Heartache With Hard Work

The long-awaited new solo record from Jeremy Enigk (former leader of Sunny Day Real Estate) was released last week to shockingly little fanfare. World Waits is the first new music from Enigk in several years, and his first solo record in a full decade. Considering that he is one of the most fascinating (and best) artists of our generation, you’d think that would inspire a bit more excitement.

I first mentioned it back in August, when I had only heard two songs. At the time I said “if the rest of the album stacks up, it’ll be one of the year’s best.” So now, after living with the whole thing for a week, does it live up to my hopes? In almost every way, yes. It doesn’t stack up to Diary, but a strong case could be made for this as my second favorite Enigk record, which is saying quite a lot.

It kicks off with the short but rousing instrumental aptly titled “A New Beginning,” which segues into what might be the best song Enigk has yet recorded. Been Here Before is divided into two halves. The first, containing the first two verses and chorus, is quiet and introspective building a close, almost intimate, connection. Around the 2:00 mark, an organ descends like a curtain during intermission, but when it is lifted the lonely Enigk holding out his arms has been replaced by the full band pounding at the walls like an elemental force. Anyone familiar with Engik’s other work (with Sunny Day Real Estate, the Fire Theft, or on Return of the Frog Queen) should not be suprised as this dynamic. The contrast between loud and soft, between the particular and the universal, is a mainstay for him. That said, I’m not sure any other song so perfectly captures the mutually supportive tension in these dichotomies.

No other song on the album approaches this peak, but many others are strong in their own ways. “River to Sea” does not have the peaks and valleys, but maintains an introspective feel as he ruminates on the importance self-forgiveness. Even better, Cannons is the song you would get if you could run Coldplay through a centrifuge to distill only the best aspects, and then let Enigk create a song from the result. It’s melodic, almost anthemic, but never overreaches. Here, laying it all on the table is a sign of emotional maturity – a world weariness that refuses to let him give in. It also serves as a reminder of those heady Diary-infused days when the prospect of an emo-revolution was unassailably hip. In short, it’s a reminder that emo wasn’t always the territory of adolescent snottiness.

Apart from “Cannons,” the middle of the record contains some of its weakest songs. “City Tonight” and “Damien Dreams,” for example, are both serviceable but not particularly inspiring. Moreover, both strike me as the kind of song that might have worked better with the voice Enigk had in the mid-90s, but fail to do justice to the more cracked vocal chords he now possesses.

However, my description of his voice as “cracked” is not meant to be pejorative. It closes off certain areas, but opens a whole new set. This is most evident on the title track. World Waits is loose and quiet, and lets Enigk’s far more mature voice slowly unravel the “moment away beyond…your heartache.” This is a solo song in the very best sense – a solitary voice calling out to the whole world. This is clarified on the album closer “Burn,” which attempts to strip away all the unnecessary complexities we develop to mediate our relationships. Such obfuscation may be entirely natural, he suggests, but perhaps it does not have to be so. Instead, we should strive to let the most basic and personal values of kindness and care need to be re-inserted into our global politics. As Enigk himself has described this record, it is his “love song to the world.”

You can hear more (including a couple live versions of songs from this record and an interesting interview) on AOL’s The Interface. And, if you aren’t familiar with Enigk’s earlier work (or if you just want a good read), make sure to check out The World of Jeremy Enigk, a fantastic Post For Kids Who Can’t Read Good by Taylor and Chad.

MP3s:
Been Here Before
Cannons
World Waits

I haven’t posted about the Submarines in over a month, but fortunately they’ve got a new release, so I get to talk about them some more. It’s a short EP (5 songs) of live songs, recorded for iTunes. It includes takes on three great songs (“Peace and Hate,” “Brighter Discontent,” and “Vote”) from Declare a New State, and two covers: Galaxie 500’s “Tugboat” and the Kinks’ “Waterloo Sunset.” And lest you be angry that it’s 60% old material, these are not simply re-treads – in all cases, the songs are re-imagined and given some new direction. To be fair, I prefer the original in all three instances, but just hearing some new stuff from them is very enjoyable.

The EP is an iTunes exclusive, but you can check out the covers on their myspace page, and while you’re there listen to their version of “Little Boxes” for the Weeds theme.

