Art of the Song

Review: Modern Vampires Of The City, Vampire Weekend

Wed, 15 May 2013 14:37:00 -0400

I tried to hate Vampire Weekend. Like many, I found their twee/hyper-literate sensibilities a little too gratingly self-aware. They would know of mansard roofs, kwassa-kwassa, and Oxford commas. Yet it’s truly hard to absolutely fault a band for their background. So what if they had graduated from Columbia? Certainly abstract ideas and world influenced rhythms had exploited pop music before, a la The Talking Heads. Vampire Weekend’s problem seemed to be more of an affectation; they weren’t so much the snooty educated vanguard as they were beloved by the people that were. Music thrives with identity after all, and those grammatical shindigs found at summer homes in Cape Cod had found a place on the radio.

There was a temporal and spatial reasoning as well. The Strokes had become New York City’s musical darlings overnight but had faded just as quickly, their avoidance of emotion, their committal to being non-committal had caught up with them. 2008 was a long time to wait for a new buzz band, and NYC underwent a cultural renaissance. Gone was the romanticism of skeevy lounges and frenetic punk fantasy, in its place a more marketable youth heaven. Shows such as Sex in the City and Gossip Girl not only brought out the high society of NYC life, they made it acceptable, accessible, and lusted after. Vampire Weekend perfectly fit the mold, thrust into the landscape of hipsterdom, Upper West Side obsession and the ever growing backlash.

Aside from a brief dash of an affair with “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa”, “Oxford Comma”, and “The Kids Don’t Stand A Chance”, my strong dislike was successful, they couldn’t be songs that I could delve into, obsess over, rinse and repeat. Their follow-up album, Contra, was little more than a blip of my attention, and even then mostly due to the squabble over the album cover.

Vampire Weekend is almost incessantly tuneful— you need only hear the opening guitar riff to CCKK once before you have it stuck in your head for life. Unfortunately, it infers something worse than a guilty pleasure because you don’t want to be associated with the people (who, it should be said, are derided in the actual song) who are its main subject. Even the most opined detractors can’t akin Vampire Weekend to talentless hacks. However, on the wave of their debut they were easy to pigeonhole. Koenig recounted in a recent interview “we were essentially the preppy African guitar band.” They’ve been trying to avoid the label ever since.

Vampire Weekend certainly knows their audience. The cheeky urbane types that would delight in showing their friends that Vampire Weekend announced their latest album through an ad in the New York Times, or that they teamed up with Steve Buscemi to venture on psuedo-awkward adventures across the GIF-able city. That’s really the only thing that bothers me, but it is arguably no worse window dressing than many a pop album uses for promotion.

Here’s the thing, the music trumps all of it. Whereas their debut found them trying to sound different from the pack, Modern Vampires Of The City (horrible title and all) succeeds with pure ambition.

“Obvious Bicycle” starts the album with spare instrumentation, a compressed piano and a shuffling drum beat that hints at unconventional ( A drum beat that comes from an obscure reggae artist Ras Michael’s “Keep Cool Babylon”). Mortality has already been discussed at length as a theme for this album, but time is also important, as Koenig sarcastically chides his friend “You oughta spare your face the razor/ because no one’s gonna spare the time for you.” The chorus comes across as a soaring hymnal aimed at the reluctant Carpe Diem millennials, “Listen, don’t wait.”

The second song on the album, “Unbelievers”, reminds me of Billy Joel. Not surprising given Koenig’s proclivity for defending the man. Especially the harmonizing on the refrain “We know the fire awaits unbelievers/ all of the sinners, the same.” The droning organ and drum interplay also make nice bedfellows with the rising and falling vocals.

“Step” has been glowingly reviewed so far, and it’s easy to see why, with its homespun yet ornate sound collage that could perfectly back a Wes Anderson film. Here, Koenig is perhaps at his most referential and reverential, quoting Souls of Mischief’s “Step To My Girl” (in turn a quote of Grover Washington Jr’s “Aubrey” which is a cover of Bread’s original) The iterations of iterations are telling of the song’s theme, music, and how each generation shapes it and believes their own to be better. So too does Koenig relate the universality of music, from Dar es Salaam to Berkeley.

“Diane Young”, an obvious homophone of dying young, is Modern Vampires Of The City at its most energetic. Koenig’s vocal jumps like Buddy Holly on speed while the whiplash rhythm section whirls around him. There’s even a nice bit of vocal manipulation at play here on the chorus (Koenig explained this as an attempt to simulate vocal changes through aging) but the bridge, an apoplectic electronic approximation of a car crash, is a bit jarring. It’s still a tremendously engaging song, even if the Kennedy reference is a little too macabre, considering two of them were assassinated.

The booming organ and drum combination is back on “Don’t Lie”, kissing cousins of J. Giels Band’s “Love Stinks” . The descending bass line is a star here, with a catchy refrain to boot. ”Don’t Lie” is a nice breather after the frenetic “Diane Young” and the build of the arrangement, dashes of harpsichord, strident string arrangements that compliment the cooing vocals, its all here.

“Hannah Hunt” finds Koenig at his most vulnerable, a tale of a relationship that was doomed to fail. The lyrics are heavy on double meanings here, particularly on the refrain where Koenig relates ” Though we live on the US dollar/ you and me, we got our own sense of time.” Time is money, but the homophone (sense, cents) is a nice choice of words as well. Again, locations are littered, from Providence to Phoenix, Waverly/Lincoln, and Santa Barbara. In that framework, “Hannah tore the New York Times into pieces,” could just as well be the time they spent in New York as the typical paper. ”Hannah Hunt” also features one of the prettier bridges on the album and is an easy favorite on the album.

“Everlasting Arms” might be Modern Vampires Of The City’s most direct confrontation with religion. Opening with the stark ”I took your counsel and I came to ruin, leave me to myself, leave me to myself.” Koenig quotes the “Dies Irae” a famous hymn of death and destruction, and even models the vocal melody after it in apposition to “Hallelujah”. It’s a song of contradicting patterns, the sharp dark strings, the soothing vocals. The sense of being alone in the world and begging for a different explanation.

Strangely, I saw one reviewer liken “Worship You” to a hyperactive “I’m Looking Through You”, but if I were to nail a Beatle reference to one song on the album, it would be “Finger Back” with an unholy amalgamation of “I Am The Walrus” and “Hello Goodbye.” Koenig again puts human emotion and religious propriety at odds with the telling spoken bridge “Cuz this Orthodox girl fell in love with the guy at the falafel shop/ And why not? Should she have averted her eyes and/ Just stared at the laminated poster of The Dome of The Rock?” Just as Koenig was at odds with strict grammarians in “Oxford Comma”, he feels the rules are meant to be bent in “Finger Back” too.

“Worship You” is an exercise in vocal calisthenics, not really my favorite on the album, but interesting nonetheless. In an interview, Koenig described it as an attempt at “some kind of celtic song (about 3:44 in)”. Given that “Worship You” has also been described as “arabesque”, it’s almost uncanny that Koenig had mentioned this nearly eight years ago.

Many reviewers have also picked up on the fact that “Ya Hey” has managed to both reference God (Yahweh), and one of the most popular songs in the last ten years: Outkast’s “Hey Ya”. It’s a neat parlor trick, and the song is indeed catchy, but the zealous railing against religion is starting to get a little tiresome by this point.

“Hudson” however, throws the album completely on its head: there’s no song quite like it in Vampire Weekend’s oeuvre. It’s a city gone completely dark, apocalyptic, haunting choral arrangements, and intriguingly, a tale of human failures in light of all of the religious foreboding. Koenig not so subtly implies that the time or place don’t matter, conflicts will always be the same.

“Young Lion” emerges like the dawn after “Hudson“‘s dark night, after a flourish of classically styled piano, Vampire Weekend’s harmonies take over, repeating just one simple line “You take your time, young lion” over and over again. Backed only by an upright bass and choral harmonies, “Young Lion” is a sudden, and stunningly gorgeous end to the album.

Vampire Weekend have proven that they are more than just a one-trick pony, highly capable of melody and encompassing darker themes. I really did try to avoid listening to Vampire Weekend once, but with Modern Vampires Of The City, I may have finally stopped worrying and learned to love the music.

Top Songs:

Hannah Hunt

Finger Back

Find Modern Vampires Of The City on:

Amazon (LP)

iTunes

XL Recordings

If You Like Modern Vampires Of The City, try Big Echo by The Morning Benders

Album Review: Stories Don't End, Dawes

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 17:28:08 -0400

Dawes is not a group of ingenue folksters, trying to chase the Mumford & Sons bandwagon until it inevitably crashes into the WOMP-WOMP of ~~bullshit~~ dub-step. Yet they too have been cast into the sepia-toned “revivalist Americana” bandwagon because— to many— music is sounds and opinions, and Dawes sounded like CSNY, The Eagles, and Jackson Browne furtively conceived love-children with each other (the miracles of science!) to create the unassuming North Hills, Dawes’ debut LP. The “Y” of CSNY and the Jackson Browne would seemingly renew their vows on the follow-up, 2011’s Nothing Is Wrong. “Laurel Canyon” would be thrown around a lot too, because the indie music scene is desperate to prove connections to music’s past, while avoiding music’s present.

Dawes first burst onto the scene in 2009, recording their debut album on such a shoestring budget that bass player Wylie Gelber had to use a guitar amp to record his lines. Their dedication to analog—and their monstrous touring efforts— brought an energetic sound to the affair, and an “old” one. People claim that sound is warmer, richer on analog, or at least more natural, and so North Hills was imbued with a sound of the California groups of old, guitars crackling, the bass striding with warm tones and the imperfect cracks of the snare, muddled, not the digital isolated noise we’ve come to accept. It was a fly on the wall record of a live band—it could have been a lost outtake of The Band—and it won the hearts and minds.

Of course, the relentless touring schedule played a large part of that, and the choice of “When My Time Comes” as a featured song in a Chevrolet commercial didn’t hurt either. Goldsmith and company wanted to reflect the touring life in their next LP, Nothing Is Wrong, not romanticizing it, but observations from a life on the road, and the inevitable breaks and bonds along the way. Musically, this truly was an album they could take on the road, energetic ballads with space for solos and sing-alongs, “If I Wanted Someone”, “Fire Away”, “My Way Back Home”, “Time Spent In Los Angeles” all harnessed Dawes instrumental capability and their passion.

One of Dawes’ not so secret weapons is Taylor Goldsmith’s younger brother Griffin, who plays drums, far more than just a capable harmonizer (he’s usually the one who gets backing vocal credit), he’s a fastidious player, practicing for hours and hours on end. I saw that perfectionism in person when he absolutely nailed a cover of Paul Simon’s “Kodachrome” while playing drums simultaneously. Wylie Gelber is probably the heir apparent to John “The Ox” Entwistle, both in playing ability and in stoic demeanor onstage and keyboardist Tay Strathairn is— in his young thirties— the band’s elder statesman, helping anchor the group that seems determined to be the hardest working rock band in show business.

