I Am Atomic Man

Gil Ray

I Am Atomic Man

125 Records

Gil Ray, best known for his superb drumming for Game Theory, The Loud Family, and Rain Parade, made this album, his only solo album, in 2006. The music is solid, unpretentious, lo-fi indie rock. Ray has a lot of fun here with the guitars, but doesn't use drums, only drum machines that sound organic and are still played great.

Lyrically it’s the retro sci-fi of your dreams, the kind that appeared in the 50s and 60s with its visions of what the future might be like. The lyrics are fun, but serious fun, the kind where everyone is in on the joke, but the jokes never turn sour, so a good time is had by all. And that is, in the end, what the album is about: a good time, a futuristic time, one that rocks.

Gil lost his battle with cancer on January 24^th of this year. This review is my tribute to him, a really nice guy and wonderful musician.

Andrea Weiss

TO CN

The Ophelias

Creature Native

Joyful Noise

Joyful Noise has a subscription series.  I subscribed just out of curiosity.  I like them and I don’t think music should be obscure either.  This series, “White Noise”, runs for a year, with a different known musician curating each of the twelve releases.  Up first:  Yoni Wolf’s selection, The Ophelias, an all woman, all teen band from Cincinnati.

This blend of chamber pop/folk rock is wonderful.  Quiet, understated, sad, yet with a dry wit, the band shows much promise.  I hope they stay together.  Such a good start shouldn’t be wasted.  I especially like their take on "These Days", closer to the Velvet Underground’s version than the original.  Jackson Browne wrote this when he was 19, so who better than a band of teens to cover it, make his cynicism their own, and turn the lyrics into wry humor?

https://ophelias.bandcamp.com/album/creature-native

Andrea Weiss

M&T Roche

Maggie And Terrie Roche

Seductive Reasoning

Legacy Recordings/Columbia Records

I had the tape of the original Columbia album, with a different cover. They wore long, colorful skirts and seemed to be floating in the air. I like the cover of this reissue too, just the two of them in tank tops, sitting on a couch.

The album is still as wonderful as when I heard it last, decades ago. I wore out the tape with repeated playings. The songs are terrific. The sisters already had their harmonies down. The lyrics are, by turns, heartbreaking and funny, with wry and dry humor. While the music is very much of its time, it has timeless qualities, so it's still accessible today. You could even say its a prototype for indie folk, or indie, period.

But it’s the lyrics, their sexual politics, counterculture consciousness, and flashes of 70s non-ideological feminism that make it a lost classic at the very least, and one of the greatest albums of all time at the most, because the subjects are handled in a way that still rings true, giving them a universal appeal.

I love the Roches as a trio. Suzzy is way cool, but Maggie, with her great alto, and Terrie's soprano--there just isn’t anything like it. If you know their song “We” from their first trio album, with its line “guess which two of us made a record,” this is the record that song is referring to. If you love that album, I think you'll love this one, too. And long live Maggie, who lost her battle with breast cancer on January 21st 2017. This review is my tribute to her.

Andrea Weiss

Fancey

Fancey

Love Mirage

Stoner Disco Records

Todd Fancey’s first album since 2007’s Shmancey finds the guitarist for The New Pornographers in fine form. This album is excellent from start to finish.

I’m old enough to remember listening to 70s soft rock on AM radio. "Love Mirage" is neo-70s soft rock at its best: no irony here, just a great tribute to the past that makes me remember why I have a soft spot for this type of music.

This album also is a tribute to the softer end of disco, so in spots it sounds like the Bee Gees and their ilk. He gets this type of music right, using vintage instrumentation, and no loops or overdubs.

Great melodies, and some wonderful backing vocals form Angela Kelman and Olivia Maye, who sounds way older than 13, make this album a lot of fun to listen to, whether you find this type of music a guilty pleasure, a tribute to the past, or just good, period.

https://www.facebook.com/fanceymusic/

Andrea Weiss

Final Top Ten

This poll, Critics Poll 27 on the Tris McCall site, has been around

for 27 years, and while I haven’t done all 27, I have been 

taking part in it for several years. A lot of fun, with the difference 

between my earlier top ten post and this, 

is that I had to rank albums and singles. Enjoyed them all, and  

the catagories. They were also a lot of fun to do.

Album of the Year Nice As Fuck S/T

#2 Tegan and Sara Love You To Death

#3 Mitski Puberty 2

#4 Darlingside Birds Say*

#5 Game Theory -  Big Shot Chronicles 

#6 Angel Olsen My Women

#7 Margret Glaspy Emotions And Math

#8 Esme Patterson We Were Wild

#9 Game Theory  Lolita Nation

#10 Whitney Light Upon The Lake

Album honorable mention(s) Case/Lang/Vires, Warpaint Heads Up, Joesph I’m Alone, No You’re Not, Sad13 Slugger, Mavis Staples Livin On A High Note, Speedy Ortiz Death Note, Moth Chairlift, Tacocat Lost Times, Shaky Graves, And The War Came*, Colleen Green, I Want To Grow Up.

