsE&feature=player_embedded
Mark Erelli
Little Vigils
Hillbilly Pilgrim Records
The top-notch playing on this album can shift on a dime to folk, to country, to rock. Erelli and his band are well versed in all three styles, and the playful, yet serious music they make is both fun and insightful. Even when the lyrics are downcast, like on “Hemlock Grove,” the music illuminates the lyrics to give the song a haunted feel, a feeling of experience, and lessons learned. There is even a roaring guitar solo in the Springstein- like “Basement Days,” about Erelli looking back on his teen years, and all the rock bands he played in, even one that had the plug pulled on them in a church basement because the fire alarm was set off by their dry ice machine.
The natural world and spirituality are woven into a theme of never taking anything for granted, whether it’s keeping an eye on his son while he sleeps, starting over by leaving some place, like “Columbus Ohio,” or Darwin as a man and a scientist. And Darwin provides a good and interesting twist to the subject of spirituality.
Erelli was invited in 2009 to perform on The Darwin Song Project, a concert and album celebrating the 150th anniversary of Darwin. The album that is drawn from that concert, the Origin of the Species, is highly recommended, both for the rollicking folk music, and the lyrics examining Darwin’s work and his life as a husband and father. All sides are examined, including religion, which at first glance sound anti-religious and really aren’t. His two songs, “Kingdom Come” and “Mother of Mysteries,” which also appear on Little Vigils in a band format, are very much in this vein lyrically, just delightfully expanded and musically lively
This is a wonderful, thought provoking and versatile album, one that has meaning, and yet never seems weighed down. One of the best and strongest albums I’ve heard all year.
[http://markerelli.com]
Andrea Weiss
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Harlem
Hippies
Matador Records
Good basic garage rock, very retro-sounding musically, as in three chords and the truth bashing away. Lyrically, slightly more sophisticated, which makes them modern garage on the topics of “my baby done me wrong,” “I love my baby,” and “the whole world is against me, but I’ll survive anyway.” A fun party album and just a fun album period. [www.myspace.com/harlemduh]
Andrea Weiss
Hippies
Matador Records
Good basic garage rock, very retro-sounding musically, as in three chords and the truth bashing away. Lyrically, slightly more sophisticated, which makes them modern garage on the topics of “my baby done me wrong,” “I love my baby,” and “the whole world is against me, but I’ll survive anyway.” A fun party album and just a fun album period. [www.myspace.com/harlemduh]
Andrea Weiss
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Serena-Maneesh
S-M 2: Abyss in B Minor
4AD
The first track of this album sounds very sensual, but also very industrial musically, but sounds nothing like the rest of the album. The rest sounds like a popper version of My Bloody Valentine, with wonderful melodies, and sweet singing from both vocalists. It’s very creative and experiential music, but totally accessible at the same time. The lyrics are buried in the mix, which is not a bad thing. They blend with the music nicely. The few clear fragments seem to be about sex and desire. In the end, there is nothing not to like about this album, which makes it very enjoyable.
[www.myspace.com/serenamaneesh]
Andrea Weiss
The Unthanks
The Unthanked
Rough Trade Records
The Unthanks are sisters Rachel and Becky Unthank, who have made a terrific modern folk album. Their musical style is to meld traditional folk with an eerly calm atmosphere reminiscent of Radiohead and Fleet Foxes. This makes for tranquil music that is also arresting. Their voices are gorgeous: lilting, sweet, but also tough.
Lyrically it’s storytelling. For example “Annachie Gordon.” They are good writers, especially on “Not Much Luck in Our House” and “Where’ve Yer Bin Dick?” the two best tracks. So let’s give thanks to the Unthanks for a wonderful album, one that has already won raves in the UK, and hopefully will get them in the US. [www.myspace.com/rachelunthank]
Andrea Weiss
S-M 2: Abyss in B Minor
4AD
The first track of this album sounds very sensual, but also very industrial musically, but sounds nothing like the rest of the album. The rest sounds like a popper version of My Bloody Valentine, with wonderful melodies, and sweet singing from both vocalists. It’s very creative and experiential music, but totally accessible at the same time. The lyrics are buried in the mix, which is not a bad thing. They blend with the music nicely. The few clear fragments seem to be about sex and desire. In the end, there is nothing not to like about this album, which makes it very enjoyable.