Energy and sound can go a long way in a group’s success, but Taylor Goldsmith’s lyrics are the foundation. He’s arguably the best rock music couplet writer of our time. At least part of this owes to his method - Goldsmith will usually have a title in mind first, and he doesn’t play around with nonsense words to fit a melody. Each line is written to the overall theme, and if it doesn’t fit, it’s forgotten. It’s of little surprise knowing this, that Goldsmith writes his lyrics on a typewriter. A computer is prone, almost welcome, to mistakes and flights of fancy, with a typewriter you have to be succinct. A voracious reader, Goldsmith titled their latest LP, Stories Don’t End from a line in Joan Didion’s novel Democracy

It’s a peculiar choice for those who don’t know what drives Goldsmith— those who like me— were at first drawn to the music, and only slowly let the lyrics sink in. But Goldsmith has always been a writer fascinated by the intricacy of relationships and the human condition. The paraphrasing of a Nietzche line— “You can stare into the abyss, but it’s staring right back”— in “When My Time Comes” isn’t chosen to sound educated, or bring in abstract ideas for the “coolness” of it,(In contrast, “Oxford Comma” off Vampire Weekend’s debut LP very much sounds like a band playing up the fact that they’re Columbia students) but to echo where Goldsmith is coming from.

He’s been glowingly referred to as profound for his age, 27 as of this album, but for Dawes’ past couple albums, this has been skewed by the relatively bright sonic landscape Goldsmith brought with his songwriting. Frustrated by constantly being labelled as “vintage”, Goldsmith decided to drop the facade on Stories Don’t End. It’s a much darker album, atmosphere plays a much more heightened role here, laying Goldsmith’s thoughts bare. The theme of Democracy looms large as well, with Goldsmith’s narrators not so much inconsistent, as aware of the incongruity of narration. “From A Window Seat”, the first single released from the album, is as much a tale about Goldsmith writing a song about his fears of flight, as it is a song about the fear of flying.

Perception is a constant theme, on “Most People”, Goldsmith writes of a woman whose thoughts on life “makes up an image which resists interpretation which is lately how she likes to see herself” and that alone in her thoughts she believes that her hope and despair is unique when “she doesn’t know that most people feel that same way”. “Just Beneath The Surface” carries the same burden where ostensibly Goldsmith admits there’s always a part of him that will doubt the true intentions behind his actions. It becomes exceedingly obvious through the course of the album that a relationship is responsible for Goldsmith’s devastation, or a sequence of many that followed the same path. But Goldsmith manages to—like the most talented songwriters- make the personal universal and give emotional depth to the characters.

Despondent as it may well be, the arrangements are no one-trick pony. They could have, as Goldsmith amply demonstrated on “Love Is All I Am” and “God Rest My Soul” from North Hills, been successful with a stark acoustic affair. But there’s an infectious propulsion to combat the somber mood, “From A Window Seat” sparkles with a frenetic Warren Zevonesque piano hook, “Someone Will” (my favorite on the album) bounces along an unexpectedly great rhythm section and a jaunting acoustic guitar melody. “Most People”’s arrangement probably bears the most resemblance to their sophomore Nothing Is Wrong, but with a great twist in using harmonics as part of the key guitar hook. “Side Effects” might be the most beautiful arrangement of the bunch, and there isn’t really a weak one, but the dynamics here are exactly what the song calls for; tense and awe-inspiring in all the right places.

This stylistic evolution isn’t without a few stumbles, “Bear Witness” means well, and the arrangement is intriguing, but the lyrical detail sounds ridiculous at parts. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a better song than many could write, and ambitious, but it doesn’t stand up as well among the album. “Hey Lover” is an intriguing choice, a song written by former bandmate Blake Mills. It would be hard to improve on that original, but its nice to see Griffin and Taylor swap verses and have a little fun on the album.

There’s a lot to like here, and Dawes have proven themselves capable of being more than just a “vintage” band, Goldsmith’s songwriting is on full display, and the band amply backs enough intriguing arrangements to keep the affair from being too dark.

Top Picks: “Someone Will”, “Most People”, “Stories Don’t End”, “From A Window Seat”, “Side Effects”

Stories Don’t End comes out April 9th, 2013

Grab Stories Don’t End (digital) on iTunes

Grab Stories Don’t End (Vinyl, CD, and digital) on Amazon

"The Weight", Mikal Cronin, MCII

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:12:49 -0400

Best known for his collaborations with modern day Marc Bolanite, Ty Segall, Mikal Cronin is starting to carve a name for himself with his own homage to the music of old. His debut 2011 LP, Mikal Cronin, was a home-spun affair, a psych-garage rock album that brought the roll back in rock.

This time around Cronin is armed with a full studio production (and major indie label Merge) on the suitably named MCII, a continuation and evolution of his previous work. ”The Weight” benefits from the studio soundscape, there’s tight harmony lines and bristling dynamics, but Cronin is wise to not let the song be overdone with studio polish, the raw energy is still there.

The Weight - Mikal Cronin

RIYL: John Lennon, Elliott Smith, The New Pornographers, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin

MCII comes out May 7th, 2013 on Merge Records. You can Pre-order it here:

Merge Records

iTunes

"You Take Me As I Am", Stornoway

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 14:11:33 -0400

Stornoway is a group out of Oxford, England that first made waves with their 2010 debut Beachcombers Windowsill, a folksy, idiosyncratic equivalent to the more electric Arctic Monkeys. Their new album Tales From Terra Firma, slated for a March 19th release in the United States is not so much a stylistic change as it is a sonic evolution with absolutely stunning and daring arrangement choices that spring them out of the British folksy Mumford and Sons pack. That the album was recorded in a modest campervan makes the results all the more impressive. “You Take Me As I Am”, the first track on the new album is a propulsive anthem that transforms a narrative about a nascent marriage into an epic synonymous with the power of love. Fueled by an energetic acoustic guitar backbeat, the arrangement whirls with organs and brass and a dynamic drum line. One of the better tracks to come out this year. Also as a bonus, I’m including “When You Touch Down From Outer Space” a track they recorded during Pitchfork’s Music Festival in Paris as a Takeaway Show with La Blogotheque.

You Take Me As I Am

When You Touch Down From Outer Space (Takeaway Show)

Pre-order the album on iTunes

"Hopeful", Josh Ritter

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 13:40:00 -0400

“I’ve seen her around now with someone new I don’t know, She likes green-eyed boys that are haloed in hope, but I know the look in his eyes and I know all the old signs, just a couple of curves before his own road unwinds.”

Josh Ritter just released The Beast In Its Tracks, an album that captures the period of his divorce from Dawn Landes with devastating clarity, paucity, and most importantly, empathy. As a man who whittled his own path out of Oberlin with a self-created major in “American History Through Narrative Folk Music”, Ritter has managed to avoid the usual depression and one-sidedness of most break-up albums, and his usual lyrical fireworks, more spare this time around, are still on display. Take “Hopeful” the fourth track on the album, which juxtaposes his own stark admissions with his ex-partner’s silver lining. Most impressive is the nods to music that came before him, with shades of Paul Simon’s verbose diary narratives, a touch of Lennon melodic hooks and an arrangement that would fit perfectly with Elliot Smith’s XO.

Hopeful

Go pick up a copy of The Beast In Its Tracks today:

iTunes Insound

Classic Albums: Revolver, The Beatles (1966)

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 16:30:00 -0500

One….Two….Three…Four…One…Two

It was April of 1966, and like Bob Dylan sang, “The times, they are a changin’.” Dylan himself had just gone electric, The Vietnam war was expanding, and along with it, numerous counter-culture movements among the youth. The Beatles had released their first “adult” album, Rubber Soul, barely five months prior, with music critics blustering about teenagers listening to songs about lesbians and prostitutes while fellow contemporary musicians regarded it as a landmark achievement, an open invitation to write songs that weren’t just love songs. Rubber Soul gets unfortunately labeled as a folk-rock album, and while it not might have reached the experimental heights of their later work, it’s certainly no Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. This was amplified somewhat by the butchered American releases that would plague The Beatles until Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band; gone was the Stax muscle of “Drive My Car,” Lennon’s emerging psychedelia on “Nowhere Man,” the country music ode of “What Goes On,” and perhaps most confusingly, Harrison’s “If I Needed Someone,” which channeled The Byrds electric folk-rock just then coming into form. In its place were two previous UK releases, “It’s Only Love” and “I’ve Just Seen A Face.” Looking back, the surprise of how much The Beatles advanced with Revolver was certainly helped by the “dumbing down” of the American product of Rubber Soul.

Music critics have a tough time deciding what changed popular music more; the release of Sgt. Pepper, or the magnum opus of psychedelic music, “Tomorrow Never Knows.” Looking back almost 50 years later, it’s safe to say that no band, certainly not one in popular music circles, could attempt a track as experimental as this one without losing its audience. For a song so devilishly complex in its creation, it could not have gone far without the unlimited technical ability of its creator. George Martin would always fondly remember Lennon for his outlandish requests in the studio; he would wish a song “to sound orange” or, in the case of the later “Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite,” he wanted “to smell the sawdust.” Seeing as most of his requests were rewarded, mostly by technical innovation that always brought The Beatles more critical praise, Martin and the engineers at EMI always went to great lengths to accommodate Lennon’s abstract requests and bring them to recorded reality.

The stakes Lennon had set for “Tomorrow Never Knows” were absurd, even for his standards. ”I want to sound like I’m the Dalai Lama singing a chant from the mountain-top,” Lennon said, insisting that the only reasonable way to accomplish the feat was to hang him upside down from a rope so he could swing around precariously over a microphone. While Martin and Emerick sent out for the requisite rope they pleaded with Lennon to change his mind, surely they could find a reasonable solution that didn’t endanger the musician’s life. It was the concept of a rotating Lennon that got Emerick’s attention.

The Leslie speaker, a loudspeaker that made use of the Doppler effect to manipulate the soundwave, had enjoyed immense success in the 1950’s as an integral part of many jazz organ trios, and had begun to make a resurgence on psychedelic records for its trademark whirling sound. No one however, had thought to put a voice behind it. Emerick quickly found a Leslie speaker cabinet in the studio and physically broke into the back to adjust the wiring for a microphone. Lennon also tasked his bandmates with bringing in experimental tape loops for the song, at the time little more than a drone around C. In the end, they would keep only McCartney’s contributions: (1) the haunting, seagull call (actually McCartney laughing through a tape recorder), (2) an extended note from Sibelius 7th Symphony in B flat, (3) a Mellotron (an early precursor to the synthesizer) on its flute setting reversed, (4) another Mellotron oscillating in 6/8 time from B flat to C on its string setting, and lastly (5) a rising scalar phrase on the sitar. Starr’s contribution on drums can not be overlooked either, a cacophonic boom of tom-toms that had been loosened by Emerick, and subsequently stuffed with cloth and close-miked with a massive echo effect. It’s said that many an American studio, though technically superior, would be torn down and rebuilt in an attempt to get the drum sound that The Beatles were getting in the primitive EMI studios. It’s safe to say that nobody came close.

