Heartache With Hard Work

Another record which isn’t going to make my “best of” list, but which surely deserves some attention is the first solo effort from former member of the Delgados, Emma Pollock.

Watch the Fireworks doesn’t surprise much – take her previous work, remove the band, and give her a little (though not all that much) more room to show her folky side. The result is close to most Delgados records: a few gorgeous tunes, a few relative clunkers, and a great voice that is more than enough to carry you through the weaker moments.

In fact, if you didn’t know it was a solo record, you could almost believe some of these tracks were new ones from the band. This record is characterized by the same waltzing beats, restlessly driving you through each song – a phenomenon that occasionally is used to great effect but also sometimes leaves you wishing for some variation to let you breathe a little bit.

It also suffers from a moderate lack of balance. The first three tracks might very well be the best on the record, including the sparkling “Paper and Glue,” which makes for a nice opening salvo, but the rest can’t quite live up.

Final verdict: Emma Pollock can still make orchestral indie pop sound as good as anyone – even if the total product can’t live up to my (perhaps unrealistic) expectations of a new Delgados record.

Paper and Glue – Emma Pollock

It’s that time of year again, when all the “best of” lists begin to make their appearances. As usual, I’m going to wait until the year actually ends (or at least until Christmas) to post my list. Partly because I think it’s a little silly to post a list when almost 10% of the year still remains, but mostly because I invariably discover tons of new, great stuff in December from reading everyone else’s lists.

So the next few weeks will mostly feature the best of 2007 that I never got around to hearing before now, along with a few things I’ve been meaning post about for a long time but just haven’t managed to cover yet.

Today, it’s The Wombats, one of the finest purveyors of infectious British-dance-rock around these days. Which does invite the question, what is the commonly accepted name for this genre: indie dance-punk? post New Wave disco-rock? or just britpop? Whatever it is, there’s a lot of good music coming from those parts this year, and it’s an area I’ve unfortunately neglected.

And of all those bands, The Wombats might very well be my favorite. They hit the scene with a couple great singles earlier this year but only recently made their full LP available. The Wombats Proudly Present…A Guide to Love, Loss and Desperation is playful, more than a little goofy, but never letting up on the rock, and some melodies far more pretty than they have any right to be. It’s perfect fodder for a party mix – great for those who just want to dance but clever enough to start a conversation.

Let’s Dance to Joy Division – The Wombats
Kill the Director – The Wombats

If you need any proof, just check out the delightfully ironic “Let’s Dance to Joy Division” or the hook-laden “Kill the Director.”

Dear God – XTC
Opiate – Tool
Atheist Peace – Bad Religion

So the movie for The Golden Compass, the first book of Philip Pullman’s magnificent His Dark Materials trilogy is out, but you can count me as one guy who is not going to go see it.

It’s not that I’m inherently opposed to movie adaptations of beloved books. I thoroughly enjoyed Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings (a few complaints here and there notwithstanding), and I’ve seen all the Harry Potter movies more than once. It’s just that I’m opposed to adaptations which undermine the most basic themes of the original work.

The thing that sets His Dark Materials is not the characters or the plot. Pullman is a decent storyteller but no better than many similar folks. The reason why it’s so good is because it pulls no punches. It’s dark, occasionally scary, full of ambiguity, and quite depressing. And it seriously takes on the task of counteracting the mythos of Narnia. This is a series with an agenda, and it must be that way.

The movie, however, by all accounts scrubs out all of this. The authoritarian force in Lyra’s world is not The Church but rather some vaguely fascist authoritarian state of indeterminate purpose. Which surely makes it more acceptable to those critical of Pullman’s treatment of organized religion, but in doing so eviscerates the entire premise of the story.

It’s like making a movie version of Huck Finn and making Jim white. Or making a movie version of The Great Gatsby and setting it in Cleveland. Or making a movie version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy but not including any jokes (oh, wait).

Even this could be accepted (maybe), if everything else was of sufficiently high quality to make it worth watching for its own sake. But, based on a few reviews, there’s seems very little chance of this. A choice quote from Slate, for example:

Christian activists who fear that this movie will spread the books’ anti-clerical, pro-sex message can relax in the knowledge that not a scrap of Pullman’s theology has made it through the Hollywood blandification machine. New Line should market the film to churches with the tag line: “Not only won’t you be offended by The Golden Compass, you’ll have no idea what’s going on!”

