The one-man-show-turned-full-band known as Ty Segall has a pulse throbbing with reverb and veins pushing the kind of fuzz so many have come to lust. Melted is an 11-track culmination of garage-rock anatomy that Segall—like a teenager heading down to the soda shop or swinging beach party, after maybe a joint or two—seems to know.
“Sad Fuzz” sits well as an introduction to the raw sound that could have snuck right out of the airwaves of the ’60s. The title track reaffirms that echo-box voice effects and some mid-tempo droning guitar can walk the psychedelic line without having to be too trippy. A love for surf rock sneaks in on “Imaginary Person,” where a strong Beach Boys vibe hides in the backbeat until the last third of the track.
Ty’s affinity for yesteryear is tried and true, but as with most revivals of an older sound something is missing. “Alone” fits the bill for all garage enthusiasts and its heart is in the right place, but unless you have one of those special Deloreans, enough asphalt to hit 88 MPH, and the means to cut an album back in ‘63, it’s just another rehashing. But don’t be fooled, Melted is running on all cylinders, and makes the cut in the world of garage-rock, especially as the brain child of one man. And that’s saying something for a genre that died before anyone recognized it was its own sound.
The music world is always thinking up new ways to premiere music, so as to get the edge on your ever-assaulted ears, but this may take the cake. Somewhere in Glasgow, Scotland a double-sided white-label single was uncovered by one Chris Ward, preceding any official announcement or availability of two new songs from the epically minded Canadian indie-rock troupe, Arcade Fire.
“The Suburbs” and “Month of May” made their debut via BBC Radio 1, and were subsequently radio ripped for your convenient listening pleasure. We’re going to save any in-depth comments on the music for when official releases are made, but we’ll go ahead and say, Arcade Fire seems to be getting a bit back to is roots while keeping a mind on the stadium-sized sounds they love so much.
Listen to Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs” and “Month of May” on OneThirtyBPM, here.
LCD Soundsystem This Is Happening DFA Records (2010)
Genre: Indie Rating: A-
James Murphy, indie court jester turned household name, may be the only coherent, level-headed torchbearer of pop music. Murphy’s DFA label started organically as the brainchild of three studio savvy NYC kids with a clear mission: DIY produced well. DFA introduced us to The Rapture and Murphy’s own work, under the moniker LCD Soundsystem, and was in a large part responsible for the dance-punk of the early 2000s. After a self-titled double disc collection of the previous few years of work Murphy released Sound of Silver, a more polished and calculated attempt than its predecessor. The second record focused and cemented the sound that LCD would be known for: a pastiche of punk fueled electronic-heavy disco. The following year saw a string of singles, a slew of touring on the festival circuit, and a collective lauding by critics. Sound of Silver was a pop record. It achieved top-40 status in the UK, was heard in all but the most mainstream clubs from Brooklyn to Bangkok, and produced several radio-ready summertime party tracks.
Three years later, This Is Happening witnesses Murphy and Co.’s trudging off once again into the pop abyss, but more on their own terms. The previous rule is now the exception as “Drunk Girls,” the first released single, is the singular track reminiscent of the rock heavy hits of LCD past. The openness of the remaining album gives way to Murphy’s savant side. The guitars in “All I Want” scream Brian Eno (of Another Green World era), sweeping along with the analog sounding synths and monotone vocals. “You Wanted a Hit” has a slow ambient build of two and a half minutes before any remnant of a beat evolves (a common theme on a record with most tracks clocking in around seven to nine minutes) and moves on to bridges with clanging post-punk guitar chords straight out of early Gang of Four—achieving somewhat of a live mash-up version of a college radio DJ set. These references in a pop record serve as little reminders that the group could embody (while ridiculing) the current state of music and pretension.
Where Murphy’s insight is most keen is in the way that he realizes that he is dealing with a generation of listeners with external hard drives filled with every possible record attainable for the last 60 years of rock music. To make a quick search through one’s personal database of illicit b-sides and rare EPs is the proverbial “digging through the crates.” The record store geek no longer works at a record store. “I heard that you have a compilation of every good song ever done by anybody,” Murphy proclaimed years ago on his seminal spoken-word dance piece “Losing my Edge.” In that, he established an ironical “hip” hierarchy; one he smartly exists in while foraging through the darkness for an intelligent future for popular music.