And, if you still haven’t bought Declare a New State yet, I’m not sure we can still be friends.

MP3s from the LP:
This Conversation
Darkest Things
Vote

I’m in the middle of four or five long posts, but don’t have the time or motivation to finish up any of those, so instead here’s a Sunday scattershot of some tunes I’ve been digging:

Fidelity – Regina Spektor

I never fell as deeply for Regina as some others, but this song really does it for me, and I’ve been meaning to bring it up for quite a while. Since it featured prominently (during the scene where Veronica and Logan make up) in this week’s Veronica Mars, now seems like a good time. If you haven’t already jumped on the bandwagon, this is a great song to start out with. It’s from the lovely record Begin to Hope.

And speaking of bandwagons, can we get the Veronica Mars one moving? I mean, seriously. I know the networks love to cancel fantastic shows (Freaks and Geeks, Firefly, etc.), but can we please make sure the best show currently on TV gets good enough ratings that they renew it? Tuesdays at 9 on the CW. C’mon people.

Love You in the Fall – Paul Westerberg

New Paul Westerberg? Come me in. Sounding like the Westerberg of yesteryear, he turns out a great little rocker, as part of the soundtrack to Open Season (yeah, the cartoon movie about Bears and stuff…not sure how that happened). Jangly goodness abounds…

Iron Woman – Devin Davis

Speaking of good ol’ Replacements tune, this song could very easily fit on one of their records. I don’t know a whole lot about Devin Davis, but he sure can write a tune. This song is from last year’s Lonely People of the World, Unite!, and he’s got another record coming out next Spring, so be on the lookout for that.

Washington DC – The Magnetic Fields

Heading out to our nation’s capital this evening. I’ll only be there a couple days and won’t really have time to see anything interesting. And while Fall is a beautiful time of year in New England with all the leaves turning, it’s nothing that impressive in DC – Spring with all the cherry blossoms is the real time to go.

Stephin Merritt surely deserves a lengthy post at some point, but for now I’ll just leave it at this song, which kicks off the best 12 1/2 minutes of the whole 69 Love Songs record.

Oh, fine. Here’s one other Magnetic Fields song that I’ve been listening to somewhat obsessively for the last couple weeks:

I Wish I Had an Evil Twin

This one is from 2004’s i, which I was initially disappointed in, but have been enjoying more and more over time. It’s no 69 Love Songs, which explains my initial dissatisfaction. But, not repeating the success of one of the best albums of the last 20 years isn’t really much of a strike against an album.

Oh, and while I’m on the subject, let me mention that one of Merritt’s other projects, The Gothic Archies, have just released an album: The Tragic Treasury: Music for “A Series of Unfortunate Events”. I don’t really have time to post in detail on it, but you can check out The Hype Machine for some other folks who have.

Kind of busy today with stuff related to Slavoj Zizek (don’t ask), but I can make a quick recommendation of a neat website with tons of good music.

Wolfmusic is a guy who records quiet, pretty, and moody songs and makes tons of them available for free. He talks a lot about Radiohead, and you can certainly hear that influence, but it’s not just a pure Thom Yorke knock-off or anything. And the moniker Wolfmusic is quite appropriate – maybe it’s just because the name puts me in the frame of mind, but I could really see these songs as the soundtrack to a midnight trek along snowy paths alongside a wolf.

He even provides a little commentary on the tracks, so at the risk of being totally lame, I’ll pick out a couple of my favorites and let him speak for himself:

All the Way Back

A very strange song. It makes me feel a little uneasy every time I listen to it. I’ve never been closer to Radiohead though. Don’t miss the total deconstruction of a drum loop at the end.

Journey’s End

I recorded this one after All the Way Back, and the intro picks up the feeling of alienation of its predecessor. It turns into something pretty warm and positive after that though.

Dry (Moonlight Version)

This is my favorite song. Strong lyrics, mesmerizing music. The “daylight version” of this song, on top of this list, is the original and while recording it, the idea emerged to make a slower and drumless version too, which is what you find here.

Check out Wolfmusic for yourself. And if you’ve got some lyrics you’ve always wanted to hear in a song, why not investigate a collaboration?

