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Matador
Vancouver's super-group has released their third album of jangly,beautiful, meticulously-crafted pop. It's joyful. It'sheartfelt. Every note is perfect, every beat is in lockstep,every instrument has been equalized for maximum integration; it's likelistening to a warm diamond, or an outtake from a George Martinrecording session...one starring a lot of musicians with endless ideasand a fondness for diluted psychedelia. But when theperfection of it all becomes cloying (especially the crispness of theinstruments and the hey-hey "sing-along" style of the vocals), or whenthe lyrics get too annoyingly ambiguous and arty-farty, it's still hardnot to enjoy what Twin Cinema strives to be and achieves: an album ofpop songs which just plain sound good.
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Merge
People will pan this record. The title is pretty bad; even the bandtitle I don’t really like. Probably it should have been called “ChrisLopez” because this is Chris Lopez’s music, just like all thosebrilliant Rock*A*Teens albums. The Rock*A*Teens who haunted my youth,who like O’Connor and Faulkner and Walker Percy and Barry Hannah had anew world language to create but hadn’t yet because everything from theSouth happens that way. Who came from some imagined Cabbagetown outsideAtlanta with nothing but burned-out cars, streets full of shingles andthe only roofed structures the empty airplane hangers where teenscovered in reverb blasted science fiction rockabilly up to streetlightsmistaken for spotlights that were in fact searchlights, as theDestroyer’s one-sheet would have it. Eventually the teens grew out of“I’m Your Puppet” covers and into reinterpreting the classics throughan even foggier lens, meant to include southern soap opera romantics,abstract car accidents and huge aerial visions of the American state,macro-dramas condensed into 18’s white-boy soul stretches and yelpedout as if this-here-were the last song he/I will play and you/I willever hear. The band was struck down, and Lopez stayed on. Once he was“doomed,” as Bejar would have it again, but today he is still alive.Tenement Halls are no teenage tenement film reel. There is notelevision; no one is hunched over bad cooking; no one is beaten orbeating; no corpse goes weeks without being noticed. It sounds like theRock*A*Teens woke from their dream, Lopez got sad about it, so he’swriting songs to ignore it. Every song here is about love and duration;every voice in every song is love-sick. There is less of the teenagecamaraderie gung-ho-we’re-doomed! atmosphere, less concern for what’soutside that window. Songs about Charlemagne and swifts coming homecover a man’s version of love, fitted to Memphis traditions, with theair of Byzantine myth. Lyrics are simpler, much less ambitious thatLopez’s days with the Teens, even at their youngest, but, somehow, theyfeel more genuinely desperate. There are less theatrics and lessreverb, but you can hear the voices of teens grown up and still in thesame place; it’s sad but an essential part of that legacy. It’s lessfun; there’s less escape, less songs about AM radio, death jazz orCherry Red compilations, despite the title’s easygoing. Maybe havingextreme reverence for the Rock*A*Teens is necessary for enjoyingKnitting Needles; maybe it is a maturity issue. All I know is that timeis such a part of these lyrics that it’s impossible not to think abouta past with this music, any past. That’s fine; I wouldn’t have wantedit came without a fight anyway. Keep on, Christopher Lopez, you arestill needed. Bonus: even though the record was played and producedalmost entirely by Lopez, it’s still got some of thatwall-of-sludgy-reverb-Rock*A*Teens sound.