In short, go read the books. It’s more than worth the extra time to get the story for real.

Today I’m going to do something a little different. I propose to randomly go through unread promo e-mails listening to songs until I find something worth posting about.

And here, on only the 11th e-mail, I encounter something intriguing. The artist is Decomposure, and I’ll even break tradition a bit and quote directly from the promo material rather than trying to put this into my own words:

Decomposure is Caleb Mueller, a 24-year-old Canadian from the prairies of Saskatchewan. With a tape recorder in tow, he recorded his day’s activities to capture and preserve its unique sound signature that would otherwise have evaporated. Over the course of a year, he digitally deconstructed hour-long slurs of sound into hundreds of individual clicks, thumps and pings. The result is an eclectic collage, almost completely removed from its nondescript origin.

It’s a pretty neat project, with an end result of a series of tracks titled “Hour 1,” “Hour 2,” and so on. The first is my favorite – exactly the kind of faux-organic electro-pop that I adore, all glitchy and warm and deceptively packed from layer to layer.

Hour 1 – Decomposure

You can pick up Vertical Lines A directly from his Blank Squirrel label if you want the full DVD+CD experience, or any of the tracks from eMusic. I’d also recommend Hour 7 if you’re looking for another to check out.

New Paltz Waltz – Owen Roberts

Easily one of the best songs I’ve heard this year. Totally lacking in pretension, rich with an unhurried love. You can almost feel the gentle clasp of a hand, the way the hair sits on her shoulder. And you look in her eyes and see fifty years into your future, to a quiet room filled with pictures of grandchildren and two old friends holding hands and watching the sunrise.

The artist is Owen Roberts and the album is called Bay to Maples.

A kind reader recently tipped me on an artist that I’ve been enjoying a great deal. A Fine Frenzy is the stage name of singer-songwriter Alison Sudol. And it’s perhaps a sign of just how idiosyncratic my music-gathering process is that I missed out on hearing about them earlier, since they’re apparently relatively popular (One Cell in the Sea made it to #91 on the Billboard 200 chart, according to Wikipedia).

It’s not actually that surprising that she’s already had a minor hit and entered the public consciousness since A Fine Frenzy is exactly the sort of tuneful, emotive indie-style music that goes over so well on hot TV shows these days. I know that sounds snobby, but I don’t mean for it to. There’s nothing wrong with making music that’s enjoyable to listen to, and while the tone and themes are a tad predictable, it’s certainly not simplistic. The orchestral arrangements don’t intrude, and the interplay between the basic piano line and her excellent voice is extremely strong.

Put another way, A Fine Frenzy certainly isn’t as good (in an objective sense) as Feist, but if I’m perfectly honest I have to admit I’d far rather listen to the former. I’ll almost always sacrifice a little bit of “serious” art for a touch of wonder.

Almost Lover – A Fine Frenzy
Near to You (demo) – A Fine Frenzy

I’ve been a casual fan of The Real Tuesday Weld for quite a few years now, but never got super into them. Their new record The London Book of the Dead isn’t quite going to change that, but it’s certainly one of the more interesting, if not one of my favorite albums of the year.

It’s the kind of record that sounds like it ought to be broadcast on crackly speakers – or should be the soundtrack to some black and white art nouveau film, full of rich temptations and hidden undertones. Is it jazz-infused electro-pop? Is it a musty ballad transcribed from a scratched 78 found buried in some box in your parents’ attic? Is it nu-klezmer? Is it Stephin Merrit in drag? Or is Stephin Merrit always already in drag, so this is him passing as straight?

The only way to find out for yourself is to check out a few tracks. “Last Words” is the most immediately accessible (and a beautiful pop tune in its own right), but you’d be missing out on most of the magic if you didn’t also try the darkly despondent “Dorothy Parker Blue” or the genre-obliteration that is “The Decline and Fall of the Clerkenwell Kid.”

Last Words – The Real Tuesday Weld
Dorothy Parker Blue – The Real Tuesday Weld

I’m not entirely sure why, but the new record from the unheralded king of folk-rock Josh Ritter is vaguely disappointing. The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter is by no means a bad album – it’s probably one of the 15 or 20 best records of the whole year – it’s just that for the most part it inspires respect more than love. I appreciate the artistry, the tone, and the lyrical allusions but they rarely burrow deep.