[www.myspace.com/serenamaneesh]
Andrea Weiss
The Unthanks
The Unthanked
Rough Trade Records
The Unthanks are sisters Rachel and Becky Unthank, who have made a terrific modern folk album. Their musical style is to meld traditional folk with an eerly calm atmosphere reminiscent of Radiohead and Fleet Foxes. This makes for tranquil music that is also arresting. Their voices are gorgeous: lilting, sweet, but also tough.
Lyrically it’s storytelling. For example “Annachie Gordon.” They are good writers, especially on “Not Much Luck in Our House” and “Where’ve Yer Bin Dick?” the two best tracks. So let’s give thanks to the Unthanks for a wonderful album, one that has already won raves in the UK, and hopefully will get them in the US. [www.myspace.com/rachelunthank]
Andrea Weiss
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Titus Andronicus
The Monitor
XL Recordings
This is a fun concept album. Was the American Civil War won, lost or ever completed? A young man leaves New Jersey for Boston, and hopes his future is there. What does it means to be an American in 2009? And should indie rock ask all of this? Finding out the answers to these questions is great, especially when the music goes full tilt throughout the album.
Lead singer/songwriter Patrick Stickles makes fun of Conor Oberst and pays tribute to Springstein simultaneously by sounding like Conor, roaring drunk, tries to imitate Bruce, and does a great job of it. The music is raucous, rowdy, fantastic, and funny. There are lots of New Jersey in-jokes, but you don't have to get the jokes to enjoy the record.
Since this is a Jersey band, there are a lot of cool jokes about the Garden State, like “there’ll be no more cars on the Garden State Parkway.” The song titles do have something to do with the Civil War, like “Four Score and Seven Years Ago.” And the album ends with all the loose ends tied up neatly, for one thing, the union did with the Civil War, and that’s damn good, with feedback fading quietly, and respectfully, a way to bring to a close a terrific album. [www.titusandronicus.net]
Andrea Weiss
Ted Leo
The Brutaliist Bricks
Matador Records
Leo’s Matador debut finds him making a few changes to his basic punk rock style. He sings and plays softer on some songs, which has the effect of emphasizing his messages. On others, especially “Even Heroes Have to Die” are folk/rock, and where he sounds like Billy Bragg in his prime.
Elsewhere, his music bristles with sharp guitars, which start the revolution, and end it in triumph. A nice contrast to the more singer/songwriter songs. His music makes the lyrics bite, never more so than this line on “Ativan Eyes”: “The means of production are now in the hands of the workers.” That’s an old-fashioned Communist slogan, which he’s serious about. Better a leftist revolution than a right wing one. Likewise on “Bartolomeo and the Buzzing of Bees,” he dreams of happy times after the revolution has been won.
Love is also political to him, and not as sexual politics, but as a foundation to build a new world. He knows he’s messed up with a lover, and wants her forgiveness. And love is a revelation to him, one that makes him happy and hopeful.
A clear-eyed leftist message set to fiery punk rock, and to gentle folk, is a tonic for crazy political times. It makes for a fine album, and one that makes you think about rising up, and making sure tomorrow better than today. [www.myspace.com/tedleo]
Andrea Weiss
The Morning Benders
Big Echo
Rough Trade
Lead singer Christopher Chu and Chris Taylor of Grizzly Bear produced this album to sound apparently like a 90s power pop album. Specifically, the sound is along the lines of the people Jon Brion worked with in the 90s, like Aimee Mann and Rufus Wainwright. The sound of the Posies and the Eels also show up in the mix. That does not mean that the music is bad or retro, just fresh, different and interesting. It is very good, grand, playful, and creative.
Lyrically, the writing is smart and witty. One example is a line in the single “Excuses,” “You tried to taste me, and I taped my tongue to the southern tip of your body.” Another is “Hand Me Downs” about death and what you’ll leave behind for others to carry on with.