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Sixth in Die Stadt’s commendable Tietchens reissue project, Hausmusik enjoys something of a mythicalstatus within the artist’s overwhelming body of work, alongside otherlong-out-of-print releases like his series of Terry Burrowscollaborations. Still a young label, U.D. releases up to thispoint reflected more than ever the DIY spirit of Stapleton’s enterprise, themusic rooted in kitchen sink sound sourcing, abrupt cuts, and dense swaths ofprimitive acoustic noise, watermark: Insectand Individual Sliced. With Hausmusik, Tietchens essentially dropsthe first truly stoic and sophisticated release on the label, beginning thecrescendo that would produce the first singular NWW works. Inside the liner notes of this reissue a notein facsimile from Stapleton to Tietchens: “I nearly fainted, never before haveI heard music which so touched my heart…have you had classical training?” The idea of “classical training” going intoan earlier Tietchens album like Biotopis laughable in the best way, but Stapleton’s question illustrates the greatdivergence taking place on Hausmusik. The “dramatic transition” means a droppingout entirely of the retro atmospheres and quirky synth-play that madeTietchens’ first recordings by turns humorous and unsettling. Their replacement is an acetic environmentflowing out from this record as if it had existed for millennia, a carnallandscape with none of Stapleton’s early cheekiness and all of his texturalmastery. The sound is a broad-strokedcombination of stringed instrumentation, accordion, abrupt concrète tapetwisting, and dying electronics, grouped and mashed through effects into adense, effervescent layer. The hollow,cold-metal-in-space vibe of the earlier “pop” albums is now a craggy, petrifiedprimitive. Those familiar withmid-period Tietchens will notice certain rough edges to the mix, excessivetouches, and abrupt changes or endings later to be ground down, but these canalso be a source of appeal and work nicely to bleed the obvious excesses of hisearlier releases into new forms. Accordion flourishes in “Volkafest” recall Biotop-era bounciness but are buried in thethick airs of more powerful transmissions, sounds of a whining earth. “Studie für Klavier” might’ve been recordedyesterday, perfect drone for the exorcism-folk trend. Tietchens’ experimentation with naturallyresonant instruments shows itself on Hausmusikfor the first time, and it’s no wonder Stapleton heard a kindred spirit atwork. The bonus tracks, which most fansof late 80’s-onward Tietchens will dismiss as sounding too “improvisational” orsome shit, especially sculpt the artist’s ear as something in tune not just tothe sound’s ghost after optimum distortion, but to the spaces between atrilling scraping, to the movement of a hand as mapped by the quiveringfrequency structure one half-step too quick or one-notched frequency too shrillfor your automatic interpretive listening “method.” Today, as Tietchens seems more concerned withexorcizing the ghosts latent in the digital pulverizing of existing sources,it’s time to revisit some of his less-meta constructions. Titles like “Studie für Glasspiel” and“Studie für B-A-C-H” signify simple means expanded or exploded across a thoughtprocess bent on discovering new soundworlds within inches of thoseimmediate. I can hear many thingsfloating in with this music, the least of which is Tietchens’ next two decadesas a composer and figurehead. U.D.freaks will no doubt already have jumped on this, but it also makes the perfectintroduction to the artist for new listeners. Bonus: another beautiful packageby Die Stadt, including large glossy prints of Tietchens’ original cover artand the Babs Santini art of the first pressing.
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Architecture in Helsinki is eight members, all of whom play several instruments, coming together tomake pop music that bursts at the seams with restless enthusiasm.“It’5” features sticky sweet “oh’s” and “ah’s” that ride along a musichall beat. The Australian octet’s penchant for creating music that isat once playful and skilled is on clear display on “In Case We Die (Pt.1-4),” where goofy synthesizers slowly fade into marshal drumming andmournful violins while the band shout the chorus amid the sound ofbursting fireworks. Elsewhere, a healthy pilfering of the past informsmany of the songs on In Case We Die. “Do the Whirlwind” sounds likeWham! (Wait, come back!) with horns and intricate percussion. Individual songs work well, but as a group, these songs havetrouble forming one musical identity. Ultimately, it’s the charisma ofindividual songs that power this album. “The Cemetery,” which clocks inat barely over two minutes, is the strongest pop song of the batch andis the best distillation of Architecture in Helsinki’s musical forté.The peppy guitars and call and response vocals of the verse meldseamlessly into the breakneck new wave inspired chorus, allowing thesong to be infectious and accomplished all at once. Though there havebeen a glut of adventurous pop bands in recent years, Architecture inHelsinki manage to separate themselves from the pack with their adeptsong writing skills and a sense of whimsy that is sorely lacking inmany of their peers.
