Heartache With Hard Work

A few quick hits:

– My razorbloodz post got noticed by New York Magazine, which is pretty neat.

– An important update on my other blog about DFU Hockey’s recent shocking run of victories.

– Is there anything more stupid than the recent spat about Obama’s “bitter” comments? Sometimes I fret for this country and the media that “informs” it.

– A full post is coming later, but the new Frightened Rabbit is my early pick for best album of 2008. Stunningly good.

– This is incredibly depressing. What is wrong with people?

– Today was the first time it’s truly felt like spring. It was sunny, beautiful, I had a nice afternoon stroll, played some frisbee, even got a couple mosquito bites. It’s been a long winter and I have to say I’m happy to see the sun again.

These Days Nothing But Sunshine – The Clientele

There’s a great quote from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: “Bazooko’s Circus is what the whole hep world would be doing Saturday nights if the Nazis had won the war.” Well, razorbloodz is what all the indie kids would be listening to if the Germans had won the culture war, and Kraftwerk had ushered guitar bands out the door for good.

It’s DIY in the most literal sense, but also as a broader aesthetic. There’s something bizarrely satisfying about keyboard synths and tinny electronic beats. In stripping away the jangle of the guitars or the wavering hum of a lightly-struck piano note, all that remains is a sonic etching, a set of notes placed in stark relief. It’s almost aggressive in its efforts to slice away the overtones, to cut apart the conventions. The result is a form of music that feels unstuck in time – just a half-second out of phase. It’s right there in front of you, but ghostly, vaguely unreal.

Of course, this underlying current takes different forms. “Roe v. Wade” is a swirling storm that blows out the doors of a church and lets in a howling wind to accompany the organ. It’s unbalanced, cacophonous, and yet unfailingly melodic. “(Everything I Know About Gender Theory I Learned from) Mrs. Doubtfire” on the other hand is a more traditional pop song, featuring the closest thing they have to a hook, and a surprisingly sturdy beat.

If you live in the Northeast, they’re playing in Hanover on April 28 at Fuel.

Mrs. Doubtfire – razorbloodz
Roe v. Wade – razorbloodz

I would also be remiss in writing about razorbloodz to ignore my favorite of their cover-bands, Tortüred Pünchlinez, who put together a vaguely disturbing and thoroughly awesome video for their version of “2g1c”:

I’ve been looking forward to a sophomore release from Headlights for almost two years. From the first time I heard “TV” a couple summers ago, I’ve expected great things from them. And while nothing else on their debut effort quite lived up to that first song, it nevertheless ended up as my #10 album of 2006.

It’s hard to say at this point if their new release will stick with me as well, but there is certainly a lot to love about Some Racing, Some Stopping (eMusic). It’s more more delicate than their debut, and more intricate.

But the most distinct difference is in tone. Where Kill Them With Kindness had 5 or 6 superb uptempo songs surrounded by some rather less exciting numbers which stretched the whole thing out to 14 tracks, this time around they smooth out some of the extremes. For the most part, they reside in a fairly narrow band of gently pulsing melodic indie rock.

But this is not to say that it all sounds the same. Precisely the opposite actually. The most extraordinary feature of the record is the way that they explore the sound finding nooks and crannies where you’d never expect. With a series of tracks that would feel right at home on an OC compilation in terms of general style, they reveal that this genre possesses far more depth than it’s normally given credit for.

Witness, for example, the guitar interplay which closes out the lovely “Catch Them All.” Or, try the slow buildup of “School Boys” which could easily be used to pave the way for an explosion, but which they deploy far more elegantly – providing ample space to breathe and for harmonies to overlap. All of which makes the two modest guitar riffs (at 1:49 and 2:27) feel far more weighty and powerful than you’d ever expect. Or there’s the thoroughly atmospheric “So Much For the Afternoon” which floats effortlessly.

It’s funny, because one thing I’ve always heard about their live shows is that they are blisteringly loud, but this is precisely the sort of record that you’d think can be most appreciated on high quality headphones in a quiet room. Not that there aren’t a few tracks that you could comfortably fit on a party mix (“Get Your Head Around It” starts quietly but would make a fine end to a late night, and “April 2” has a backbeat straight out of every great 60s dance tune), but this is certainly not a record built on hooks. I’d be curious to see how it translates live.