Concurrently, the engineers were working on another innovation that would change how pop music was made, the invention of ADT, or Artificial Double Tracking. The Beatles, and Lennon especially, hated the process of manual double tracking, requiring multiple takes to double their vocals. Ken Townsend found through use of a tape delay, one vocal track could be fed through another tape recorder to produce a wider soundstage and give the impression of two vocal takes. At the time, technology only allowed it to be done in the final mixing stage where the recording head of the tape would be fed through the second tape recorder, manipulated to a different speed through an oscillator, and fed back into a fader on the mixing board. Lennon was so impressed that he demanded to know how it was done and was told by Martin that it was produced through a “double-bifurcated sploshing flange”

The Beatles had always used drugs in some form or another, from their barbiturate days in Hamburg* to their famous introduction to pot by Bob Dylan. The popular story goes that Dylan was impressed that their single “I Want To Hold Your Hand” had snuck in the line “I get high, I get high, I get highhhhh” only to be told they were saying “I can’t hide, I can’t hide, I can’t hideeee” and, surprised that they hadn’t done it before, invited them to smoke a joint at the Delmonico Hotel in New York City.

The first song that The Beatles ended up working on for the Revolver sessions was “Got To Get You Into My Life,” which featured a strong soul sound, and odd for them at the time, a simple love song lyric. Some may have smelled something funny right away with lines like “I was alone I took a ride I didn’t know what I would find there”, but McCartney only admitted some thirty years later that “it was an ode to pot.” Even on this relatively straight-forward arrangement, producer George Martin and engineer Geoff Emerick had a couple tricks up their sleeves to bring out the punchy sound of the final recording. Martin arranged a horn quintet, made up of three trumpets and two tenor saxophones, and Emerick placed the microphones right into the horn bells and pushed the results through a limiter. And despite the commonplace critique that The Beatles were lacking in instrumental ability, the band really swings here, helped by a quite nimble McCartney bassline.

The Beatles received a lot of credit for their incorporation of Indian music into the conventional pop form. Harrison had first been won over during the filming of Help! where one scene featured Indian musicians playing “Hard Day’s Night” on traditional instruments. Harrison had gotten the ball rolling with his sitar work on “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” but it’s really Revolver where his fully fledged love of Indian music comes into play. Recorded only 4 days after “Got To Get You Into My Life,” Harrison’s first number for Revolver, “Love You Too,” was certainly ambitious for the time, but it hasn’t aged well. Some of this may just be melocentrism; music is no doubt a reflection of one’s culture, and the Classical Indian music that Harrison loved seemed to be fit for introspection while Western music, especially rock music, tended to always be moving forward. I can’t really find fault with the musical arrangement, but Harrison’s caustic lyrics here, attempting to be both philosophical and Dylanesque, do little to move beyond the original ingenuity of hearing Classical Indian accompaniment on a Western Record for the first time.

Even for a band marked by such prodigious output at the time, the pressure was on for The Beatles to record singles for the hungry public, and their desire to shed the folk-rock label seemingly as quickly as they had adopted it led to the recording of McCartney’s “Paperback Writer” and Lennon’s “Rain” in a matter of two subsequent days. “Paperback Writer” was a show of their new found musical muscle, with a pulsing, punchy bassline and propulsive guitar riffs. It was a wise move for McCartney to release the song prior to the album because the lyrical content was a little too straightforward for Revolver, focusing on a run of the mill novelist. Musically however, the arrangement highlighted The Beatles’ desire for experimenting on the pop form, bound by an unexpected a capella intro and a clever, almost hidden use of “Frere Jacques” as a counter-melody harmony. McCartney and Lennon, long fans of the bigger bass sound found on American records, implored Emerick to find a way to get a greater bass sound on their records, limited not only by EMI’s less than stellar mixing board but EMI’s strict rules on microphone placement as well. Emerick, ever the innovator, and largely unsung hero of The Beatles greatest experimental efforts, devised a solution wherein a speaker was placed alongside the bass amp, and the signal reversed. It wasn’t quite direct injection (that would come with Sgt. Pepper), but it did the job well enough. An interesting point of contention also arises with “Paperback Writer,” as no one is quite sure whether Harrison and McCartney swapped lead guitar and bass duties. If true, it’s a remarkable achievement for Harrison, who often bore the brunt of criticism for lack of instrumental skill.

“Rain” was a whole other animal. Lennon was a cultural omnivore and wished to write a song that matched the cataclysm of counter-culture psychedelia vs traditional English propriety. The result: a track featuring washed out guitars, an inventive melody that mixed both pop and Indian raga, tightly tracked harmonies, and a rather ingenious use of studio trickery.

One has to realize that, though possible, studio experimentation was laborious and challenging. There was no button to push, let alone a computer to manipulate the waveform; everything had to be done within the limits of analog tape. Lennon, having no technical expertise, was challenging Martin and Emerick to make the music sound drug-induced, as if from another dimension and he was starting to hate the sound of his own voice. The result was two-fold; the instrumental track would be played at a high speed, and the recording tape played back at a slower rate, while Lennon would sing the song in a lower pitch and have the tape sped up, creating the overall disconcerting track we know today.

I might call “Dr. Robert” a guilty pleasure, it’s certainly not an immediate favorite, or instantly recognizable as one of their better songs, but it is an exquisite piece of pop song-craft that acknowledges Lennon’s burgeoning talent as an observational songwriter. Thematically, “Dr. Robert” is in line with the other more popular Lennon numbers from the album, poking fun at, if not directly questioning the blurred lines between traditional cultural hierarchy and counter-culture. There’s the obvious: he’s a doctor and he’s dealing illicit drugs; and the less so, “You’ll pay money just to see yourself with Dr. Robert,” an almost anti-materialism theme that Lennon comes back to with “And Your Bird Can Sing.” Elsewhere, it’s a clever concoction of mixed perspectives, odd imperative phrases like “Ring my friend I said you’d call Dr. Robert,” or “well well well, you’re feeling fine, well well well, he’ll make you, Dr. Robert,” not to mention the now trademark Beatle harmonies in their traditional thirds, giving the song a nice bluesy inflection in alternating verses. As for a bit of an ad-lib, there’s no doubt that Lennon liked his literary references, and there is a Doctor Robert character that works for National Health in Aldous Huxley’s Island, a novel about a proposed utopia. Given that Lennon would later espouse his own idea of utopia (nutopia), it’s not that much of a stretch that Lennon was making a conscious reference.

A couple short days later found The Beatles recording George Harrison’s attempt at social commentary with “Taxman.” The story goes that the insular Harrison had just stumbled upon the fact that the band’s earnings put them in the highest income tax (95%) bracket, thus the “there’s one for you, nineteen for me” line. It’s also the first, and perhaps the only Beatle song to directly reference real people, as in the “Ah ah, Mr. Wilson,” “Ah ah, Mr. Heath,” backing vocal jabs at the respective leaders of the Labor and Conservative Party at the time. Here, George Harrison’s natural sardonic delivery is pitch-perfect for the song, and though McCartney gets a lot of credit for the searing guitar solo and circular bassline (the run up before the guitar solo is something to behold), Harrison’s knack for mixed tempo song-work is emerging with his quick switch from 4/4 to 2/4 on the stinging guitar line ( an overall songwriting signature that not only peeks its head out on a couple of Lennon compositions here, but “Something” and “Here Comes The Sun” as well). The syncopation of the rhythm section, with McCartney and Starr firmly in the pocket, might only be outdone by “She Said, She Said” on Revolver.

Not to be outdone, Lennon brings out the band’s next effort with “And Your Bird Can Sing.” Though (perhaps cloyingly) furnished with an ornate lead guitar line, the message is simple: “You tell me that you have everything you want, and your bird can sing, but you don’t get me, you don’t get me,” an ironic counter-statement to Harrison’s desire for money in the just finished “Taxman” (and they said he was spiritual!). Though Lennon would later call the song a “throwaway,” it’s another clear conveyance of Lennon’s clash with domesticity. Not openly acknowledged at the time, Lennon was having trouble adjusting to the “settled-down” life of marriage while his bandmates were out clubbing and enjoying “Swinging London,” and this number aptly fits Lennon’s desire of wanting to be a leader and wanting to escape the mundane.

“I’m Only Sleeping” continues Lennon’s creative assault on traditional values, content to lie in bed while the rest of the world seemed in a hurry to do everything and nothing all the same. The recording process would borrow the concept from “Rain” wherein once again, Lennon’s vocals were sped up and the instrumentation was slowed down, giving the otherwise plain instrumentation a textural, almost chunky effect. Also brought about by “Rain” was Lennon’s desire to have something played in reverse, which would decidedly be placed on Harrison’s shoulders with a backwards guitar solo. Harrison rarely ad-libbed his guitar solos, most were transcribed and practiced to a polish before recording. Further complicating matters was that the solo had to be thought out in a way that the initial recording would be reversed and sound logically forward, and for this effort it reportedly took Harrison 57 takes to get the required sound. McCartney’s bass is the unsung hero here, stringing together the whole song’s odd melodic phrases with a walking bass line that makes it work.

“Eleanor Rigby” followed two short days later. McCartney had apparently become obsessed with the new classical movement (evidenced before in his musique concrete collage in Tomorrow Never Knows) and wanted Martin to arrange something “sounding like Vivaldi” for a new observational piece he had been working on. The outline had come together after McCartney met his then-girlfriend Jane Asher at Rigby’s, a clothing store, and patched on the name Eleanor from the lead actress in Help!, Eleanor Bron. Strange for a Beatles effort, and perhaps even more strange given the lonely circumstances of the song, McCartney sought out his bandmates to flesh out the song. The image of “darning his socks in the night” was actually Ringo’s, and “Ah look at all the lonely people” appears to have been ad-libbed at the studio when they were in need of a final verse. Martin seemed to take note from Bernard Hermann’s Fahrenheit 451 score, or perhaps (quite chillingly) Psycho, with the string octet often alternating between strident, almost discordant phrases and more soothing, intimate ones. As an overall lyric, it’s one of McCartney’s best, not only in the subject matter of abject loneliness in society (a topic rarely touched in pop music) but in the memorable imagery, especially in the line “Wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door, who is it for?” Lennon may have been taking the loud approach to embracing counter-cultural themes, but McCartney’s “Rigby” is much more striking in noting the wrongs of traditional English culture, “No one is saved.”