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Previously, the only way to hear muchof this music was to track down the original Pye/Dawn LPs, whichfrequently trade hands for upwards of a thousand dollars for a VG+copy, or to buy one of the exorbitantly priced bootleg CD reissues thathave surfaced on Korean and Japanese labels over the years. Indeed, First Utteranceis probably the ultimate psych-folk Holy Grail, a storied and obscurealbum that more than earns its reputation. In writing this review, Ihad to make an effort to remain as dispassionate as possible, as First Utteranceis certainly one of my top five favorite albums of all time, and I'vebeen obsessively trying to uncover its mysteries over the period ofeight years since I first heard it. This album, along with Jan Dukes DeGrey's Mice and Rats in the Loft, is probably the truestmanifestation of the genre sometimes called "progressive folk," assongs with a distinctly Brit-folk vibe are stretched out into dynamic,multi-part convocations, joined together with instrumental passages ofacoustic guitar, reeds and hand percussion. Far from being the sort ofcontrived, antiseptic art-rock normally associated with the"progressive" tag, the music made by Comus is fierce and visceral,passionate and intense, living in an ever-present now. To listen to First Utteranceis to be kidnapped by cult of forest-dwelling mages and witches, whodrug you, blindfold you, strip you naked and convey your cold,quivering corpus to a clearing in the woods, where you are forced toparticipate in an ancient initiation rite. Along the way areinvocations of the huntress-goddess Diana, chilling murder ballads,songs of praise to a malevolent demon, stories of necrophilia,crucifixion and insanity. There are moments of fragile, pastoral beautyon First Utterance, but they are interrupted at unpredictableintervals by the frightening howls, growls and vocal ululations ofsinger Roger Wootton. It's frequently amazing just how much power andferocity the quintet are able to pull out of their completely acousticinstruments, making the album also function as a sort of unpluggedproto-Metal album. Songs seem to slither and pulsate, with their ownphantasmagorical logic, traveling from innocuous nature hymns setagainst placid folk music, to anarchic, tribalistic surrenders to thenightmarish and Satanic, often within the same song. This frighteningdynamism led David Michael Formerly Tibet to declare that First Utterance was his favorite album of all time, and Current 93 covered "Diana" on their HorseyEP. The band is also on the Nurse With Wound list, and are frequentlynamechecked by a slew of recent "freak-folk" acts, many whom, shall wesay, have "borrowed" their eccentricities from Comus' monolithic LP.Besides a great remastering job, which renders the album clearer andlouder than ever before, this package also includes extensivebiographical notes, photographs and reproductions of the LP art. Thisdouble-disc set also includes the entire Diana 12" maxi single,which contained two seldom heard b-sides, as well as a previouslyunreleased track ("All the Colours of Darkness") very much in the samevein as the First Utterance material.
And then there is disc two, which contains Comus' much-maligned sophomore effort To Keep From Crying. The album was released in 1974 on Virgin Records to very little fanfare, much like the first record, only in the case of Crying,its failure was very much deserved. In fact, the more I listen and tryto reconsider my opinion about Comus' artistically compromised secondalbum, the more I am convinced that it is absolutely the worst secondalbum I've ever heard. The edgy, insanely creative and instrumentallyproficient Comus from the first album is nowhere in sight, and in itsplace is nothing but a throwaway piece of MOR folk-rock fare, poorlyproduced and containing no memorable songs. Apparently the album wasmade rather begrudgingly by a band that, only a few months before, haddecided to break up for good. This lack of elan is clearly in evidenceon To Keep From Crying, and though I can't help but think thatI might like the album better were I not comparing it to a masterpiecelike First Utterance, it doesn't change the fact that this is indeedthe same Comus who recorded that great LP, and it's downright tragic.The band members interviewed for David Wells' liner notes allude totheir desire at that time to record an album that would be more likelyto sell. Money and fame have never been particularly good motivatingfactors for great art, and this just proves it once again. However,even though I don't care to listen to Comus' second album ever again, Imust say that it certainly belongs on any CD that's going to callitself Song to Comus: The Complete Collection, andcongratulations go to everybody for going the extra mile to makethis a truly complete release. On the basis of disc one alone, this isthe reissue of the year.