Here’s a pretty funny and unusually awesome looking music video for the song “Underwear” from Iceland’s FM Belfast. The song itself—which is a relatively average bit of electro-pop we couldn’t exactly recommend—is actually overshadowed by some well-executed visual work directed by Daniel Scheinert & Dan Kwan, collectively known as DANIELS.
The two video makers turned a somewhat dull concept, boys and girls dancing alone in their respective rooms, and made it look amazing. Employing a few visual effects and some insanely high-quality footage, DANIELS made the embarrassing movements of awkward tweens into stellar looking visual art.
Jamie Lidell’s latest effort, Compass, is a record of collaborations with the likes of Beck, Feist, Chris Taylor of Grizzly Bear, Gonzales, and Pat Sansone of Wilco, along with Lidell’s unmistakable singing style, funky bass work, smooth slow jams, synthetic and acoustic percussion, and wonky pitch-shifted vocals. It’s an album by an artist stepping out on a limb, though he didn’t have to, and who ought be rewarded for taking his craft into the unknown to create a wildly entertaining, engaging, and complex record.
Compass begins with “Completely Exposed,” and in this opening track, Lidell and company have created, hands down, one of the most exciting sonic experiences of this year. Before the song really starts moving, around the thirty-second mark, a tension builds amidst crackling percussion, sneakily smooth keys, and Lidell’s rising voice before the floodgates open and a barrage of sound—comprised of countless unique noises that fit together precisely like some strange puzzle—is unloaded onto the listener, all of it chaotic, interesting, and absolutely wonderful. It’s a fitting introduction to the highs, lows, and everywhere-in-betweens that lie in the forthcoming 14 tracks that make up Compass.
The album is a departure from what could be described—after listening to Compass and then going back to 2008’s Jim—as Lidell’s cleaner, pervious sound. Compass is an all-around dirtier record, but in the most positive of ways. There is more distortion everywhere, and the songs have a general feeling of having been written, torn apart, and pieced back together with the scraps that were left. In “Coma Chameleon,” Lidell’s vocals seem to peak into the red at times, the drums are constant and fuzzy, and the horns that make small, calculated appearances are full of attitude and a general aura of bad-ass; the song’s perfectly placed saxophone solo is gone before it really has time to be appreciated, which makes a good solo great.
Lidell and his crew of producers and high-profile collaborators have created a finished product that is, at times, bright and optimistic, as on “Enough’s Enough.” At other times, though, Compass is dark and introspective, as is the case with near album ender “Big Drift.” But regardless of whether the songs are light or dark or any number of other adjectives one could use, or whether they are distortion-laden and drum-driven or clean and piano-based, every song is full of soul. And, in the end, that’s what makes Compass both unique and no different from any other record Lidell has made.
Boozing, girls, and travel have been inspiring Minus the Bear’s sound since 2001. It’s why the faces at the band’s shows are so varied. Because who can say “no” to a stiff drink, hard bodies, and new locales? Omni, the Seattle quintet’s new album, treads where it wishes without unraveling the same prog-pop mantra that has always worked so well.
The electronic qualities that sprouted the outfit’s niche still protrude strongly, but tracks like “Secret Country” blend it into the mix marvelously. “Into The Mirror” is the product of what defines this band: telling a vivid story with only five minutes or so. “There’s a mirror full of ‘cane in the bathroom / Cause nobody here knows when to stop / For now we’re just making out with the door unlocked.” It’s all for the high of the uninhibited tryst, and at the party in the next room, the boyfriend sits completely unware: “She sits down beside him without a hint of shame / Cause everything’s the same in its own way.”
Minus the Bear’s strength also resides in ‘choose your own adventure’ type cuts that sound perfect before bed after a long day, during a raucous dance party, or courteously drowning out the sex noises coming from your room. An anomaly? Yes, but “Animal Backwards” proves it. The song is packaged with a pounding bass beat that strikes hard—not loud—and unfenced synth effects plucked from an old-school arcade game that rev up during the song’s last quarter. A mishmash of molded sounds that, at the right volume, could set one to slumbering or sweating.
Omni isn’t so much a gift from God; tracks like “Dayglow Vista Rd.”—which sound like nothing more than filler made up from scraps—falter from the others. It’s like convincing yourself that the shake left in some baggy is enough to get you high, but deep down you know it’s a waste of time. Don’t be mistaken, though, if you’ve been jonesing for new material from Minus the Bear, Omni will simultaneously feed that need and build up your tolerance.