Case in point: tracks 3 and 4. “Right Moves” is a loping love song full of quality, not to mention a beautiful horn accompaniment. Still, there’s something missing. It promises so much, but never quite follows through. I don’t just want beauty, I also want magic, I want recklessness, I want wild abandon.

On the other side of the equation “The Last Temptation of Adam,” just a shade too stark for its own good. Instead of accentuating a delightful little post-apocalyptic love story, the single violin the darts in and out leaves you lamenting that the rest of the band didn’t also survive the war.

The same general complaint holds true on a number of other songs. “Open Doors” features a jaunty beat that, without anything else to enliven it, overstays its welcome. “Rumors” tries to imply funkiness rather than simply being actually funky, and “Real Long Distance” is more than a little embarrassing in its desperate attempt to rock.

That said, “Real Long Distance” is the only real clunker on the record. The others may lack a certain je nais se qua that could turn them into standouts, but each has something significant to contribute.

To the Dogs or Whoever – Josh Ritter

And for at least one track, there can be no complaints. The opener “To the Dogs or Whoever” is a raucous, clattering gallop through America’s iconography and heroes, and through our own broken hearts. Name-checking everyone from Calamity Jane to Casey at the Bat, he never gives you a chance to catch your breath. It’s the kind of song that could only be written on a piano – the guitar is a versatile instrument but it could never crash like a piano can. And that moment about 40 seconds in when the hi-fi bursts out is one of my favorite moments of music this year.

There are more than a few other gems waiting to be uncovered. “Wait for Love” and “Still Beating” are both beautiful and touching. “Next to Last Romantic” re-creates some of the magic of the opening track. And “Empty Hearts” breaks no new ground, but is about as nice a folk-pop song as you’re likely to hear.

All in all, perhaps its a testament to Ritter’s songwriting ability that even on a record that goes in directions I could do without, he manages to bring more than enough to the table to leave it comfortably among my favorites for the year.

Today’s post is the 400th here at Heartache With Hard Work. I never would have guessed when I started all this two years ago that I would still be going strong now. But it’s been a lot of fun, and it’s really gratifying that so many people have stopped by to read what I’ve got to say.

For today, a record I’ve procrastinated enough for everyone to have already listened to it long ago and formed their own opinion. So I’ll be brief. I’ve never been as big on Interpol as some folks, but conversely I’m also not nearly as down on Our Love to Admire as some.

In my opinion, the biggest problem is the decision to mix the vocals and guitars closer to the top and to downgrade the force of the drums and bass. The thing that drove all of the best Interpol songs has always been the combination of sinister darkness and a churning beat. The lyrics were fascinating not because they revealed meaning, but because they obfuscated it.

This time around, they play a much more prominent role. And while Paul Banks’ brand of sordid-but-opaque lyrics were perfectly suited to the old sound, I’m not sure they’re strong enough to carry most songs. The result is a record with a couple extremely powerful tracks (“Rest My Chemistry” and “No I in Threesome”), a few experimental clunkers (the first and last tracks in particular), and a bunch of other songs not quite strong enough to give the thing the necessary backbone.

Rest My Chemistry – Interpol

The best tracks are notable mostly for their texture. In particular, the grinding beat of “Rest My Chemistry” transforms what could have been a mediocre track into a piece of smothering madness. Given another context the lyrics would be almost laughably bad – all too serious laments of the tribulations of rock stardom tend to make poor material – but when its enveloped in that suffocating sound, his matter of fact tone gives it a sense of strangled ambition that completely alters my perception.

I really ought to have posted about today’s band a few months ago, when it was still a dance between the hot end-of-summer days and the cool autumn evenings. As it stands, the chill of late November and the dirty remnants of the year’s first snow hardly seem a fair accompaniment to one of the freshest records of the year.

Still, beauty usually manages to shine through, and there’s more than enough here to go around. Let’s Go Sailing is the solo endeavor of Shana Levy formerly of Irving, and the album is called Chaos in Order. It’s replete with gorgeous melodies and simple yet profound musings on life and love.

I can’t help but use words like pretty and sweet to describe this record, but it would be a shame to leave it at that. There is far more weight here than you might expect on first listen. These are love songs full of nervous tension and sensitive empathy, the sort of music that lives in the place just between wakefulness and a dream.

In short, it’s twee in all of the best senses: a bleak worldview supplemented by jangly guitars and vocals so delicate you can barely feel them as they brush past.

Sideways – Let’s Go Sailing