Next would be “Eleanor Rigby”’s despondent twin, “For No One,” which features one of the most bare arrangements in their later period. As a slow, almost painful waltz, the arrangement is bolstered by some of the most poignant end of relationship lyrics ever committed to pop music. For the common critique that McCartney didn’t have facility equal to Lennon’s as a writer, “For No One” is one of the finest counterpoints you could have. The descending nature of the melody that is intertwined with McCartney’s succinct phrasing evokes the feeling of loneliness and despair as an inescapable reality. “Your day breaks/ Your mind aches/ You find that all her words of kindness linger on when she no longer needs you.” McCartney would later attribute the inspiration for the song from an argument with his then-girlfriend, actress Jane Asher; even though the relationship would go on another two years, the seeds of doubt were already there from that desperate admission that ends the song: “a love that should have lasted years.”

By and large, Lennon and McCartney had always found a song to give to Ringo on each of their albums, from “Boys” on Please Please Me, to most recently “What Goes On” on Rubber Soul, but “Yellow Submarine” remains perhaps his most well known, a whimsical number that daringly combines child fantasy with drug undertones, a tale of escapism and collectivism. The defining characteristic of “Yellow Submarine” has to be its ingenious and organic usage of sound collage. Far from the wildly psychedelic usage in “Tomorrow Never Knows,” “Yellow Submarine” was inspired by Bob Dylan’s recent “Rainy Day Women #12 and 35” for its ramshackle charm sounding, like a live cut from some underground bar. Certainly this is evident in the marching band riff (purportedly a 15 second loop from “La Reve passe”), and to perpetuate the nautical theme, the band went about gathering whistles, hoses, chains, buckets of water, and even an old tin bath.

Harrison’s third number, then unprecedented for any Beatle album, was the dissonant “I Want To Tell You,” inspired both by his recent love for Eastern-flavored music and, in a subtle way, his appreciation of Lennon’s songwriting. Beginning with a circular guitar line, a la “Day Tripper,” the seemingly unfinished riff echoes the circular thoughts mooring around Harrison’s head and the self-doubt that goes with expressing them: “It’s only me, it’s not my mind/ that is confusing things” being perhaps the best example of the loaded meanings Harrison could find within a simple phrase (and perhaps a skeleton of Lennon’s later “I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together”). In his own way, Harrison was still trying to find music to be able to mold to his thoughts, unlike what seemed vice-versa for McCartney and Lennon, and the choice of overall dissonance not only fulfills this purpose but amplifies it.

McCartney’s last two numbers for the album, “Good Day Sunshine” and “Here, There, And Everywhere” are perhaps best understood as McCartney’s desire to be a songwriter of old while keeping in with the new. “Good Day Sunshine” is bursting with life, from the vibrant choice of key (A, arguably the happiest sounding key), and mirrors the impact the summer of ‘66 was having; The Lovin’ Spoonful would release “Daydream” and later the darker “Summer in the City,” The Kinks “Sunny Afternoon,” and Donovan’s “Sunshine Superman.” Though not as outright an outlet of escapism, McCartney’s detail of a naive and blissful sunny afternoon belies the turbulence of counter-culture that was beginning to emerge and yet express the joie de vivre of a Cole Porter song. Unusual for its pronounced piano-dominated arrangement on an album so otherwise brimming with experimentation, it’s no doubt a conscious choice of McCartney to bring things back to the good old days.

“Here, There, And Everywhere” accomplishes this theme even better. Here, McCartney takes a melody that sounds so natural (yet the changes are unusual for any pop number) and makes it breathe, as if the song is wistful for itself. There is a common belief that “Here, There, And Everywhere” was where the influence of The Beach Boys began to take hold, with the cooing, wide harmonies and simple instrumentation, and McCartney would later acknowledge the same, but everywhere was it apparent that McCartney had made the transformation, seemingly overnight, from ably transforming influences, to becoming an influence of his own right.

The last song recorded for Revolver would be an onerous 9-hour session, the result of which would be “She Said She Said.” The content stemmed from a drug-induced conversation between Lennon and actor Peter Fonda, who had claimed to have a near-death experience while undergoing an operation, but, in typical Lennon fashion, and then morphed into a multi-rhythmic odyssey bent on doubt and self-discovery. Largely unrecognized in this, and later Lennon numbers of similar tempo reflexivity, Harrison played a huge role in fleshing Lennon’s ideas out in musical form. It would be Harrison’s idea to juxtapose the darkly chaotic “I know what it’s like to be dead” to the childhood reminiscence of “When I was a boy, everything was right,” including the idea of switching from 4/4 to ¾. What may also contribute to the strong tonal flavor of the song is the fact that it is one of the few songs that McCartney doesn’t play on at all, with Harrison taking over bass guitar duties. Most lauded however was Starr’s drumming, as cataclysmic as “Tomorrow Never Knows,” never again would Starr’s drumming sound as energetic, or creative as this last all-out number recorded for Revolver.

Sequencing
The album was finished. However, a remarkable amount of The Beatles’ longevity should not just be limited to their songwriting ability, but to their perseverance to the album form. Although Revolver would be bastardized in its North American incarnation ( Yesterday and Today would include songs left off the North American versions from as far back as Help! and included “I’m Only Sleeping”, “Dr. Robert”, and “And Your Bird Can Sing”), it would be the last time The Beatles would allow it, while the British editions would be what the group truly intended (an error corrected when their entire discography was released on CD). A lot of what factored into what-went-where for The Beatles, and what makes their albums stick out in our minds, was the placement of key.

Side A:
Taxman- D major
Eleanor Rigby - E minor (2nd)
I’m Only Sleeping- E flat minor
Love You Too- C minor
Here, There, And Everywhere - G Major
Yellow Submarine - G Major
She Said She Said - B flat Major (flat-3rd)

Side B:
Good Day Sunshine - A Major
And Your Bird Can Sing - E Major
For No One - B Major
Doctor Robert- B Major
I Want To Tell You - A Major
Got To Get You Into My Life - G Major
Tomorrow Never Knows - C Major

George Martin was labelled “the fifth Beatle” for many reasons, and his experience with classical music may be the most important factor he brought with him to the group. There is little doubt the sequencing is influenced by movements within a classical piece, the keys either resolving one another (“Good Day Sunshine” into “And Your Bird Can Sing”), or bringing it into unresolved territory (“Eleanor Rigby” into “I’m Only Sleeping”), or both by sheer virtue of the instrumentation involved (“Got To Get You Into My Life” into “Tomorrow Never Knows”). The particular choice of “Taxman” as the first song on the album is inspired, not only due to the fact that it is the only song in its respective key, but that it is the first, and only song ever written by Harrison to open a Beatle album. It is a more practical choice in the light that it’s one of the harder driving songs on the record and Beatle releases up to this point always started with a bang. (The fake count-in is a peculiar play on “I Saw Her Standing There.”) To then go into classical music territory with “Eleanor Rigby,” its sadness amplified by the fact that it is the minor second of the previous key, was certainly a conscious choice, bolstered by the next song, “I’m Only Sleeping,” which was also recorded in the same key (though retroactively slowed down a half step before going into the key’s parallel major’s relative minor (C minor) on “Love You Too”). Though on the surface level, a transition between hard rock, classical, psychedelic rock, and Indian raga could hardly be a discernable pattern, the key pattern gives a balanced structure to the overall affair. The album then undergoes a melodic lift by going to “Love You Too”’s parallel major’s perfect 4th (G major) on “Here, There, And Everywhere,” an effect that it holds onto with “Yellow Submarine.” The overall strange tone of “She Said She Said,” the last song on Side A, flips the pattern on its head by taking the relative major of “Yellow Submarine”’s parallel minor ( a pattern already played out in the chord changes of “Here, There, And Everywhere”) for the almost unheard of use of B flat major.

Side B starts out with the uplifting “Good Day Sunshine” and “And Your Bird Can Sing,” mirrored by the latter being a perfect fifth of the former’s key (A major to E major). That the very next song “For No One” again takes the perfect 5th of the previous “And Your Bird Can Sing” (E major to B major), with a drastically different overall tone, exemplifies The Beatles’ ability to lull the audience into a pattern to unexpected results. Though “Dr. Robert” is in the same key (mirroring the previous sequence of “Here, There And Everywhere” and “Yellow Submarine), it makes a curious choice of A (the flat seventh) as the dominant tone of the song, serving as a harmonic bridge to “I Want To Tell You”’s key of A major.

It would seem out of place to have “Got To Get You Into My Life” (in the key of G major) follow a song in the key of A major, if not for the D chord undertones that arrive at the end of “I Want To Tell You,” which is the perfect 5th in the key of G. The last song, “Tomorrow Never Knows” despite its wild arrangement, plays out in the key of C.

Today, Revolver still stands as one of the most remarkably crafted albums of all time, breaking all expectations for what a rock album should, or even could accomplish. Where the 60’s was a decade that by and large contained albums that pushed singles amongst filler, The Beatles launched headlong into evolving the art of the album into its highest form.

Revolver was recorded from April 6th to June 21st, 1966 and subsequently released August 5th,1966

Band To Watch: Hiatus Kaiyote, Profiled

Sun, 27 Jan 2013 20:47:00 -0500

I’m not quite sure what first brought me to Hiatus Kiayote’s Tawk Tomahawk when I first wrote about “Nakamarra” last spring but I knew on the ingenuity of that song alone that they had something special. We’re lucky to live in a world that defies a vacuum, that immense influences and cultures combine instantly in the world of information. We may not realize it now because we tend to look at the immediate, not really letting ideas resonate or percolate as much as we used to, in a similar vein, music too thrives and dies on that cycle; you have the chance to find a once in a lifetime band come out of anywhere, but you can also let yourself forget, inundated by the massive amount of stuff out there.

So I had their EP, but “Nakamarra”, certainly one of the most beautiful soul songs to come out in a while, dominated the experience and then things changed and I was swept away by newer music, older music, world news, life.

Somewhere in between then and now the internet exploded, Hiatus Kaiyote wasn’t just gaining critical traction, they were getting it from big people, The Roots, Erykah Badu, Pharaohe Monch, members of the neo-soul movement who had remained a thriving undercurrent in music since they debuted over a decade ago, and have started to find cultural resonance again after new artists like Janelle Monae launched her critically beloved The ArchAndroid, and neo-soul god D’Angelo awoke from his slumber to play a much celebrated set with The Roots at Bonnaroo ( The Roots, to their credit, have been absolutely phenomenal as the house band on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, as well as remarkably prodigious as their own entity within that period).

I only noticed after I had seen a recent tweet from Questlove talking about how big Hiatus Kaiyote should be in the United States , along with a link to their music video for “Nakamarra”. So I dug up the Tawk Tomahawk EP again to listen to it again and came out spellbound.