This question also leads into my one problem with the record. There’s a lot to be said for exploring these sounds, but there’s also something to be said for a guitar/piano riff that hurls you full force into the maelstrom – something which they have fully demonstrated the capacity for, but do not avail themselves of here. You don’t want to complain too much about such a nice album, but you also can’t help but wonder if it would have ruined things to include one barn-burner. Or, at the very least, build in a little bit more oomph throughout the record.

For the most part, they nicely stagger tracks to prevent it from getting bogged down, but there’s not much that could rescue the middle of the record from the title track, which might work as a 40 second interlude, but which as the longest track on the record is little more than a 4 minute lull where they temporarily forget about the importance of things like melody and rhythm.

But still, as I said, it’s hard to get too worked up with complaints when listening to a record so pretty. You’d be much better off ignoring what could have been and instead just kick back, stare at the blue, blue sky and let it all wash over you.

On April 2 – Headlights
Catch Them All – Headlights

I’ve got some more lengthy album reviews coming up soon, but it’s also nice now and then to make a quick post on something that gets dropped in my inbox. Today it’s a solid little roots-rock number from Beau Jennings, lead singer of Cheyenne, off his upcoming debut solo album Holy Tulsa Thunder. Innovative chord structures, wacky instruments, and odd tempos certainly have their place, but there’s also something intensely satisfying about some good old-fashioned no-frills rock and roll.

Holy Tulsa Thunder – Beau Jennings

You can probably guess what this track sounds like just from the title. This is music that can only truly sound at home in a bar or blasting from old, crackling speakers on a long dusty stretch of road on a hot summer night.

I’ve been thinking about how to review Distortion, the newest offering from The Magnetic Fields, for several months now. I still don’t have a good hook, but all that thinking has helped to clarify my answer to a related question: I think I’ve finally figured out why 69 Love Songs remains far and away my favorite Stephin Merritt record.

I’ve run through a number of ideas (its audacious premise, the wide variety of styles, etc.) but I think the real answer is far more prosaic. Put simply, there are so many songs that I can very easily overlook the ones that just don’t work. So 20 of the tracks don’t do anything for me? So what, there are still a good 50 that do. And sure, only one song in 10 blows me away, but that translates to 7 or 8 spread out of the whole thing.

Because when I think about it, that’s really the ratio for pretty much any Stephin Merritt project. We can hem and haw over the details, discussing whether each particular conceit works, what it adds to the base stock of Merritt’s pop, how the guest vocalists (or lack thereof) change the record. But ultimately, the balance remains more or less the same. But 69 Love Songs can boast “No One Will Ever Love You,” “A Long Forgotten Fairytale,” “Papa Was a Rodeo,” “Abigail, Belle Of Kilronan,” “I Think I Need A New Heart,” “Acoustic Guitar,” “I Don’t Want To Get Over You,” and plenty of others. On the other hand, The Charm of the Highway Strip, just to pick one, has only two truly fantastic tracks (“Born on a Train” and “Two Characters in Search of a Country Song”). And the roughly one-quarter of the songs that don’t appeal to me as much stand out more because they’re more difficult to hide.

Thinking about it this way, my feelings about Distortion fall into place pretty easily. It holds true to form, featuring one gem of a song that absolutely blows me away (“The Nun’s Litany”), a few more where the theme is given plenty of space to work itself out in the context of a beautiful pop song (“Drive on Driver,” “California Girls,” “Please Stop Dancing,” “Too Drunk to Dream”) and a few songs that I’ve given the obligatory half-dozen listens but will probably skip from now on (“Xavier Says,” “Mr. Mistletoe,” “Zombie Boy”).