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Any attempt at summarizing Will Oldham's pre-millennial output underthe Palace name will necessarily be a difficult, even defeating task.Like that of any great songwriter, Oldham's body of work visits amultitude of distinct voices, illustrated by his undeniable lyricaldensity and legendary dissatisfaction with any kind of stable moniker.If one constant could be established, at least among his Palacerecordings, it might be the ingredient of self-doubt: that healthyfrailty that seems to provide the characteristic, tortured quiver inevery vocal; the half-sardonic/half-serious tension that fills everyother line; and the regular shifts in both the dominant persona andstylistic frame of each record. The artist's stubbornness duringinterviews has guaranteed that his songs remain the only windows intohis life, and they do create an incredibly human picture: passionate,diverse, and perpetually uneasy: always second-guessing, experimentingwith, and even contradicting his methods. Anyone who's seen Oldham livecan attest to his tendency to perform even the most sacred of fanfavorites in ways completely alien to their recorded versions, and thiskind of behavior—while aggravating for a sorry few—is largely whatkeeps him such a vibrant figure, refusing to let his music perch idlyin the ivory tower of indie, alt country, folk noir, or whatever set ofrules comes closest to housing his talent as of late.Over the decade since the first Palace record (still-)interestedparties should be used to having their expectations thwarted. In truecountry style, Oldham's Bonnie Billy has taken some Palace favorites(nominated by fans, supplemented by the artist) and rerecorded them inNashville with the city's finest session men and women. It's honestlyhard to think of Oldham agreeing to this kind of collection withoutturning it to parody. The session turns fifteen of his most fragileanthems and cryptic ballads to full-blown golden country greats, fullof enough pedal steel, fiddle and haggard crooning to make the mostdie-hard fan wince more than once. The result is equal partscelebration and satire, for as much as Oldham is having fun playinginto the C & W stereotype (at the expense of those emotionallyinvested in the originals, of course), he is obviously trying hard tomake each new version a thoughtful reworking. The artist's admitteddesire to rerecord several tracks no matter what the voted result("Viva Ultra" and "No More Workhorse Blues" among them) points to agenuine interest in revisiting older material as an older man, withboth wise distance and obvious affection. Oldham knows that this newbatch will never replace the old, and he's aiming this collection atthose well enough acquainted with Palace history to ease up attachmentsand take a long, joyful look back through the eyes of a different man.Some moments are sublime, more are shockingly different, and many aredownright painful, but Greatest Palace Music is absolutelyessential for any previous fan of Oldham, if only for a furtherchiseling of one of the roundest characters in contemporary music. NewPalace listeners, however, should be warned; start here at your ownrisk. Greatest's appeal, or lack thereof, relies on priorexposure to the originals, and if you somehow come to like this withouthearing its origins then we surely have some sort of postmodernconundrum on our hands?probably what Oldham wanted all along.
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Mego
What becomes interesting upon listening to Resurrection River whencompared to Endless, their first record together, is the evolution of the rhythms,tonal passages and melodies, not unlike Pan Sonic's staggering Kestomega-album from last year. Still, both entities share a commonalityonly found in artists at the near-end of the musical spectrum, and ifit works, which is does, it works well. Some choice cuts include thepolitical plea "Desperate Nation," "11:52," which builds off arockabilly melody and guests Jimi Tenor on organ, and the danceable"Chrome Z-Fighters 2003."
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No Fun Records
I’m not as familiar with Nate Young’s extra curricular activities as Iam those of John Olson and Aaron Dilloway (and I suppose Mike Connellytoo) butfrom this effort it seems like its Young that brings the lion’s shareof subtlety to the Wolf Eyes mix. Most of the material on this limitedvinyl affair isin my preferred Wolf Eyes ‘style’, that of unfolding bleakness like rotsetting into teeth as opposed to the sound of them being kicked intonothingmore than brittle lumps in a fleshy soup.
As with much of this band’s related material there’s a nasty bootlegedge involved in the confusion of analogue that the music is made from.The singleuntitled piece on side A layers itself in seething staggering stepswith wretched low steady breaths (whatever is doing it by the end ofthe track…don’t know but it was certainly human to start with) hunched over abank of ruined contraptions. In the midst of imperceptive clangsthere’s a coldpiece of conventional repeated melody (a laser-like monochromesqueaking riff) that’s dragged into the embers and underscored by aflickering burning PC.Like a twelve-car pile up slowly unbending itself there are sinewytears and flashes of stiff steel and, as odd as it sounds, the songshimmers even with thetornado chaos.
Side B takes a different approach with its three tracks, using a longcentral piece bookended by two noise bursts that buzz and carve throughthe higher auralregisters starting at your pain threshold and working around that area.The middle section stirs as it powers up in the course of bursts ofpower with tiny preciseglitchy details…so much for the generic wall of noise tag. The nails ontin bleeps make this sound more like a portion of some rising ambienttrack by someforgotten IDM act. The manipulated found sounds duelling with bleepsand swirls, and it’s all kept surprisingly restrained till the busyNASA gone haywirefades out. As the rest of the collective soundtrack the crashing ofmetal on metal, Young is revealing himself as the next Merzbow Mozart.
Samples not available (vinyl obstacles).