The Hiatus Kiayote line-up is a four piece band based out of Melbourne, Australia, which would seem a rather strange place for a neo-soul/jazz/avant-garde band to originate for those who believe in the Crocodile Dundee, “G’day mate” aussie stereotype. Lead vocalist and playing the guitar is the bewitchingly named Nai Palm, on drums Perrin Moss, bass Paul Bender, and playing keyboards is Simon Mavin. They’re truly a cohesive unit, and even though Nai Palm might have the original idea for a song, she says “we really fleshed out this really strong musical chemistry where we’re all writing from scratch, which is really exciting. The unity around our creative ideas is really on the same path.”

To get an insight on just how Hiatus Kaiyote goes about being Haitus Kaiyote, well the information age plays a huge role, as in an interview with The Revivalist:

Your music is extremely musically diverse, what are the influences that each of you bring to the table?

Simon Mavin: My influences change. I’ve been a session musician for about ten years and I’ve worked with a lot of artists. Hiatus has really been the first band where I’ve been able to flesh out what I really want to write. My influences as a live performer are very different from mine as a composer or in the studio. With studio stuff and writing, I think a lot of my influences come from rock and more of melodic ideas, singing, and production like that. Playing-wise a lot more Herbie Hancock, Bill Evans, and more of the jazz-structures because that’s what I studied.

Perrin Moss: I come from a self-taught background as well. I was raised up on more of the folk side of things. Most of the African and West-African, and the Cubans as well. When I heard Nai’s music, it resonated with the rhythmic side of me. I felt like I could play with it immediately. For influences on my drumming, I take a lot of my influence from production, future-beats, and stuff that’s happening now to get more of a repetitive pattern going. I try to see it as a program, but also put a lot of soul into it. I have a ton of influences; it’s a very difficult question.

Nai Palm: As far as inspiration as well, I thought I wrote my first polyrhythm like last week, but apparently I just do that generally. For example, even on just the rhythmic side, I love classical music because it has counter-melodies going on. Also a lot of music from Mali and Africa for all of these beautiful polyrhythms. Counter-rhythms is the rhythmic equivalent of the counter-melodies in classical music. Sonically, I listen to a lot of gritty blues, blues guitarists like Son House and Skip James, that really raw stuff. Vocally, just listening to people speaking in a different language as well as the different shapes and sounds that you get. Björk is a huge influence. My mom raised me on soul music. I was practically breast-fed on Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, and all of the old school soul cats. It’s more than all of us just playing our individual instruments though. We’re all contributing to this cooking pot. There are so many different aspects of writing something. I think, in this day and age and with the internet especially, we have so many sessions at Clarke Street where the boys live, where we just nerd out. We watch, you know, pygmies singing, sessions with Miguel [Atwood-Ferguson] and Fly-Lo, water-drumming. We just really nerd out. The world has so many sonic jams to offer.

Paul Bender: I’ve gone through a pretty hectic music journey of stuff that I’ve listened to and stuff that I’ve gotten really into. From like grunge and metal to John Coltrane and jazz. And then out of jazz some hip-hop and all of the future-beats stuff. Fly-Lo is a big inspiration to me down to the production stuff. Like everyone else, just a ton of different stuff.

This isn’t just a game of name some popular musicians as influences either, you can hear it, the music a fusion of what came before. But Hiatus Kaiyote is ambitious, “Nakamarra” might be their most radio-friendly song on their album, but it’s not the only highpoint. Album opener ”Mobius Streak” sets the stage with a peculiar ballet of an arrangement; muted violin strings, swirling electric guitars, syncopated drum and bass flourishes, and then that voice. Nai Palm may be all of 23 years old, but like (much more widely known) Adele, her voice deftly goes beyond her youth, you might think this is a daring remix of an unheard Billie Holiday cut, and it is certainly daring; with dynamic, unanticipated tempo and instrumental shifts and vocal phrasing that shouldn’t work, but makes it even better. The very next track “The World Softly It Lulls” could easily be a Herbie Hancock composition with its Latin inflected jazz rhythms and spare yet playful piano flourishes.

Then there’s “Malika”, which as Nai Palm tells it, is Sanskrit for jasmine. It’s one of the most powerful and intriguing songs on here, the arrangement choices are inspired, especially the usage of operatic backing vocals which turn a moody piece in a flash to the sublime. Even the shorter pieces on the album “Leapfrog”, “Ocelot”,”Boom Child”, “Rainbow Rhodes”, “Sphynx Gate” don’t fall into filler category, but sketches where this emerging young band could go.

For all their talent and creative ability that they show on Tawk Tomahawk, nothing, and I mean nothing quite prepares you for the beauty that is “Nakamarra”. From the opening Rhodes piano, the melody features some inspiring lifts, and Nai Palm’s vocal talents are at full force, taking vocal flights at unexpected places and twisting a phrase as simple as “I love you” into the twisted complex emotion of excited tortured happiness that it truly is. The band really cooks on here and it’s easy to see why Tawk Tomahawk has a lot of people excited in the right places.

At the moment, Hiatus Kaiyote has been invited to play at a showcase at SXSW. For independent bands like this great four-piece, SXSW is a great launch pad, both for more exposure in the US as well as the attention of the entire music industry. Coming to the US is no small price though, and you could do these guys a great favor even by tossing in just 5 bucks. So you could have the chance to be one of those people that knows (and helps) about a great band before everyone elseyou know has their album on iTunes.

In October of last year, Nai Palm came for a brief tour of the US as the de facto ambassador for the group and rocked Rockwood Music Hall with this absolutely beautiful version of “My Cherie Amour”

You can purchase Tawk Tomahawk through either their Bandcamp or on iTunes

Mobius Streak

Nakamarra

My Cherie Amour (Stevie Wonder Cover)

Best Albums of 2012: Big Inner, Matthew E. White

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 18:09:00 -0500

Label: Spacebomb/Hometapes

Released: August 21, 2012

While a lot of precious music review word counts were wasted talking about the unique weird vibes of Grimes and DIIV and whatever fill-in-the-blank electronic gobbledegook artist Pitchfork was digging at the moment, talking about atypical amalgamations of “beautiful” noise that was humanity’s attempt at approximating what it would sound if two garbage compactors tried to have sex, Matthew E. White holed up in a studio in Virginia to make an equally parts secular and holy marriage of contradictions. The result is one of the most intriguing albums of the year.
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Matthew E. White seems almost a mystical figure in the Information Age; there’s no detailed bio, only glimmers and shadows of what made the man. Born in August of 1982 (gleaned from an official bio that notes his arrival into the world a decade after Randy Newman’s Sail Away ) as the youngest son of ostensibly a missionary family that split time between Manila and Virginia, White’s choice of a music scene, Richmond, VA, might seem at the very least, odd, but more precisely, inspired. Though he got his start as an avant-garde jazzman with Fight The Big Bull, his archaic framework of the netherworld of the American South; of Randy Newman’s cynical take on the characteristic longing for the Southern Glory Days, Leonard Cohen’s sacred secular poetical fury and the celebratory, exclamation marks of horn charts that would fit snug on an Allen Toussaint record make Big Inner a mature, potent, and self-assured debut.

“One of These Days” sounds like Marvin Gaye had invited Matt Berninger to sing a deep cut on Let’s Get It On and at first impression, it’s a surprising choice for album opener. Starting off in media res, like an unfinished thought out of nowhere, the temp rolls at a slow pace, with White’s inimitable half baritone, half falsetto crown. The arrangement is bare in the beginning aside from a surprisingly nimble bass line, but White’s soundscape slowly starts to build into a surprising symphony; a hot-plate guitar line here, a string section there, a triumphant horn line, and some gorgeous harmonies, all slowly piecing the song together, as if the album is waking up right in front of you.

“Big Love”grooves with a percolating bass line and a fantastic jazzy piano hook that could have found a home on a Nina Simone album. It’s an arrangement that you want to stick around for as it bounces from “Tomorrow Never Knows” territory to a loose gospel-influenced call and response.

“Will You Love Me” brings White back down to an intimate level (the pleading, barely audible vocalizations that he throws at the end of each line would leave Marvin Gaye impressed) as the drums echo a funeral march. With a chorus that quotes Jimmy Cliff’s “Many Rivers to Cross”, White’s ability as an arranger is on full display with swooning string lines and rising horn charts, transforming the platitude of “darkness can’t drive out darkness, only love can do that” into the profound.

“Gone Away” is White’s ode to a cousin who passed away, a beautiful melody with an equally expressive arrangement, there’s a sense of somber propriety in the session, letting White’s words linger in the open space, and the interweaving of the choir and string section is heartbreakingly beautiful to match White’s unanswerable plea “Why are you living in heaven today?”
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While there’s really no weak link on Big Inner, White saves his most powerful statement for last, “Brazos” a Southern infused epic tale of lovers, slaves who long to escape, finding powerful (and ironic) solace in Jesus. As White told eMusic:

Basically, it’s about an escaping slave couple. And the man is talking to the woman and trying to comfort her, as well as talking to himself about how shitty his situation is. He’s being introspective. I’ve tried to be as knowledgeable as I can about the civil rights movement — I think being from Virginia, you’re a little more aware of race relations to some degree. It’s just so easy to forget. We think of slavery as 300, 400 years ago, but Martin Luther King was killed in 1968, and that was not that long ago. All kinds of viciously racist behavior has happened and still happens. The tentacles are way longer than we think. As a kid who grew up in a white suburban family, I look back on pictures of, like, the food counter sit-ins, and white people are pouring ketchup and stuff on the protesters — just horrible, horrible shit. I just wanted an opportunity to be like, “Hey, if we can be more aware of this, maybe that will help a little bit.”

Part of what makes White so successful is the Spacebomb House Band, modeled on the in-house session bands of yore like The Funk Brothers and Booker T & The MG’s and Muscle Shoals. Spacebomb House Band is Pinson Chanselle (drums), Cameron Ralston (bass), Megafaun’s Phil Cook (choir arranger), and Trey Pollard (string arranger). For all its polish, it’s endearing that White chooses to bring most of the outside efforts (string players and choir singers etc) from the Richmond area making the whole thing a down-home family affair.

It’s clear that White had many influences, though Randy Newman is the one he wears right on his sleeve with the mellow melancholy mood that drifts the listener through the album a la Sail Away. By no means an unpolished artist or performer, Matthew E. White sets the bar high on his debut album, and one that taps the secular/spiritual conundrum of the Information Age with spellbinding arrangements and music that not only meets the emotional depths of the lyrics, but extends it. This is an album that whittles into your mind as much as it craves the open space emanating from your speakers. There’s no undeserved bravado, no promotional gimmicks or visually dependant music videos, only the music. And we’re all the better for it.