I realize that’s a very formulaic response to an album I really enjoy a lot, but I’m having a hard time getting anything more emotional out there. I like the idea of using all distorted instruments and I like how it emerges thematically not just in the sound but also in the lyrics. My friend Aimi (an absolutely enormous Magnetic Fields fan) has suggested that the album works better if you listen to it backwards. Which I think is true, but which I think actually reveals an underlying strength. Distortion is very much about the deconstruction of sound and theme – I don’t believe it’s meant to be experienced in exactly the same way even twice, much less every time. Rebuilding it, sampling bits and pieces, getting lost occasionally, it’s all part of the magic.

Two final notes. First, this is probably the funniest Magnetic Fields album. Songs like “The Nun’s Litany” and “California Girls” are biting, witty, and dry. Second, I am beyond excited that Shirley Simms is back. The songs where she sings are almost to a one superior than the ones Merritt takes himself. She’s always been my favorite of the rotating cast of singers and it’s great to hear her get a whole album to shine.

The Nun’s Litany – Magnetic Fields
Drive On, Driver – Magnetic Fields

I wrote about Bombadil a while ago. Now, they’re back with an LP A Buzz, A Buzz due to be released on April 29 from Ramseur Records.

This is a gently-wrought record, a weather-beaten path on a crisp spring morning. With none of the trappings of the city, it’s free to meander and follow the counters of the land: here crossing a stream on an old wooden bridge, there running alongside a patch of trees. It’s filled with bumps and holes, the occasional branch. You wander in and out of the shade as the leaves rustle in the wind above. And if you look back over your shoulder you can see your own steps and light swirls of dust settling gently.

But the conceit only begins there. Because if the record is the path, each song is a different traveler. They move along the same route but each at their own pace, with their own purpose, entering and exiting at their own locations. And each relate to it in their own way.

The day breaks and down walks a fisherman with a pole over his shoulder off to spend a quiet day knee-deep in water with the sun on his face (“Smile When You Kiss”). Later comes a girl, running wildly, full of grace and joy – who stops to gather flowers in her arms (“Get to Getting On”). And then a trio of boys, running full bore, exulting in the feel of the wind in their hair (“Rosetta Stone”). The sun climbs in the sky and along comes a pair of young lovers, holding hands, with eyes only for each other (“One Two Three”). Then, out from the midst of a shadow steps a Medieval mystic (“Julian of Norwich”). And finally, inexplicably, a full circus troupe, practicing their fire-juggling routine and doing cartwheels (“Cavaliers Har Hur”). Each is linked, but in a manner that defies easy explanation.

Okay, that’s all well and good, but what does it sound like? If I had an easy answer to that question, I wouldn’t have invested so much time in the path metaphor. If you’re looking for a category, I guess it’s folk, but they also rock pretty hard. And there’s plenty of weird here, from lyrics to playful instrumentation, but the undercurrent always remains a strong folk impulse. A long-lost Elephant 6 band who spent the last 10 years listening to mid-60s Dylan?

Possibly, but the more I keep searching for a reference that truly captures the approach if not necessarily the sound, the more I keep coming back to The Pogues. Sure the styles are different, but both play very traditional songs in very nontraditional ways and in doing so extract the best from both worlds. And most importantly, the defining characteristic of both is the organic sound.

A melange of instruments are deployed: guitars, banjos, xylophones, organs, trumpets, and many more I can’t even guess at. And while they don’t shy away from electrical instruments, those never intrude. They lift up, spread out, and open space for each sound to fully express itself. The result is an absolutely enormous sound. Now sounding “big” is nothing all that special, but they way they go about it is. Instead of compressing everything to drown out the gaps and create the illusion of size, each sound here is crisp and full – contracting and expanding as necessary to suit the context. The result is a record that would be perfectly at home anywhere from the smallest coffeehouse to the Colosseum.

This is not the best album of the year, but it’s certainly one of the most entertaining and possibly one of the most inventive.

Julian of Norwich – Bombadil
Cavaliers Har Hur – Bombadil

Overseas – Sonic Flyer

Oasis meets shoegaze and nine months later, out comes Sonic Flyer. This song features an absolutely killer intro – there are few moments in all of music finer than at 35 seconds when the vocals first come in – and while it drags on a bit at almost 8 minutes, this is a solid endeavor.