We’d like to think that record labels are becoming generous and thoughtful with age, but it’s more likely that they offer their latest releases for full streaming weeks before the release dates to combat against you whippersnappers trying to download something for nothing. Regardless, right now over on AOL Spinner you can listen to a whole lot of new, as-yet-unreleased albums, some of which are pretty great.
Oakland’s four-piece indie outfit Man/Miracle just shared this new video for the single “Pushing and Shoving” from its latest album, The Shape of Things. It looks like the band and their crew of friends are gearing up for the Bay’s Indian summer with an afternoon rooftop concert. Man/Miracle’s upbeat song seems to capture the excitement and jovial mood of the video, while director Josh Lowman’s blown-out footage cuts between partying youngsters and wilderness excursions.
Boomboxes, cassette tapes, immaculate taste, and a pair of quirky cousins—all coming straight outta Brooklyn—sounds like an exciting combination, and Tom Van Buskirk’s and George Langford’s latest album together, No Mas, proves it is. The duo, better known as Javelin, has made a record out of sampling warped secondhand tapes, chopping up the source material, and transforming the sounds into a universal frolic. Simply put, Javelin has crafted your new favorite party record.
8-bit waves are surfed by high-pitched vocals on “Oh! Centra,” one of many songs that’ll stick in your head for weeks thanks to their ultra-catchy, caffeinated swagger. Tracks like “Susie Cue” sound like they could have been produced by revered vinyl archeologists The Avalanches or veteran electronic producer Howie B, if he ever got a bit funkier. Occasionally, Mas weighs in a bit heavy on the cheesy side, but somehow does so without losing its best qualities. “Moscow 1980” sounds a bit too much like it was taken from one of Harold Faltermeyer’s film scores, and “On It On It,” a disco-tinged ballad, has enough sugary synth hooks and rubbery sound effects to make Les Rhythm Digitales blush. And yet despite the nearly overbearing ecstatic energy of Javelin’s music, there’s something deeply lovable in the duo’s heart-on-sleeve sentiments and ‘dance like no one is watching’ attitude.
Essentially, what makes No Mas so enjoyable is Javelin’s dedication to the simple idea of sampling something catchy and familiar, and then turning it into something that is completely original and even more lovable. No matter where the sounds are pilfered from, Buskirk and Langford will make it fun through and through. It’s a feat that few records can come close to accomplishing, especially with music that sounds so casual and off the cuff; it’s as if the songs had always existed within the producers’ collective mind. With No Mas, Javelin has taken the sample-obsessed styles of late-’90s and early-’00s dance and pop music, and revitalized that sound for its own private party.
Man/Miracle The Shape of Things Third Culture Records (2010)
Genre: Indie Rating: C-
The Shape of Things from Oakland’s Man/Miracle is a split album. The first half is original modern day pop. Comparisons could be made to bands like Vampire Weekend: a tropically influenced sound gets the listener swaying like a blade of grass in a warm gust of wind. “Above The Salon” tells the story of missing someone and dealing with emotions brought forth from that longing. Compound all that with a weather forecast that looks like rain upon rain upon a shitty disposition. Yet singer/guitarist Dylan Travis has an enveloping voice that comes on like a distant echo, but before those far off vocals can dissipate they’re swirling around you. He can sing a story that should be sad in every right, but his voice holds a warmth that brightens moods instead of lowering them. The track “Multitudes” alters that fluttering blade of grass attitude into a ritalin prescribed bonanza of temperamental bass lines, tick-tocking drums, and near yodeling. It makes for a great standalone track for showcasing the group’s talents.
From there we move onto the second half of the album where everything goes wrong. “Always, Just” is an interlude on the album that shows what you’re in for: distant humming, guitars that equate to static, and experimentation that displease the senses. “Back of The Card” has a climax that is nothing more than a robotic crash of cymbals—sounding like a pre-programmed drum machine. “Other People” lets in some noisy guitar portions that effectively discredit the straightforward parts trying their best to hold the song together. “Ghost Tongue” uses a vocal effect that drains all the strength from Travis’ singing; you’re left hearing more racket and less music.