Top Tracks: “One of These Days”, “Big Love”, “Will You Love Me”, “Steady Pace”, “Brazos”

Best Albums of 2012: Like Wind Blows Fire, Cheers Elephant

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:18:22 -0500

Label: Self Released/ N/A

Released: May 8th, 2012

Though their first album came out in 2008, the name Cheers Elephant isn’t likely to ring many bells, despite no lack of talent or creativity. I first heard of them through exfm, which had featured Like Wind Blows Fire as one of its many handpicked albums of the week. I immediately fell in love with their seemingly radio-ready “Peoples”, the song that leads off the album with such a strong note that you fear the rest will be a let down. Yet as the days went by, I found myself hearing more and more of their songs through shuffling the music on my iPod, and being hard pressed to find a song I didn’t like. Self described as a “raw, rootsy, psychedelic pop rock quartet,” Cheers Elephant really knows how to write a hook, and delivers a gorgeously produced (though not overly so) record that is sure to make listeners wonder how they haven’t heard this on the radio before.

It’s telling of the modern age of music business that Cheers Elephant decided to do it all on their own, self producing their records and selling them through Bandcamp (and iTunes with Cheers Elephant as their label) instead of through a major label (or subsidiary). With fellow bands Dr. Dog and The Roots and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! to name a few, it’s becoming apparent that Philadelphia has it’s own burgeoning and fruitful music scene.

One of the hallmarks of successful bands nowadays is their ability to sing, especially to harmonize (Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver, Dr. Dog, Mumford & Sons, etc.) which I suppose has been true since rock really began (The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Crosby Stills Nash & Young) and Like Wind Blows Fire is full of them. And yes, the 60’s comparisons are inevitable, but they’re also inviting, music is much easier to listen to when it’s got a good voice behind it, with phased out guitar solos to boot.

“Peoples” really does start the album out with tremendous enthusiasm. Whereas most songs have one hook, “Peoples” is a hook in its entirety. The opening line, the buildup to the chorus, the chorus itself, and the guitar solo/ glockenspielesque piano line that leads the outro are all ear pleasing sonic pleasures of unbridled optimism. And just tell me you don’t hear shades of a happy go lucky Springsteen in the song’s final moments.

“Doin’ It Right” pumps out a rhythm section that would make both Phoenix and The Strokes proud with it’s gleaming guitar riffs, syncopated drums and slinking vocals before bursting into the wide open bridge of Beatle harmonies and Keith Moon drumming on a bender, it’s a tidy little gem of a song that wraps up in under 3:00.

“Falling Out” brings those harmonies out front, with some deliciously weird lyrical non-sequitors like something out of Tommy’s “The Acid Queen” “because the room is completely naked and my teeth are falling out” before a technicolor guitar solo comes out of the woodwork that serves as glorious coda for the songs end.

When John Lennon went into the studio as a Beatle, he often implored George Martin and the recording staff to get an unusual aspect out of the recording, whether he wanted it to “taste like oranges” or “smell the sawdust” or, on “Tomorrow Never Knows”, beg Martin to allow him to be hung upside down on a rope so he could swing around the microphone from above, Lennon wanted an element often forgotten in today’s music, texture. On “Leaves”, You can almost chew on those acoustic guitars that play back and forth with the in-the-pocket drums. Credit Cheers Elephant for entertaining all aspects of a recording; especially on a song as catchy as this one, as the chorus features quite an ear pleasing and tempo changing hook. Once again, they stick a guitar solo onto the coda though to quite a different result, as the arrangement behind it builds to a cacophony that threatens to overtake it before dropping out again.

“Party On Darwin” on its premise shouldn’t work, with it’s vocal intro and tongue-in-cheek lyrics. Yet it boasts a wordless vocal hook that rivals The Police’s smash “Do Do Do Do, De Da Da Da” but, unlike Sting, is fully in tune with it’s irrelevance. They’re clearly having fun with this one, and it’s to our benefit that they make even the ridiculous sound catchy.

“Get Ya” features some of the best musical interplay on the album, from the rumbling drum intro, to the kaleidoscope of arrangement changes, and it’s a dynamic workout. “Thought And Commonsense” brings back the muscular arrangement of “Doin’ It Right” along with the reason the album has been deemed explicit, with one particular word choice in the lyrics. On an album this tight, it’s hard to choose favorites, but this would fall among the top tracks of the album, with the added presence of a horn section, one of the stronger bridges on the album as well as some surprising gender-bending lyrics.

And how about those harmonies on “Little Dog”? Starting out as a rustic acoustic jaunt, this song opens up into Wall of Sound harmonies, and a twist on the love song lyrical staple. It’s really the vocals that are on display here, rivaling Fleet Foxes at their most bombastic, but none of the self-righteousness.

“Like Wind Blows Fire” might be the song I like least on here, but only because it hasn’t tracked up as many listens as the rest of the album. Lyrically, it’s a clever turn of the phrase, expanding on how a liar causes as much harm like wind blowing fire, and there’s some nice studio trickery on here as well.

“Balloon In The City” is the album send off, and quite an artistic music video with it (which you can check out below) but at its heart, it’s the biggest ballad on here, with a catchy acoustic hook and some spacey synthesizer work in the distance and an overall dream-like quality with the warm vocal harmonies that sound like they’re coming from another room. A nice relaxing way to end the album, and on a very strong note.

You might not find Like Wind Blows Fire as a ubiquitous result to many Best of 2012 Album lists, but it just goes to show how much quality music is out there. Cheers Elephant deserves a lot of credit on this one, being a self-release that sounds so professionally produced, and so gorgeously detailed. While they may not have the fame of fellow Philadelphia bands like Dr. Dog, their time is sure to come, and when it does, fans will have a hard time finding a better album of 2012 then the one found here. Why this album didn’t find Top 40 radio play was not for a lack of goods, but a constant reminder that music, as a business, does not always find quality. So Cheers to Cheers Elephant for putting up the good fight, and producing an album they wanted to produce. For an indie-rock/pop/psych rock / whatever you want to call it album, this is one of the most enjoyable that I’ve heard in a long time.

“Balloon in the City” Video:

Top tracks:

“Peoples”, “Doin’ It Right”, “Leaves”, “Thought and Commonsense”

Grab Like Wind Blows Fire on Bandcamp

Best Albums of 2012: Maraqopa, Damien Jurado

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 12:48:55 -0500

Label: Secretly Canadian

Released: February 21st, 2012

Listen: Museum of Flight, Working Titles

Few albums, let alone albums released this year, could boast the intimate yet grand production found on the temporal and geographical shift of Maraqopa. Though best categorized in the vein of singer-songwriter affairs, Jurado avoids the vogue of plaintive acoustic guitar backed by hushed warbles of narrative reclusion. There are dashes of psychedelia throughout, from the late night guitar jamming of “Nothing Is The News” to the guitar/glockenspiel meld of “Reel to Reel” and the overall auspicious use of reverb to create deep, introspective backdrops as a perfect partner to Jurado’s thoughts. This is not a happy album, though by no means is it maligned to doom and gloom, rather it’s a “mature” album that features some of the best written lyrics of this year.

Take “Working Titles”, derived from the creative jargon for a name not finalized (mostly used in film, but really can be inferred for novels, albums, etc.) or ready for public release. Jurado’s narrator is in a constant state of flux, from the beautiful opening stanza “You could mess with my life in a poem/ have me divorced by the time of the chorus/ there’s no need to change any sentence/ when you always decide where I go next” arguably one of the better, and more heart-wrenching, kiss off lines of all time. Another album highlight is “Life Away From The Garden” which features a ghostly call and response between Jurado and a children’s choir (The Swift Family Singers) as it mirrors the abandonment of the Garden of Eden. To Jurado’s credit, it’s not entirely in the Biblical sense as it is the loss of innocence. The final line “all of us light, all of us free” could be both looking forward and looking back, depending on your world view.

Much has been made of the partnership between Jurado and his producer, Richard Swift, and how Maraqopa is as much its own record as it is a continuation of his 2010 release, Saint Bartlett but the foremost compliments must go to Jurado for integrating Swift’s production to the best results ( a good example is how George Martin went on to be the producer for America after working with The Beatles to far less results). Alongside his beautiful lyrics, Jurado has a equally affecting voice, a strong masculine warble that is equal parts David Crosby and Neil Young, delivering his words with a mix of sadness and perseverance.

All and all, Maraqopa is a real treat of a record, encapsulating both the intimacy of Damien Jurado as a singer-songwriter, as well as pushing the form forward by taking on intricate arrangements and it’s a welcome addition to the best records released this year.

Album Highlights: “Nothing Is The News”, “Life Away From The Garden”, “Reel to Reel”, “Working Titles”, “So On Nevada”, “Museum of Flight”

Watch: “Nothing Is The News”

Buy:

Secretly Canadian (CD, Digital, Vinyl)

Insound (Vinyl)

iTunes (Digital)

Best Albums of 2012: Nothing's Gonna Change The Way You Feel About Me Now, Justin Townes Earle

Sat, 15 Dec 2012 17:37:34 -0500

Best Album: Country Edition

Justin Townes Earle, Nothing’s Gonna Change The Way You Feel About Me Now

Bloodshot Records

Released March 27th, 2012

Perhaps a spur of motivation to take the longest album title throne from Fiona Apple (who still requires more … than a reviewer should ever include in an album title), Justin Townes Earle’s latest album swept in forever ago in March. After the somewhat celebratory Harlem River Blues, the awkwardly lanky yet sartorially informed Earle had seemed to take a step backwards, locked up a month after the album release for alcohol charges and Harlem River Blues was forgotten by critics as almost punishment for his behavior.

Justin Townes Earle’s latest full length is more than just a mouthful. It’s a freeze-frame in the time of Springsteen and Van Morrison circa 1977: the horns warm, the brightness faded, but not fully gone.

Last time around, Harlem River Blues had produced a half exultant, half sorrowful affair. But there was hope; there was still daylight, happiness tucked away in its little corners. Nothing’s Gonna Change The Way You Feel About Me Now is much more reserved in its bright spots, more the music of a man in a sorrowful twilight that just had happiness slip through his fingers, the touch still lingering in his mind, the palpable feel. While some might read the arrangements henceforth on Nothing as characteristically ambiguous, it’s the biggest show of character Justin Townes Earle has had yet. He’s much more authentic as a man down on his luck, as a character that’s been forgotten and trod upon. The music reflects that: the muted Memphis soul proving equal accompaniment to Townes Earle’s unmistakable voice, and while the opening half of the album might tread a little too softly, the second half of the album is a beauty to unravel, from “Maria” one of Earle’s sweetest aching sorrows yet, to “Movin’ On” a song with a plucky rhythm that is so convincing at telling the listener Earle is just fine, even if he’s not.

More than anything, Nothing’s Gonna Change The Way You Feel About Me Now is an album about what its like to be a man.

Justin Townes Earle is the kind of man that GQ and Esquire love; the dapper sartorial man, a dapper sartorial man who has words of wisdom to boot. He’s a charming man too, despite his former demons - the alcoholic laced night that left him in jail just weeks after his last album came out. His laugh is infectious; it has that warm and inviting quality, a hint of darkness, kind of like the scotch and whiskey that he’s since sworn off. It warms your heart all the same.