There’s plenty more great songs to hear at their myspace, where you can get info about their Sun in My Pocket EP

Hi everyone, I’ve been gone a couple weeks at the end of the year tournaments. I’m happy to say that Dartmouth managed the semifinals at the CEDA National tournament and the finals of the National Debate Tournament. That means that I’m now free to spend the next month doing nothing except reading for fun, playing frisbee and soccer, cooking vegan food, and writing about music. So the pace will pick up again here.

I want to get started by talking about That’s Him That’s The Guy. I posted about their excellent EP last summer, but now they’ve got a full-length record called An Army Life that’s well worth a listen. This is an album of bright ideas, bittersweet dreams, layered sounds, and pastoral harmonies: tinkling bells, a few well-placed strings, and light, suffusive percussion that touches gently, but quickly takes hold of you until you realize your feet are tapping and even your pulse is pumping in time with the beat.

In general, there are two types of songs. The first are classic backyard country fare: full of warm harmonies and a rollicking beat, exemplified by album-opener “The Wedding Song” or “Gold Truck One (A Cease Fire),” the latter of which contains one of the most enchanting wordless choruses you’re likely to hear in many a year. “Half” is buoyed by banjo that would feel at home on an old Kingston Trio record.

The second are slow, heart-rending tunes, too dark to easily be considered folk, but too beautiful to be thought of as anything else. “Polish Lancers” is built around almost staccato and yet endlessly soothing guitar line that reminds me a great deal of late-90s Ani DiFranco.

The few weak songs are mostly in this category. “A Jody Call,” for example, buries the melody too deeply in harmonies that unfold too slowly to ever gain traction. The same could almost be said for the album closer “Hawk Overhead,” which would run the risk of feeling a bit too listless were it not rescued by an understated and achingly beautiful slide guitar accompaniment which provides a pure breath of life.

All of the elements come together in the penultimate song “Red Folder.” It starts light but insistent, held together by a violin that lives deep in the lowest registers. It could stand alone as an envoi to a friend who committed suicide, but then two minutes and twenty seconds in, something changes. An acoustic guitar comes to life out of the silence, and the phrase “to what end” which before had conveyed sadness, loss, purposelessness is now transformed. Here, it becomes a shout, a paean to all that is beautiful and true.

There is still a sense of endless loss, and yet you come to understand that there is so much more. Every sadness carries with it the memories of what came before. Sometimes you laugh, sometimes you cry, and sometimes you’re not sure which it is. All you know is that you have to let it out and let things fall where they may.

All that, and I still haven’t talked about my favorite track: “Mutual Assured Destruction.” Understated and elegant, this is the summation of their talent. I know this sort of comparison is so cliche, but it’s just too appropriate to pass up: this is the song Sufjan was never quite able to write for his Michigan album. Yes, really.

Mutual Assured Destruction – That’s Him That’s The Guy
Red Folder – That’s Him That’s The Guy

(from I Can Has Cheezburger)

The hit counter passed 200,000 today, which when I think about it is really pretty amazing. So I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for stopping by to read what I have to say. And even thanks to the bunches of you that just came to grab an MP3 with no care for what commentary might be attached. Hopefully at least a few of you stuck around for a minute or two, saw something else you liked, and maybe even became a regular.

It really means a lot to me.

So, while I’m in a good mood, how about some covers? Everybody loves a good cover, right?

Dead Flowers – Eels (Rolling Stones cover)
Born On A Train – Arcade Fire (Magnetic Fields cover)
Rainbow Connection – Willie Nelson (Kermit the Frog cover)
Fluorescent Adolescent – Kate Nash (Arctic Monkeys cover)

I Could Be There For You – Eisley

A demonstration that even on a record with high production levels and a bit of a pop sheen there’s still plenty of room for a talented band to surprise you. It’s shadowy, vaguely ominous – a reminder that light may shimmer on the surface of a lake, but underneath the water is a long, deep darkness.

But for all that, the chorus is absolutely gorgeous, and they hit their perfect pitch with a bridge that bursts and swirls like fireworks in a still night sky. Now, I’m not trying to say Eisley is quite at their level, but this song, at least, would feel right at home on your Delgados record of choice.

The album is called Combinations and it came out last year.