This is a very good album whose pleasures hit in a rush at first, then slowly sinks in. The afterglow stays after the album is finished, lingering a long time. [www.myspace.com/themorningbenders]
Andrea Weiss
Pavement
Quarantine The Past
Matador
This career-spanning comp’s songs were selected by the band, who are currently on a reunion tour. They document a great band, that in it’s own way, was as good as Nirvana.
While they didn’t have the chart success that Nirvana had, they, and many other bands like Sebidoh to Liz Phair, were just as influential.
Pavement’s music was both a comment on and compliment to grunge, they created a sound, lyrically and musically, that showed there was more to 90s rock than grunge. They offered an alternative to grunge, especially on “Range Life” where they made fun of the Smashing Pumpkins and played a lighthearted joke on the Stone Temple Pilots.
Lighthearted irony was also a big part of Pavement’s sound, whether is was Spiral Stairs (Scott Kannberg) shredding on guitar or Steven Malkimist’s wry voice and dry wit. Joking around when everything looks hopeless is a lot of fun to listen to, and a good attitude to have. Even when they played a song that was more serious, they didn’t take themselves seriously, which was great, and adds to the fun.
“Summer Babe,” “Stereo,” and “Shady Lane” to name a few masterpieces, are all on the comp, with lesser known prizes like the REM tribute “The Unseen Power of the Picket Fence.” “Cut Your Hair,” which rang true in 1994, rings even truer today.
Quarantine The Past is a good starting point for new fans, a romp for the faithful, and a wonderful look at a band that should have been huge. It is great to have them back, and this comp is a cool way to welcome them. [www.myspace.com/pavement]
Andrea Weiss
The Monitor
XL Recordings
This is a fun concept album. Was the American Civil War won, lost or ever completed? A young man leaves New Jersey for Boston, and hopes his future is there. What does it means to be an American in 2009? And should indie rock ask all of this? Finding out the answers to these questions is great, especially when the music goes full tilt throughout the album.
Lead singer/songwriter Patrick Stickles makes fun of Conor Oberst and pays tribute to Springstein simultaneously by sounding like Conor, roaring drunk, tries to imitate Bruce, and does a great job of it. The music is raucous, rowdy, fantastic, and funny. There are lots of New Jersey in-jokes, but you don't have to get the jokes to enjoy the record.
Since this is a Jersey band, there are a lot of cool jokes about the Garden State, like “there’ll be no more cars on the Garden State Parkway.” The song titles do have something to do with the Civil War, like “Four Score and Seven Years Ago.” And the album ends with all the loose ends tied up neatly, for one thing, the union did with the Civil War, and that’s damn good, with feedback fading quietly, and respectfully, a way to bring to a close a terrific album. [www.titusandronicus.net]
Andrea Weiss
Ted Leo
The Brutaliist Bricks
Matador Records
Leo’s Matador debut finds him making a few changes to his basic punk rock style. He sings and plays softer on some songs, which has the effect of emphasizing his messages. On others, especially “Even Heroes Have to Die” are folk/rock, and where he sounds like Billy Bragg in his prime.
Elsewhere, his music bristles with sharp guitars, which start the revolution, and end it in triumph. A nice contrast to the more singer/songwriter songs. His music makes the lyrics bite, never more so than this line on “Ativan Eyes”: “The means of production are now in the hands of the workers.” That’s an old-fashioned Communist slogan, which he’s serious about. Better a leftist revolution than a right wing one. Likewise on “Bartolomeo and the Buzzing of Bees,” he dreams of happy times after the revolution has been won.
Love is also political to him, and not as sexual politics, but as a foundation to build a new world. He knows he’s messed up with a lover, and wants her forgiveness. And love is a revelation to him, one that makes him happy and hopeful.
A clear-eyed leftist message set to fiery punk rock, and to gentle folk, is a tonic for crazy political times. It makes for a fine album, and one that makes you think about rising up, and making sure tomorrow better than today. [www.myspace.com/tedleo]
Andrea Weiss
The Morning Benders
Big Echo
Rough Trade
Lead singer Christopher Chu and Chris Taylor of Grizzly Bear produced this album to sound apparently like a 90s power pop album. Specifically, the sound is along the lines of the people Jon Brion worked with in the 90s, like Aimee Mann and Rufus Wainwright. The sound of the Posies and the Eels also show up in the mix. That does not mean that the music is bad or retro, just fresh, different and interesting. It is very good, grand, playful, and creative.