Nick Jaina is yet another artist from one of the best cities in the world: Portland. Maybe it’s just me, but I really get the feel of the city on his new album The 7 Stations, released this week from Bangback Records. Portland has a feel, you ask. Well, sure. Imagine the alt-country/folk feel of any number of late 90s bands, emphasize a diverse range of instruments (banjos, clarinets, trumpets, an accordion or two, and many more), and give the whole thing a strong indie-rock vibe. You’ve got the singer-songwriter thing going on, but there’s quite a bit of kick to it as well (see “Maybe Cocaine” for an example).

In short, this is folk/country for folks whose main interaction with the “country” is a trip to Multnomah Falls or reading a Faulkner book while sitting at Powell’s. And I don’t mean that disparagingly. Just because a city doesn’t have tumbleweeds and Southern attitude doesn’t mean the emotions are any less real or meaningful.

And Nick Jaina demonstrates that. This is smart, sensitive music that delves into all the positives and the negatives of these cities of America in which we live. So it’s not about Portland, except insofar as it’s about many different cities, of which Portland just happens to be one of the nicest.

Two songs that demonstrate some of the different vibes on the album:

Maybe Cocaine
Seems to Calm the Baby

The first is mentioned above, as an example of the kick he can put together. The second is closer to the traditional singer-songwriter fare, introduced by a lightly touched piano and his rich voice reminiscing.

If I’ve obsessed a little bit about the Portland connection, please forgive – I’ve just been feeling a little lonesome for the Northwest lately. But I do mark it a strength that this record so well evokes what I love about the area that I can’t help but discuss it.

In other news, there’s a great review of the new Hold Steady and Killers albums (tied together by their Springsteen connections) from the Harvard Independent.

Also, Scarlett Johansson is apparently recording an album of Tom Waits covers. Which is weird but potentially awesome.

Drinking in L.A. – Bran Van 3000

Anyone else remember Bran Van 3000? And this song? I first heard it while I was actually in L.A., which is…well, vaguely interesting. I wasn’t drinking though, so I guess it’s not that interesting.

Bran Van was from Montreal and play that sort of alt-electronica that has been a pretty popular sounds coming out of French-Canadia lately. In short, yet another band that might have ended up as more than a “one hit wonder” if they had shown up 7 or 8 years later. Who knows? Anyways, I was listening to this song this afternoon and it just seemed appropriate for today.

And while I’m on the subject of 90s songs about the place, here’s one that represents my general feelings about the hundreds of miles of benighted urban sprawl people refer to as Los Angeles:

The City With Two Faces – Goldfinger

Man, I used to really love Goldfinger. I mean, I still do, but back in high school I used to REALLY love them. Just a great take on the mid-90s “punk rock is supposed to be fun” motif. They did have occasional moments of seriousness, and wrote some damn fine songs along those lines, but that’s neither here nor there. Today, I just want to talk some trash about LA.

I’m Looking Through You – The Beatles

You know that moment when you know for sure that it’s over? It’s been pretty bad for awhile but you kept holding onto the hope that things would turn around, that the good things from previous years would reassert themselves and the painfulness of recent days would fade. And then, you finally come to realize that it’s not getting any better and it’s time to jump ship.

That’s where I’m at with Battlestar Galactica. The whole second half of season two was pretty disappointing, as people began to behave more and more irrationally and it became ever more clear that the writers really have no idea where they’re going with all of this. We’ve been told all along that the Cylons have a plan, but you would never be able to tell it from what they actually do.

Nor could you tell that they’re sophisticated robots. You’d think that with all that technology, they’d have developed the capacity to best mediocre human pilots in battle. Or might (just maybe) have developed slightly more sophisticated tracking devices to follow the “insurgents” running their pathetic little campaigns.

Or, if we’re supposed to imagine that they’re letting the humans have a chance for some unknown reason, you’d think the writers would…you know…make the Cylons seem slightly more together than a bunch of whiny kids. For super-advanced intelligent robots, they’re unbelievably dense.

In short, we’re now into the third season, none of the fundamental plot questions have been resolved, though many have simply been left behind, replaced by new, complicated but ultimately irrelevant plots, the sole purpose of which seems to be dragging out the amount of time before they have to actually engage any of the real questions. Nothing that’s going on anymore makes much sense, and all the main characters (except the old man) are really getting on my nerves.