The theme of the record, of the man, of what makes him tick, is honesty.

Earle has a gift for combining personal reference and universal feeling. It’s honesty, and it’s consequences laid bare. “Am I Lonely Tonight” is not only about him being alone, but it delves into the ghosts of his past – an absent father, one who he can only identify with through bits and pieces heard on the radio, the horns half mournful, half comforting as he assesses his condition, skin and bones and 300 miles from the Carolina coast. Here is where we find the ghosts of influences past, the haunted Springsteen on Nebraska, the story-telling of traditional country pulled by the roots through the cracked frozen ground.

Earle pushes forward with “Look The Other Way.” A song that would have made Freud proud, the lyrical narrative could be equally directed toward his mother and his lover, arguing with himself on whether he can make himself a better man when the people he cares about don’t care what he does anymore. It’s the narrative that many have traveled before, those who’ve seen love break in front of their eyes, moved by an imaginary hope that believes you dictate the world around you, that the world doesn’t turn without your slightest movement.

It cuts straight to the bone in a man, on “Nothing’s Gonna Change The Way You Feel About Me Now” the album title track, “It’s a shame babe, nothing that you could do, things change babe, such as my feelings for you.” But its more than just a tell off to a love lost: the plaintive, harrowing honesty to his lyrics do nothing to describe his voice, the way it achingly glides over the words like he’s lived it a million times before. It’s a lonely night of a song, something where only the painful memories and drink can be your lone companion.

“Baby’s Got A Bad Idea” is probably the least effective song on the album. Sure it keeps the up-tempo leaning of “Look The Other Way” but this one seems like he’s just painting by the numbers, a filler, but a good filler for sure. The stellar backing band saves this one, as Earle’s vocals are more ragged than usual.

I didn’t hear “Maria” first from this album (that distinction would go to the title track, which was released prior) but it’s one of my favorites, and it begins the stellar second side of the album. There’s so much feeling, even in the opening trill of the guitars, and Earle’s vocals are at his most affecting and gifted. He lives the words to the point that in your mind he’s not singing them, it’s your own thoughts. This is the horn section’s shining moment too, pulling off a counter-melody midway through, with the effect that the Memphis sound has never sounded so moody and bright.

Down on the Lower East Side

The intro of “Down on the Lower East Side” is almost startling, but Earle does well here to paint a portrait of the universality of urbanity. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Memphis or Manhattan, men will always be men, and they’ll always find the romanticism of a dimly lit street in the early morning hours, reflected here by a rather lovely solitary trumpet, muted and warm, a comfort in the cold and lonely streets.

“Won’t Be The Last Time” is a change of pace, some would call it plodding, but the hushed arrangement only makes Earle’s delivery that much more honest, that much more humble, and that much more hurt. The music pushes against the slow vocals like the world that is ever slipping from his grasp as his words sound like a man sitting next to you at the bar, removed from their backing, more personal than ever.

Memphis In the Rain

Then, with the chime of a bubbling organ, that Memphis sound is back in “Memphis In The Rain”. The arrangement here is in full swing with some percolating guitars and horn lines that embrace the listener in their southern soul happiness. If Dylan had ever done Memphis, this wouldn’t have been out of place on that record.

Unfortunately, Anna

Following up on his innate ability to mirror the greatest writers in the American Songbook, “Unfortunately, Anna” sounds like a response to the characters of Paul Simon’s “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes” where the bright hope of youth has started to fade, the melody a ghostly echo in his vocals. The sound is that of dying hopes, but it’s a beautiful sadness that seeps through the imagery in this song, and it will probably be the slept on classic of this album, and certainly be held in high regard long after Earle’s career is over. For a man steeped in traditions, this is one of his most timeless songs.

The album closer is the bouncy “Movin’ On”, where Earle’s vocals do a slow dance with the rhythm of the guitars. It’s Earle’s gift that he can be so catchy and so intimate at the same time. It’s the sunshine peaking out after a rainy sleepless night, more of a toe-tapper than the rest of the album, and certainly one of the better songs in his career.

Critics had mixed feelings about the overall sound of this album: some thought that the Memphis sound had been too dulled, that the album was more in stasis than the rest of his work, but I’m among the few that believe that it was an intentional move. Memphis Soul has never sounded so good surrounded by doubt, and the band works as one. Even the upright bass proves to be melodic where the horns disappear, and Earle has never come across more open and humbled, never sounded more like his own man.

There will be those that find this album too honest, too heartbreaking and true to man’s condition that they won’t be able to stand it, but there will be others that relish Justin Townes Earle’s true gift; the storytelling of Springsteen and the honesty and pain of Lennon all rolled into one, the ability to sing out his own demons and connect with the world. The gift and the pain of being a man.
Vocals: 4/5

Lyrics: 4.5/5

Arrangement: 4.5/5

Overall:

Top Songs: “Maria”, “Down on the Lower East Side”, “Unfortunately, Anna”, “Memphis In the Rain”

Thirty-Two Years Ago Today: John Lennon Remembered

Sat, 08 Dec 2012 17:28:35 -0500

John Lennon (October 9th, 1940-December 8th, 1980)

For his years as a member of The Beatles, and the years following his untimely death, John Lennon was unfairly labeled as a god, who only believed in the power of peace, a musician whose voice was timeless, yet constantly tied to his past. For many, he was the one who stood up to radicalism in “Revolution”, had created a world mantra in “All You Need Is Love”, defended the struggle of man in “Working Class Hero” and the idea of a better world in “Imagine”. For that alone, his legacy could not be tainted.

He stood up to the United States in his quest to become a citizen and spoke up against the war-hawk world policy. He had become a savior to the Baby Boomer generation when his band had crossed the Atlantic following the JFK assassination, and became a martyr seventeen years later when he was shot and killed outside his apartment in New York City. In that short time span, he released 13 albums as part of The Beatles and 11 on his own (if you wish to include Two Virgins, Life With The Lions, andThe Wedding Album which were one-off projects with Yoko while he was still in The Beatles). His solo output may have never lived up to the expectations his former band left, but there was no doubt he left an impact on many musicians, even today.Though not the most technically skilled musician (that distinction would fall on his co-writing partner, Paul McCartney) his strengths lay in his voice. Few musicians then, and still now, had the ability to write from their own experience and make it universal.

He understandably had his critics; his divorce from his first wife and the abandonment of his first child were indefensible, his outspoken “We are bigger than Jesus” exposed him more as a brash rock and roller than the statement he intended to make. There was the interactions with fans too, the famous example being the fan who camped outside of John Lennon’s house during the filming of Imagine, where Lennon had to tell him that he wasn’t a saint, a savior, that he wasn’t speaking directly to him personally, but just making the music he wanted to make. It would be wise for us to also remember that fact. Fans proved to be his undoing too, Mark David Chapman was a deranged man who believed that Lennon was leading people to their death, for which Chapman was “The Catcher in the Rye”.

“It’s hard to be Gandhi or Martin Luther King or to follow them. I don’t admire politicians particularly, I think they’re showbiz people, but people who put their thing on the line, like Gandhi, and threw the British out by not shooting anybody… those are the political people I admire. But I don’t want to be shot for it like Gandhi, and I don’t want to be shot for it like Martin Luther King. I don’t want to be a martyr, I don’t believe in martyrs, but I admire their stance.”

“These critics with the illusions they’ve created about artists - it’s like idol worship. They only like people when they’re on their way up… I cannot be on the way up again. What they want is dead heroes, like Sid Vicious and James Dean. I’m not interesting in being a dead f**king hero… So forget ‘em, forget ‘em.”

The danger is now that Lennon’s name has become a monolith of power; still used in advertising, a symbol of peace, even the impetus for a new clothing line ( Yoko Ono, even as an avant-garde artist, has gone too far with that one). His estate earned 12 Million in 2011. Even recently this year, his image was awarded NME’s Ultimate Icon, and his albums found themselves plastered with “This Man Beats Women” stickers .

For all the things that John Lennon was; musician, artist, provocateur, deadbeat father, loving husband, he was most importantly a man.

"Big Love", Matthew E. White

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 14:47:38 -0500

Label: Hometapes (released August 21, 2012)

Big Inner is by far one of the more intriguing debut albums to come out this year: it’s equal parts experimental Beck, cynical Randy Newman, brooding The National and Big Easy celebrating Allen Toussaint. ”Big Love” grooves with a percolating bass line and a fantastic jazzy piano hook that could have found a home on a Nina Simone album. It’s an arrangement that you want to stick around for as it bounces from “Tomorrow Never Knows” territory to a loose gospel-influenced call and response. Surely one of the better cuts of the year and coming from a man who looks like he could have been a cult leader. Check out the beautiful brass/string arrangement on the epic “Brazos”, one of the more enjoyable nearly 10:00 songs perhaps ever and surely a call to inherit Harry Nilsson’s long lost throne.

Big Love

Brazos

RIYL: Harry Nilsson, Beck, Randy Newman, Allen Toussaint, The National

Treat Her Fine: A Mixtape

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 18:24:42 -0500

As finals draw near and the first semester comes to a close, here’s a little playlist to get you through.

1. Hank - Treat Her Right (off of Tied to the Tracks)

2. Maybe Baby (Buddy Holly Cover) - Justin Townes Earle (off of Rave On Buddy Holly)

3. Let’s Go Young - Hundred Visions (off of Permanent Basement)

4. Don’t Stop Loving Me Now (Floating Action Cover) - Juston Stens (via Everybody Taste)

5. Who’s Gonna Find Me - The Coral (off of Roots and Echoes)

6. Thought and Commonsense - Cheers Elephant ( off of Like Wind Blows Fire)

7. Where’d All the Time Go - Dr. Dog (off of Shame, Shame)

8. 50 Lashes - Floating Action (off of Floating Action)

9. Lonely Lonely Night - Juston Stens (off of Trash or Treasure)

10. California - Cheers Elephant (off of Man Is Nature)

11. Hot Love - T. Rex (off of Electric Warrior)

12. You Never Know - Wilco (off of Wilco)

13. Leaves, Trees, Forest - Dan Mangan (off of Oh, Fortune)

14. No Voodoo- Allah-Las (off of Allah-Las)

15. Soul Sister - Allen Toussaint (off of Life, Love And Faith)

16. In Living Color - Lands & Peoples (off of Pop Guilt)

17. Big Bad Love - Andrew Combs (off of Worried Man)

18. Leap - The Cave Singers (off of Welcome Joy)

19. You Had Me At Hello - Mystery Jets (off of Radlands)

20. You Silly Git - Dan Mangan (off of Nice, Nice, Very Nice)

21. Atlantic City - Bruce Springsteen (off of Nebraska)

Listen to it on Spotify

Treat Her Fine (.zip file)

"California", Cheers Elephant, Man Is Nature (2011)

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 17:45:00 -0500

The eighth track off Philadelphia based Cheers Elephant’s 2011 release, Man Is Nature, “California” is an absolute stunner of a pop melody. Starting off with a bouncy jazz guitar riff, “California” bursts with the energy of Beatlesque harmonies and sly, tongue-in-cheek, lyrics that are reminiscent of Queen’s “Killer Queen”. A stellar track on a stellar album you might have missed last year.