Lyrically, the writing is smart and witty. One example is a line in the single “Excuses,” “You tried to taste me, and I taped my tongue to the southern tip of your body.” Another is “Hand Me Downs” about death and what you’ll leave behind for others to carry on with.
This is a very good album whose pleasures hit in a rush at first, then slowly sinks in. The afterglow stays after the album is finished, lingering a long time. [www.myspace.com/themorningbenders]
Andrea Weiss
Pavement
Quarantine The Past
Matador
This career-spanning comp’s songs were selected by the band, who are currently on a reunion tour. They document a great band, that in it’s own way, was as good as Nirvana.
While they didn’t have the chart success that Nirvana had, they, and many other bands like Sebidoh to Liz Phair, were just as influential.
Pavement’s music was both a comment on and compliment to grunge, they created a sound, lyrically and musically, that showed there was more to 90s rock than grunge. They offered an alternative to grunge, especially on “Range Life” where they made fun of the Smashing Pumpkins and played a lighthearted joke on the Stone Temple Pilots.
Lighthearted irony was also a big part of Pavement’s sound, whether is was Spiral Stairs (Scott Kannberg) shredding on guitar or Steven Malkimist’s wry voice and dry wit. Joking around when everything looks hopeless is a lot of fun to listen to, and a good attitude to have. Even when they played a song that was more serious, they didn’t take themselves seriously, which was great, and adds to the fun.
“Summer Babe,” “Stereo,” and “Shady Lane” to name a few masterpieces, are all on the comp, with lesser known prizes like the REM tribute “The Unseen Power of the Picket Fence.” “Cut Your Hair,” which rang true in 1994, rings even truer today.
Quarantine The Past is a good starting point for new fans, a romp for the faithful, and a wonderful look at a band that should have been huge. It is great to have them back, and this comp is a cool way to welcome them. [www.myspace.com/pavement]
Andrea Weiss
Monday, March 1, 2010
Beth Thornley
Wash U Clean
Stiff Hips
Thornley was initially compared to Aimee Mann, but currently sounds more like Tegan and Sara, especially on the album’s best track “You’re So Pony.” The overall sound is 21st century indie rock, a little harder, a little rougher, and sharper. Thornley’s take on romance is smart, tough, and no nonsense. It’s a very good album, fun to listen to, especially on an iPod, and also good for doing some deep thinking. [www.myspace.com/beththornley]
Andrea Weiss
Wash U Clean
Stiff Hips
Thornley was initially compared to Aimee Mann, but currently sounds more like Tegan and Sara, especially on the album’s best track “You’re So Pony.” The overall sound is 21st century indie rock, a little harder, a little rougher, and sharper. Thornley’s take on romance is smart, tough, and no nonsense. It’s a very good album, fun to listen to, especially on an iPod, and also good for doing some deep thinking. [www.myspace.com/beththornley]
Andrea Weiss
Monday, February 22, 2010
Efterkland
Magic Chairs
4 AD Records
The band is from Copenhagen, their third album overall, and their 4 AD debut. The band’s name means “remembrance” or “reverberation.”
Musically and lyrically the band combines the soft, soothing wonder of Nursery Crime era Genesis, or Radiohead without the doom and gloom. Lead singer Casper Clausen is a better singer than Peter Gabriel or Thom Yorke. Clausen is not obnoxious or whiny. He and the band are very good, pleasant to listen to, and very relaxing. [www.myspace.com/efterklang]
Andrea Weiss
Holly Miranda
The Magician’s Private Library
XL Recordings
It is wonderful to hear an album as fresh and unique as Miranda’s debut. By avoiding all the lyrical clichés about how life and love is filled with joy or pain in favor of dreamscapes, especially lucid dreamscapes, she imagines a world where anything is possible.