I will probably watch a few more episodes, just because the first season was so good and I don’t want to give up entirely, but unless there’s a serious change, I’m pretty much done.

As for other shows that I’ve been watching, the new episodes of Veronica Mars have been pretty good. So far, the third season isn’t quite as good as the first two, but I’ll be happy to give it some time for the mysteries to deepen before I really pass any judgment.

I also finished watching season 3 of Buffy on DVD, and I think it’s the best one they did. The Mayor is a fantastic villain, the Buffy/Faith tension is great, and even the Buffy/Angel storyline was interesting at times. Plus, there are several episodes with evil-Willow, which is one of the best things ever.

The finale wasn’t as good as the end of season 2 but on the whole, it was some seriously good TV.

Finally, in baseball, the Tigers (the same Tigers who lost 119 games only three years ago!) are in the World Series. I lived in Michigan during that 119-loss season, and one of my first Little League teams was the Tigers, so I’m definitely rooting for them to win the whole thing. Go Tigers!

Today, I’ll try and clean house a little bit with an album I’ve been meaning to talk aobut for over a month. Stars of Track and Field are an indie rock band out of Portland, whose first full length Centuries Before Love and War can be found on iTunes right now, or can be purchased at an old fashioned store in early 2007.

Movies of Antarctica

I reviewed this song, the best on the record, back in my big Antarctica post last month, saying “This song is a drenching burst of 90s-inspired rock, with just enough of the shoegaze mentality to keep it unique.” After hearing the rest of it, I think that’s a fair description of the whole record. It doesn’t have too many songs that leap out at you, but has a ton of great, swirling guitar riffs, and a nice sense of how to play with the loud/soft dynamic.

There are quite a fewother songs along those lines that I considered posting (good ones to check out on iTunes if you just want to buy a couple would be “Real Time,” “U.S. Mile 5,” or “Say Hello”), but I thought it might be worth letting you hear something with a little change of pace.

Fantastic

We’re dealing here with the same basic themes and style, but this runs a lot closer to the Belle and Sebastian motif that immediately jumps to mind when you hear the band’s name. Add in some soft and warm guitars and a few light electronic beats, and you’ve got yourself a perfect song for curling up in a big blanket on a cold October evening.

They’ve got a bunch of shows with the Twilight Singers coming up in the next month. Unfortunately, I’ll be out of town when they come through Boston, but you can see all the tour dates on their myspace page.

Next on the slate of recent releases is This Harness Can’t Ride Anything from Chin Up Chin Up. I posted about their previous album We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers back in May. That record was one of my favorites of 2004, so I had high hopes for this one.

Sad to say, those hopes have not been completely fulfilled. This record manages to avoid developing their sound in any significant way while at the same time (and this is the real killer) failing to achieve the consistent understated beauty that characterized Skyscrapers.

Which is not to say this is a bad record. It’s still better than pretty much anything else out there, and has a number of songs to get you bipping and bopping. And once again, they have demonstrated their talent at layering sounds to produce songs that sound both thick and airy at the same time.

The main differences are that the vocals take a much more prominent role this time around, and it’s a little more rock and roll. This is both good and bad. There’s something quite appealing about the vocals struggling to emerging out of the cascading waves of sound. Still, that can get old after a while, and there’s nothing wrong with giving Bolen a chance to take the center stage for a while. Similarly, the rock element makes for a less pretty album, but it gives it some oomph, which was arguably the one thing missing from Skyscrapers.

In its best moments (the title track, “Water Planes in Snow,” “Landlocked Lifeguards,” and “Stolen Mountains,” to name a few), this could easily be the new, a bit more mellow, Cure-influenced Arcade Fire record. Which is more than 99.9% of bands could hope for. But this band is good enough to be more, so here’s hoping that Harness is a staging ground for some really interesting records to come.

MP3s:
This Harness Can’t Ride Anything (from their website)
Water Planes in Snow

They’re on tour, and are hitting most of the country, including a show at my alma mater Whitman College (in beautiful Walla Walla, Washington) next week. Check em out.