California - Cheers Elephant

Cheers Elephant’s latest album Like Wind Blows Fire may well find itself back here on a Best of 2012 list, so prep yourself by grabbing the album on Bandcamp!

RIYL: Dr. Dog, Queen, The Beatles

Dr. Dog "Exit For Sale", Wild Race EP

Sun, 18 Nov 2012 11:07:21 -0500

I’ve been a fan of Dr. Dog ever since I first heard the Grateful Dead/Beatle harmonies of “Worst Trip” and The Band homage of “Alaska”. Yes when they first started, they were a “revivalist” band, perfectly happy to ape the ’60s status quo. Things started to change around Shame, Shame when they released the biting “Take Me Into Town” as a bonus track. In February 2012 Be The Void followed, showing Dr. Dog at their most creative they had been in years. It was no longer just spitting out the music of their forebears, it was adapting it, putting it through some weird kind of dimension where all time periods existed at once. I still consider it one of the best albums of the year. 8 months later Dr. Dog released Wild Race EP containing this neat little number “Exit For Sale”. Featuring a menacing chromatic piano line and bluesy guitars, the song explodes into some beautiful harmonies during the chorus and remains an example of the goods Dr. Dog has to offer.

Take Me Into Town - Dr. Dog

Exit For Sale - Dr. Dog

Ephemera:

Worst Trip - Dr. Dog

Alaska- Dr. Dog

Selections From The Obscure: "It's All Over Now", Paradise & Lunch, Ry Cooder (1974)

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 23:17:49 -0500

Ry Cooder brought the Buena Vista Social Club, the famed celebration of old Cuban music,to fruition, but his career is more diverse and stylized in the music of Americana. On Paradise and Lunch, arguably his best LP, he merges traditional spirituals, delta blues, soul numbers and even a Burt Bacharach tune into one big melting pot of the American songbook. It’s quite a thrilling expedition and despite its rampant anachronism, it contextualizes quite well. “It’s All Over Now”, written by Sam Cooke protege Bobby Womack, and made famous by The Rolling Stones was by all means a sweaty 60’s r&b number but Cooder turns it on its head, making it into a soul/reggae fusion with great vocal harmonies that truly makes you pause on realizing this is a number by a white virtuoso session man. It’s one of the many reasons to grab the complete album. I’m also including “Tamp ‘Em Up Solid”, the traditional ballad that leads off the album which wouldn’t be out of place on a soundtrack for a modern film about the Civil War (or perhaps on Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained).

It’s All Over Now - Ry Cooder

Tamp ‘Em Up Solid - Ry Cooder

Blake Mills - Curable Disease (Video)

Mon, 12 Nov 2012 17:44:53 -0500

Blake Mills “Curable Disease” from Yours Truly on Vimeo.

Blake Mills is a man whose music aches with the cracks of age and heartbreak, and each song he composes is a reflection of being human. The fact that he terms love as a “Curable Disease” is not the affectation of a cynical punk who hates Hallmark cards, but his willingness to look into our haunted psyche. He may yet get the fame he richly deserves as a producer, a collaborator, an artist, but he is forever humble.

Mills speaks about how music comes naturally to him, but turning those melodies into a finished product with lyrics “is more of a hunt, there’s no guarantee of what day or what time it’s gonna come” though it may seem like a put-down, it’s more obvious of the intent and passion Mills puts into his work, he wants his melodies to have an equal match in the meaning of the words, and for that we’re all the more grateful.

You can still find his 2010 debut Break Mirrors on:

Record Collection (physical/CD)

iTunes (digital)

Ephemera:

“Hey Lover”/ “Wintersong” (7” vinyl via Analog Edition)

“Bluchell” (digital/ Analog Edition Sampler via Bandcamp)

Modern Classic Albums: Lonerism, Tame Impala (2012)

Sat, 10 Nov 2012 12:21:00 -0500

Released: October 9th, 2012

Label: Modular/ Modular Recordings

Music at its most powerful can be poetic, or completely transformative. Poetic in the sense that it reaches deep down into the human psyche and exposes our passions, our hopes, our discontent, our heartbreak. What makes music transformative is when it shifts all that comes before it to create a new experience, a new world that people can inhabit with one sense to create all of them. By this standard, Lonerism, Tame Impala’s latest LP exhibits both.

It is important that I address that music is never of a complete vacuum; The Beatles Sergent Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was an album that owed to The Beach Boys Pet Sounds as well as music of old dance halls “When I’m Sixty-Four” the emergence of counter-culture psychedelia “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”, indian mysticism “Within You Without You”, even the trend of old style traveling band names that had become popular like Country Joe and the Fish “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” . It was the synthesis of all these elements that made it such a powerful album.

One of the most intriguing, and mind-blowing songs on that album is the previously mentioned “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”. In a time where psychedelic music rarely tried to define anything more than the here and now, often weakening their effect by relying on a decidedly unholy grouping of odd sound effects (a process that significantly dates most psychedelia of the time). Rather, “Lucy” decided to create a whole new world, a new language of intense imagery that left an indelible mark on the listener, bringing them to a surreal world that nonetheless seemed real.

In todays music world, it is nearly impossible to identify a band in the context of The Beatles success. It won’t be repeated, the musical world is too vast and populated for one band to dominate, but that doesn’t deny a band’s ability to be transformative.

One might shoehorn Tame Impala into the “revivalist” trend, the phenomenon in modern music that found bands like Dr. Dog popular (at least in the indie realm) for being faithful to 60’s music archetypes, being pleasurable because they sound like bands that have come before but with enough subtlety to sound of their own. But psychedelic rock is too much of a misnomer for a band to truly be “revivalist” in that sense. Yet when Tame Impala’s first LP, Inner Speaker came out, musical critics and listeners alike had no better context to identify what they were hearing. There was abundant flange, the analog booming sounds of drums that were more loud than crisp, bright vocals that bounded with a “Leslie” rotating speaker effect, but it still felt weak, a lovingly made copy that was too dependent on replicating the garage-psychedelic sound.

Then, there’s Lonerism. “Be Above It” is quite an opening statement. a single line of “gotta be above it, gotta be above it” melds into the syncopated rhythm of a drum beat, off hand guitars bubble in the background before Kevin Parker’s eerie vocals flutter in, eerie in it’s similar timbre to John Lennon, that repeats the mantra of self-reliance “And I know that I gotta be above it now/ And I know that I can’t let them bring me down”. It’s repetition is not so much ingratiating as it is identifying. But even that cannot quite prepare you for “Endors Toi”

French for “You Sleep”, Parker begins to establish the dream landscape that will dominate the overall sound on the album. Beginning with a wavy guitar thats bolstered by a sirenesque synth line and a spiraling keyboard part, the song practically explodes into Technicolor by its fantastic drum line. There’s some fantastic guitar melodies packed in here as if the Jimi Hendrix Experience was back from the dead.

“Apocalypse Dreams” is the first song that begins to take on a traditional structure led by a marching drum beat and a compressed piano line and its a highlight in an album full of them. While The Beatles film Magical Mystery Tour is making its re-release rounds, it’s really Lonerism that lives up to that billing

What’s perhaps most astounding is that Kevin Parker by and large handles all the instrumentation on the album by himself, but rather than have a result that bleeds ramshackle home-spun indie charm (a la Ram) Parker sounds like a full band at the peak of their powers. Though the comparisons to Lennon are unavoidable, Parker’s melodies are more reminiscent of his partner, McCartney. Take “Mind Mischief” which features a guitar lick that could have easily been a McCartney outtake, but harmonies that sound like Lennon and McCartney are back together again, it’s quite disarming. If Lennon had continued to express his more psychedelic side and stayed with McCartney, this might be the closest thing we have to imagine it.

It’s refreshing that Parker is able to create these ear-catching melodies almost out of nowhere. Sure, they won’t be leading a top 40 song anytime soon, but they aren’t contrived, they don’t try to sound massive.

If there were any doubts of Tame Impala’s love for 60’s psychedelia, look no further than their latest video for “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards”

Kevin Parker is doing what few could attempt to do. Not only has he faithfully picked up from where The Beatles psychedelia left off, but he’s created a whole world within it. For a man who is so intensely private, his music doesn’t spiral off into self interest, it doesn’t indulge in selfish tendencies, it sounds like the concerted effort of a group. He’s not afraid to express his own doubts either, as the central theme of the album is loneliness and escapism, which are perfect thematic backdrops for psychedelic arrangements.

Top Tracks:

Endors Toi

Apocalypse Dreams

Feels Like We Only Go Backwards

Bottom Line:

Lonerism is a massive undertaking expanding psychedelia into a valid form rather than just “revivalist” for its own sake. Parker at once manages to sound both solitary (in his lyrics, which are quite poetic at times) and part of a collective (playing all of the instrumental parts save a couple of keyboards) . Even if it weren’t home-recorded, it’s one of the strongest albums of 2012, that it is makes it even more impressive. A must buy

Find it here:

Further Reviews:

Homecoming: An Envisioned Soundtrack

Sat, 03 Nov 2012 13:40:00 -0400

A soldier arrives home from Afghanistan to find his lost high school love. Problem is she’s marrying another man, old ghosts of the past linger the town, it’s the perpetual misty fall/winter of New England. Hearts will be mended, hearts will be broken. The envisioned soundtrack.

1. Friends Like Those - Robert Ellis - from Photographs

2. S’posin - Fats Waller - from The Joint Is Jumpin’

3. North Side Girl - JD McPherson - from Signs & Signifiers

4. I’ve Never Found A Girl - Eddie Floyd - from I’ve Never Found A Girl

5. Don’t Tell All Our Friends About Me - Blake Mills - from Honey I’m Home Live Sessions

6. Mr. Nobody Is Somebody Now - Johnnie Taylor - from Who’s Making Love

7. Something Biblical - Andrew Bird - from Hands of Glory

8. Standin’ (Townes Van Zandt Cover) - Vetiver - from Live at Glasslands 9/21/12

9. She Lit A Fire - Lord Huron - from Lonesome Dreams

10. Time And Time Again - Bahamas - from Barchords

11. Cheers (Blake Mills Cover) - Floating Action - from ???

12. Some Things Never Change - Robert Francis - from Strangers In The First Place

13. Someday We’ll Be Together - Diana Ross & The Supremes - from Cream of the Crop

14. Pain In My Heart - Otis Redding - from Pain In My Heart

15. Cemetery - Robert Ellis - from Photographs

Homecoming: An Envisioned Soundtrack (Full Playlist .zip file)