Musically the sound is soft, lush, and yes, dream-like. It is a magical sound, happily not hackneyed, one that shimmers, and adds texture to the lyrics, especially on “Sweet Dreams.” David Andrew Sitek of TV on the Radio produced the album, and it’s what Miranda gets from that band’s sound that lends weight and power to it, with extra power provided by Kip Malone’s duet with Miranda on “Slow Burn Treason.”
The album’s title comes from her uncle David, who said Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon sounded like “the magician’s private library.” This album is dedicated to him. Miranda says the title could be anything and anywhere, which fits this album just right, and sum up this great album very neatly. [www.myspace.com/hollymiranda]
Andrea Weiss
Shearwater
The Golden Archipelago
Matador Records
The wonder of nature found in solitude is the theme of The Golden Archipelago. Researcher and singer/songwriter Jonathan Meiburg has lived on various islands, among them the Falklands, the Galapagos, and Madagascar. He found numinous silences, lushness and austerity, and how nature and humans live with these kinds of extremes. The music reflects all of this, quiet one minute, swelling to a roar the next, beautiful and eerie, with Meiburg’s calm, deep voice tying everything together.
While the lyrics put into words his feelings about living in very remote places, after awhile it’s apparent that Meiburg would prefer to live without human contact, and that nature is all he needs. It’s what makes this album so sad to listen to, almost unbearably sad, and in the end annoying. What is so bad about humankind that makes nature preferable? The question is never answered. It is that unanswered question that in the end makes this an album to skip, it is beyond belief that Meiburg would want to be alone like that. People need people, and anything else isn’t creditable. [www.myspace.com/shearwater]
Andrea Weiss
Magic Chairs
4 AD Records
The band is from Copenhagen, their third album overall, and their 4 AD debut. The band’s name means “remembrance” or “reverberation.”
Musically and lyrically the band combines the soft, soothing wonder of Nursery Crime era Genesis, or Radiohead without the doom and gloom. Lead singer Casper Clausen is a better singer than Peter Gabriel or Thom Yorke. Clausen is not obnoxious or whiny. He and the band are very good, pleasant to listen to, and very relaxing. [www.myspace.com/efterklang]
Andrea Weiss
Holly Miranda
The Magician’s Private Library
XL Recordings
It is wonderful to hear an album as fresh and unique as Miranda’s debut. By avoiding all the lyrical clichés about how life and love is filled with joy or pain in favor of dreamscapes, especially lucid dreamscapes, she imagines a world where anything is possible.
Musically the sound is soft, lush, and yes, dream-like. It is a magical sound, happily not hackneyed, one that shimmers, and adds texture to the lyrics, especially on “Sweet Dreams.” David Andrew Sitek of TV on the Radio produced the album, and it’s what Miranda gets from that band’s sound that lends weight and power to it, with extra power provided by Kip Malone’s duet with Miranda on “Slow Burn Treason.”
The album’s title comes from her uncle David, who said Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon sounded like “the magician’s private library.” This album is dedicated to him. Miranda says the title could be anything and anywhere, which fits this album just right, and sum up this great album very neatly. [www.myspace.com/hollymiranda]
Andrea Weiss
Shearwater
The Golden Archipelago
Matador Records
The wonder of nature found in solitude is the theme of The Golden Archipelago. Researcher and singer/songwriter Jonathan Meiburg has lived on various islands, among them the Falklands, the Galapagos, and Madagascar. He found numinous silences, lushness and austerity, and how nature and humans live with these kinds of extremes. The music reflects all of this, quiet one minute, swelling to a roar the next, beautiful and eerie, with Meiburg’s calm, deep voice tying everything together.
While the lyrics put into words his feelings about living in very remote places, after awhile it’s apparent that Meiburg would prefer to live without human contact, and that nature is all he needs. It’s what makes this album so sad to listen to, almost unbearably sad, and in the end annoying. What is so bad about humankind that makes nature preferable? The question is never answered. It is that unanswered question that in the end makes this an album to skip, it is beyond belief that Meiburg would want to be alone like that. People need people, and anything else isn’t creditable. [www.myspace.com/shearwater]
Andrea Weiss
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