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Legendary Pink Dots albums, at their worst, can sound likehorrible messes: a cacaphony of ideas, genres and quirks that refuse toharmonize. When Ka-Spel records a solo release,however, it's understood that it will be—at the very least—coherent from thebeginning to the end. The highlights are two tracks called"The End Of Everything," the first of which tells a classic Ka-Spelfairytale (life, afterlife, drolly humorous disappointment) and willhave Peggy Lee cocking whatever remains of her eyebrows. The secondpart sounds like a spaceship trying to take off from the BBC roofduring the 1970's...but in a good way, for those who like that sort of thing."Yet Another Fragment" is a gorgeous, delicate, extended moment offlangey ambience, a welcome follow-up to the (surprise!) stutteringhead-banging of "Sticks and Stones." The first track on the CD, "MySpace," is—sadly—the one sour note for me; a song whose lyrics arejarringly out-of-sync with the rhythm...I skip it, but it's unfortunatethat it opens an otherwise exceptional CD. Regardless, it's a testamentto Ka-Spel's skill that all these musical styles—effect-heavy ambiance,poetry, analog boopiness, obnoxious guitar sampling—can fit together onone album without sounding discordant, and that all of them are done sowell.
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Tibet's tortures, screams, and often times strange lyrical obsessions end up feeling warm because honesty is an undeniable facet of his work. After some time there is no denying that the voices, lyrics, and ideas on all of his albums are deeply felt demons and revelations that he exorcises through music. Despite an elegant and, at times, wholly beautiful musical background, the lead vocalist for Long Live Death sounds as though he's preaching his ideas instead of relating them. His demons and ideas sound like someone else's ideas, ideas that he's yet to understand completely but tries to relay to everyone willing to listen. The subject matter, while not unfamiliar, seems simplified for the audience so that the band can sing to the audience as though they were all children. After a short amount of time this becomes annoying, stealing the music of its dark grandeur and turning it into a lame "gothic" accumulation of acoustic instruments and "spooky" Theremin use. The band has been rumored to be part of a kind of commune and, judging from the photograph inside the liner notes and songs like "Join Us" and "Praise," it's a commune of some religious interest. Knowing this somehow spoils the music more than the vocals do, it cheapens the sometimes epic guitar parts and spacious sounds, turning them into a structure more akin to a haunted house than an ancient chapel or holy place. Instead of letting the music and lyrics come together to create an unsettling or esoteric atmosphere, Long Live Death opt to force it out of their instruments and voices. It sounds cheap at times and nice at others, but it's hard to get past that voice, it sounds as though it belongs in a high school drama class, part of a young man's voice who hasn't yet mastered making Shakespeare's language convincing or natural for himself, much less his audience. An instrumental version of this record would be nice. All of the strings used on the record come together nicely, but they can't save Bound to the Wheel from sounding fake or from appearing too ornate and excessively contrived.
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Finally, after days of inaction, troops have been arriving at effected areas to evacuate survivors, transport patients and help begin to repair the city. However, survivors still need help and assistance through donations. Please take the time to take some pocket change and donate to help those in need.
We recommend donating to the Red Cross but you may choose to donate to whoever you feel you can trust.
Listen to these words from Mayor Nagin of New Orleans.
Most windows shattered altogether, allowing the curtains to flap like white flags held to the windows. It looks like a complete war zone. The waters are toxic with sewage and gas leaks and Tuesday morning the levee systems began to collapse under pressure, pouring all of the water that had been collected back into the city. After a day of attempts, the city has simply given up attempting to patch the flow and is letting nature take it's course. The pumps are entirely submerged in water and have all completely stopped working. The water is 12-15 feet over the ENTIRE east bank of New Orleans and, at the time of this writing on Wednesday, it is STILL RISING.
Everyone in New Orleans has been told that they MUST leave and they are not allowing anyone to return for ONE MONTH. At this point, most people are maxing out their credit cards staying at hotels and running out of money for food. And when they do return in a month or so, if they are not homeless they will have no belongings...
It will take months if not years to rebuild both the physical structures and the economy of what once was one of the most unique cities in the United States. Some say there's no way it will ever again be the same.
People need food and shelter. 80% of the city of New Orleans needs to be reconstructed. Until the federal aid starts to come in (an estimated $26 billion dollars...), the relief and rescue efforts are primarily being funded by the American Red Cross.
For the latest news, updates and images, go to the website of WWL TV - New Orleans Local News.
You can donate as little as $5 to help out...
Donate to the American Red Cross. 1-800-HELP-NOW
Other links of interest to those who want to help:
- Salvation Army: 1-800-SAL-ARMY
- Federal Emergency Management Agency: 1-800-621-FEMA
- AmeriCares
- National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster
Thank you for all of your support.
Sincerely,
Daniel McKernan
August 31, 2005
PS. If you were thinking of going to New Orleans for Jandek, Southern Decadence, or either of my art exhibits, they're all cancelled, as is everything for the foreseeable future.
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