The Shape of Things has five songs that make complete sense and five others that will raise a suspicious eyebrow. Man/Miracle had everything in the right place, but decided that a dash of weird here and a splash of something abrasive here could add a little spice. Theirs’ is an album that should’ve cashed in when it was up, but got greedy instead.
If you can get past the fact that there is nothing like “Electric Feel” or “Kids” or really any remnants of what you thought MGMT used to be, there may be something for you within the strange new walls of Congratulations. In an attempt to sidestep being pigeon-holed and rewriting their debut record, Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden shifted gears, packed away their glitter and synths, and delivered a record that’s not so much for listeners wanting a repeat of 2007’s Oracular Spectacular as it is for those interested in following more than just the band’s singles.
Congratulations is part surf-rock, part psychedelic, with little bits of Belle & Sebastian styled folk-pop sprinkled in, and altogether kind of scattered. The album’s first single (though MGMT deny calling it such), “Flash Delirium,” is a linear movement with no repeated chorus, or any repetition for that matter. The song ends up sounding like a bunch of parts—some as random as its predecessor and its successor—that have been casually juxtaposed. Even if one is working well, it’s replaced quickly with whatever comes next. Other numbers, such as “Brian Eno” and opening track “It’s Working,” tend to fall into this same trap—giving Congratulations an overall sound like its creators threw everything at the wall and used it all, instead of only what stuck.
There’s nothing wrong with musicians distancing themselves from previous styles. It’s better to be a band putting a lid on the past and trying new things rather than remaining stuck in some sort of never-ending sophomore slump. “Electric Feel” ran its course so thoroughly that we don’t ever need its reprise, but what comes next for MGMT—no matter what it sounds like—should be more focused. There’s no question of whether MGMT can write songs, but instead, the question has surfaced whether Goldwasser and VanWyngarden will be able to edit their next ideas into some kind of sensible form.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is, let’s say, a micro-flotilla of the discarded detritus of modern industry caught in a spinning gyre of ocean currents approximately 1000 miles west of the coastline of California. By some estimates it is the size of Texas, and yet it consists of mostly minute plastic bits invisible to satellites or aerial photographers, or even sailors or fishermen for that matter. In short, it is a place that exists as much in the imagination as in the substantive ecological damage it wreaks upon the ocean life that exists within it. Though a bit of a stretch, it is hard to shake this image of a post-consumer whirlpool from that which is constructed by the album and multimedia promos of PlasticBeach, the latest full-length from Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz project. Basically it is an album and a concept, or more directly, a thing and an idea.
It’s hard to review Gorillaz’s lastest release without it coming across as inept or overblown. Doubtless, much will be (and has been) said about the all-star cast of collaborators, the top-to-bottom quality of production and songwriting to be found here, and the feeling that this might be the best music Damon Albarn has produced since Blur’s run of Brit-pop chart-toppers in the ’90s or the following isolated moments of brilliance contained in Gorillaz’s releases. The Gershwin-esque orchestral intro that somehow resolves into the super-smooth synthesized horn section-accented hip-hop track hosted by none other than Snoop Dogg is particularly mind-blowing. The perfectly curated vocal delivery of Mark E. Smith in “Glitter Freeze” is as respectably minimal, acerbic and distorted as any of The Fall’s best singles. And, if the massaging vibes and tumbling toy piano lines in the askance love song “To Binge” doesn’t do it for you, or if the gut-shot of alienation wailed out into the cosmos by Bobby Womack in the follow-up track, “Cloud of Unknowing,” doesn’t make you tilt your head a little to the side, then maybe just turn it off.
But to capture this album by trying to layer increasingly evocative descriptors over one another, or to merely relate its parts to the whole—that is to the album itself, the albums that came before it, and any other historically relevant songs and artists within a contained music history—is to miss the point. It is more than an album, quite literally. Much like the previous releases from Gorillaz, you are given comically over-the-top characters, loosely stitched together mini-narratives, multiple sonic textures, and a mish-mash of different genres and voices. In the case of PlasticBeach everything seems to hang together under a balmy, but somewhat stifling atmospheric haze of anti-consumerist implications, and exotic, verging-on-schizophrenic meditations on industry, bathymetry, and love. It might be that the tensions of all this chimeric multiplication—underpinned by a distinctly Anglophonic anxiety—keep the pop reined in; less pop for its own sake than to convey the feelings of fleeting joy and persistent melancholy of a fractured postmodern subjectivity under deteriorating environmental conditions that has no physical place but the imagination to escape to. Or something like that.