Song of the Year - Special Teams SunFire

         #2 Nice As Fuck  Door

    #3  Game Theory - Erica’s Word    

       

         #4  Tegan & Sara U Turn

         #5 No Matter Where We Go  Whitney

  #6   Tacocat The Internet

       

         #7 Darlingside Go Back*

 #8 Game Theory Slip

         #9 You and I Margret Glaspy

             

         #10 Angel Olsen Shut Up Kiss Me

Single honorable mention(s) Sad 13 Get A Yes, Joesph White Flag, and SOS (Overboard), Angel Olsen Give It Up, NAF Cookie Lips, Warpaint New Song, Mitsuki, A Loving Feeling & Your Best American Girl,  Daws When the Tequila Runs Out, Roll With The Punches, Miniature Tigers Crying In The Sunshine, Tacocat I Hate The Weekend, Case/Lang/Viers Atomic Number, The Shins Dead/Alive, Courtney Barnett Three Packs A Day, Mavis Staples High Note, Bonnie Raitt, Gypsy In Me, No Such Thing As Illusion Chairlift, Margret Glaspy Emotions And Math, Colleen Green Pay Attention, Tegan and Sara Boyfriend, Shaky Graves Dearly Departed*, Quilt Roller, Tancred Bed Case.

Bed Case

Best singing Darlingside - the whole band harmonizing.*

Best rapping The cast of Hamilton.* 

Best songwriting Jenny Lewis (Nice As Fuck)

Best lyrics Tegan and Sara.

Best album cover Darlingside Birds Say

Best album title Angel Olsen My Woman

Most welcome surprise Whitney Light Upon The Lake

Biggest disappointment Mavis Staples Living On A High Note 

Best production: Special Teams SunFire

Best live show(s) you saw in 2016 Rikki Lee Jones solo at World 

Cafe Live.  

2016 album that wore out most quickly Case/Lang/Veirs

Most overrated artist/album Frank Ocean Blonde.

Crummy album you listened to a bunch anyway The Lumineers Cleopatra

Album that turned out to be a hell of a lot better than you first thought: Mitski Puberty 2. Taylor Swift

Album that felt most like an obligation to get through and enjoy Daws We’re All Gonna Die

Thing you feel cheapest about liking: songs about horrible relationships, a dime-a-dozen, but when done right,  irresistible. 

Most sympathetic or likeable perspective Lake Street Dive, Call Off Your Dogs. 

Most alienating perspective: Trump anything

Artist you respect, but don't like Taylor Swift

Worst song of the year Foals Mountain At My Gates

Song that would drive you craziest on infinite repeat The Record Company Off The Ground. 

Hoary old bastard who should spare us all and retire Bob Weir

Young upstart who should be sent down to the minors for more seasoning Car Seat Headrest

Good artist most in need of some fresh ideas Bonnie Raitt 

Will still be making good records in 2026 The Pretenders 

Prevailing theme or trend of 2016: Everyone waking up politically, even as the great protest songs will be in 2017.  

Coming musical trend of 2017 Everyone continues to get political and write lots of protest songs, most of them wonderful. 

Additional comments? Your own wiseguy questions? 

Special Teams: Kelley Deal and friends, experimental rock, and it works like anything. It’s also why this song 

is the Best Production. It sounds great, especially the vocals.

More here: https://specialteamsmusic.bandcamp.com/releases

The Game Theory songs and albums are in the main lists as they stack up favorably now, just they did when they were originally out in the 80s. 

Whitney, not associated with Houston. Two guys, one from Unknown Mortal Orchestra, the other from the Smith Westerns. And sound a little like the Mac, maybe a good song Lindsey or Christine would have written.   

*Albums released in 2015, but didn’t hear until 2016. Of the three, Darlingside, a great neo-90s folk group. That is updated just the way musicians like Dar Williams did in the 90s. Heard on the radio. 

Shaky Graves, not goth, an Austin singer/songwriter, but Dearly Departed is a ghost story. Is one of the lovers in the song dead, but haunting his/her house anyway, and still finding love. Or are both dead, still in love, and haunt their own house? Indie folk music.  Esme Patterson is the other voice, wonderful on her own album, too. If you like the folky side of power pop, you’ll like her. These two I also heard on the radio.  

Hamilton you know. A great history/civics lessson, and what rap should be 24/7. It was seeing excerpts of the musical on the Tony Awards that sold me on this one. 

Lastly, the honorable mentions are unranked. They’re all good, just some more than others. 

TV/NAF

Jenny Lewis

The Voyager

Warner Brothers

Lewis’s final album for Warners has been described by her as her most personal. And it’s easy to see why, as these songs allude to the breakup of Rilo Kiley, insomina, and the death of her father. It’s also a woman wiser, and older taking stock of everything. 

Musically, this is adult rock, and wonderful at that. It’s very tough minded, but also thrilling throughout, none more so than on Slippery Slopes, the album’s best track, about trying to keep a relationship together while realizing that everything about it is a slippery slope to nowhere. 

If you like adult rock that isn’t sedate, this is an album to get, as well as Lewis’s latest project. It’s the first for her own label Loves Way, the supergroup Nice As F**k. NAF rocks, differently than the Voyager, but just as tough, and just as big hearted. 

Andrea Weiss

Pod

The Breeders

Pod

4AD

I became a fan of the Breeders with this album, and never looked back, when I heard the band’s cover of Happiness Is A Warm Gun on the radio. I’d been lucky enough to have heard Eatontown’s WHTG, when Matt Pinfield was programming the music. And beside’s the cover, which is great, later on I heard Only In Threes, a fun, and funny song about a threesome. Loved it. 

Arty fun is the M.O.here. Kim Deal, Josephine Wiggs, and Tayna Donnely. Before Kelley joined the band, and Jim. The drummer on Pod was Britt Walford, have a grand time making much quirky fun. For Deal and Donnely, a cool way to step into the spotlight, and they never let it go. So if you give thew album a chance, chances are you’ll never let it go either. I didn’t.  

Andrea Weiss