Think about Plastic Beach like this: as an idea it is a fantastical refuge from the world of pop culture and yet emerges from, critiques, and becomes part of this same culture, but as a physical object it is a major release on Virgin Records and will be distributed in and amongst various plastic bits, promoted with glossy posters, and shot through all forms of media built upon a primarily plastic infrastructure. Both thing and idea resemble a familiar, if distant, place built of artifice, again, both imagined and substantive. Something like a great invisible whirlpool in the middle of the ocean.
Actually, forget all that. If you take anything away, take this: I’m pretty sure that this summer I will be rolling down the windows and playing this record at high volume as I drive out of the city for the weekend with a couple of friends. To a beach. Really.
There is little information readily available about Soft Crest. A quick Google search reveals only a Facebook page listing three surnames as the band’s ranks, Los Angeles denoted as its hometown, and a claim that Soft Crest play music within the “Shoegaze” genre. At least two of the three facts are irrefutable. While the massive washes of reverberated vocals, slow melodic pace, and cluttered mixing approach showcased on its first EP, Neon Chrome, may lean in a shoegaze direction, Soft Crest is actually another addition to the world of noisy, obscured pop music—pushing the doctrine of thick atmosphere matched with sweeping chord changes.
The EP’s opening number, “Beach Town,” best encapsulates Soft Crest’s sound. Booming kicks usher in sampled vocal “ahs” and slow-burning noise before heavy percussion takes us into the softly sung vocal melody. Every sound is immediately friendly and inviting, like any good pop song, but nonetheless mysterious, as it’s all wrapped in an aural shroud. The same ideas are pushed throughout Neon Chrome: a dedication to eclectic percussion, a singer you’ll never quite understand, and a shuddering soundscape every which way you turn. Soft Crest’s focus provides a concrete style which is utilized in upbeat (“Run Off”) and low-tempo (“Forget Everyone”) numbers, both of which are executed well. And yet, because of the density of each track’s sonic fog, it becomes near impossible to walk away from Neon Chrome with a solid hook or chorus to remember, like any proper pop—or shoegaze—release should offer.
It’d be hard to say that the images seen in this video for “Let Go,” by Swedish haze-pop duo jj, fit perfectly with the band’s wavering guitar tones and pattering drum sounds that staff writer Luke Winkie so perfectly described in his review of their latest album, jj n° 3. Instead, we’re met with what appears to be a Calvin Klein commercial gone sinister, and directed by David Lynch or even Stanley Kubrick. It can be seen as fitting, however, as it adds another layer to the thick enigma that jj loves to perpetuate.
Shy Child’s Liquid Love is ten songs that aren’t necessarily ground breaking, as synth-pop duos seem to be a dime a dozen these days, but they aren’t necessarily offensive either. The songs that make up the band’s fourth album are fun and easy to listen to, even if we have basically heard them before. Where Shy Child falls short, in comparison to its long list of peers like MGMT, Passion Pit, and Cut Copy, is in its failure to combine the dynamic highs with any palpable lows. There are spots where a song has the potential to open up, hit hard, and cross over that threshold into a truly great pop song, but the band holds back. “Esp,” a song that could have the potential to stand next to the output of Shy Child’s hugely successful radio-friendly peers, tends to merely drift along into the next track, rather than begging to be replayed immediately.
Liquid Love has a good deal of high moments to contrast, and occasionally trump, a few of its unfortunate lows. Yet it seems that wherever the band does succeed, a misstep is close to follow. The album’s first single, “Disconnected,” features a great chorus. It’s memorable, catchy, and just about everything a good chorus should be. Though, in the end, the song doesn’t go anywhere different from where it began—something that could be said for much of Love. “Criss Cross” is an almost perfect song, and features a groove that can’t be ignored. It could have been the best on the record. The song’s potential is killed, however, by an unnecessary voicemail recording that lasts for a minute-and-a-half and takes the wind completely out of the sails of a song that could have traversed much further unencumbered by it.
While Liquid Love may not be bursting at the seams with songs that are obvious sing/dance-along numbers suited for massive outdoor music festival audiences, and while it has some problems in focus and dynamic, it isn’t an overall failure. Shy Child’s songs are mostly listenable, relatively enjoyable, and they deserve to be heard and not forgotten, at least not immediately.
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