I spent most of the Antlers’ set at Northampton’s tiny, almost empty Iron Horse Music Hall wondering why they weren’t doing it for me. When I wasn’t thinking about this I was considering wearing earplugs to shows and I was thinking about where I was going to catch the bus back to where I live and wondering if it was possible to read four parts of Virgil’s Aeneid in twenty-four hours (fortunately, it’s possible, but I don’t recommend it). This is an issue because when I go to a good show I can think of nothing but lyrical and sound progressions and what’s going to be next, what’s going to be next? I don’t care about my inevitable hearing loss or bus schedules or homework, especially. I don’t care about making a fool of myself with ridiculous dance moves and ecstatic cheering when the band breaks out some classic jam. I don’t think about why this is working or why this isn’t working. If I did think about all these things, I would probably have no place reviewing concerts. I was a little upset with myself that I let my mind wander so much, but customarily when you are in the front row watching a band perform a bunch of tracks from their breathtaking album you have to try to let your mind go elsewhere. Continue reading →
Author Archives
2
Nov 09
The Antlers, Iron Horse Music Hall, Northampton MA 9/26
21
Sep 09
Washed Out, Life of Leisure, EP Review
Don’t forget to rate this album at the end of the post (something I’m trying out)
Washed Out
Life of Leisure EP
Mexican Summer
out October 20th
69/100
[Rating Scale]
[rating:69/100]
Life of Leisure is an appropriate title for an EP that sounds like partying all night in a dark, sweaty room and waking up on a beach at dawn next to someone you like, cold sand in your hair. Like night-swimming, half your face submerged, and the moon across the water. Like walking home on sandy streets lined with resorts, gently holding someone’s hand, feeling in your chest the distant pulsing bass from basements and passing cars. It sounds like something sweet and simultaneously sharp – fruit-flavored vodka? It doesn’t sound like dance music or party music or techno music – it is a sensuous electronic whirlwind, but that isn’t really a genre, is it? Continue reading →
9
Jul 09
Discovery – LP, Album Review & Vinyl + CD Giveaway
Discovery
LP
XL
out July 7th
86/100
[Rating Scale]
[rating:86/100]
With the recent passing of Michael Jackson, every blog I read had some kind of eulogy to the king of pop – by the same writers who, a post earlier, had extolled the music of Dirty Projectors or Grizzly Bear or Animal Collective, or by musicians whose work seems worlds apart from Jackson’s. We might see indie music and pop music as worlds apart, but the trick is not to think of indie music as a reactionary measure, but as a division of pop music that is just less well-known. I feel like sometimes in our day and age people have a genre allegiance that thoroughly blinds them – a weird pretentious image, “too good for pop music.” “Too hip for pop music.” When you think about this, I’m sure you can realize how useless it is. Where would any of us be without pop music? There would be nothing without pop music. None of us is too good for the music we grew up with, and the music that inspired every musician we know.
In short, pop music is not a crime, and what I’ve been getting at this whole time is that Discovery’s LP is not a crime and it is perfect summer pop music. What’s wrong with that?
29
Jun 09
Miike Snow – Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, June 20
Miike Snow are six on stage, and they all wear matching shiny black track jackets. One, obstructed by stacked trunks bearing equipment, wears a cowboy hat. Their music is complex and dancy, all synth and keyboard and a thousand unnameable gadgets, a little guitar and drums that sound like a machine. Everything is arranged in a neat arch on Music Hall of Williamsburg’s wide stage, organized in little stations for each member.
Somewhat surprisingly, Miike Snow’s songs are about sadness and depression – songs to walk alone in the rain to, lyrics-wise. Their music is music to get down in the club to, unthinking and unconsidered. The bald man twisting dials on the synth in front of me bobs his head excitedly – “he looks like he belongs DJing in a club,” my friend insists – to lyrics like “don’t forget to cry at your own burial.” The crowd dances more than I had expected them to. Depressing lyrics don’t matter – for Miike Snow, words are an afterthought, something to provide added rhythm, to layer with fuzz and xylophone. They are good words, often, but unnecessary. What matters is music – sound, loud and echoing and varied and ecstatic, regardless of anything else. Continue reading →
6
Jun 09
Grizzly Bear, Town Hall, New York, May 29 2009
Town Hall on 43rd Street in Manhattan is full of smoke like a 1920s lounge. With red velvet chairs and polished mahogany and giant crystal chandeliers, everything seems like a throwback. Grizzly Bear’s music seems to fit here – sometimes it contains elements of the past, but they are wrapped up in smooth modern twists – reverb, omnichord, a pile of effects pedals on the floor. But there is that choir element, a layering upon one another of four voices; there is the string quartet and the piano; there is the flute and the clarinet. Grizzly Bear’s music comes from another time and it is not now, and it is difficult to say whether it is the past or the future. Continue reading →
22
May 09
Eva ft. Lupe Fiasco – Slow Down
“Slow Down” works like this: classy R&B lady croons about young men moving too fast over an echo-y club beat of faux strings and thudding bass drum, popular rapper adds a verse from the point of view of said young men, inserting proof of his bad-assery, song ends with auto-tuned reprise of catchy, snappy one-liner chorus. Eva’s soprano is pretty, the beat is classy and dancy, and Lupe’s verse is alright, but I simply cannot muster much positivity about this song because I am pretty sure I have heard it two million times before, and in this incarnation the lyrics are pretty lame. “Save your tears for a rainy day!”
If classy R&B ladies auto-tuning about pushy dudes are your thing, you might appreciate this song far more than me. Give it a listen. Continue reading →
22
May 09
Make The Girl Dance – My Name’s Breezy / South
Make the Girl Dance is a Parisian duo, and they are going to make me dance. I don’t remember the last time I so appreciated – I don’t even know what to call it. Maybe it’s techno?
“South” is some very constant, dancy bass and chimy rock guitar with breakdowns into thunderstorm sound effects. Simple and tremendously effective. With no real vocals, the song depends on the music to be engaging, and it definitely is.
“My Name’s Breezy”’s only lyrics are from a 1973 Clint Eastwood-directed film called (obviously) “Breezy” (That’s right, I googled it!) The song’s most constant beat is heavy breathing, with added quick drums and soaring keyboard. It’s not as good as “South” – the heavy breathing is a little bit distracting – but serves its purpose as gleeful dance music.
Check out these songs if you like Justice or the Rapture – just for the clangy guitar and dancy beats. Give them a listen. Continue reading →
21
May 09
St. Vincent – Bicycle
“Bicycle” is dizzy, distant, repetitive – piano and keyboard in a redundant, spiraling whirl, like the spinning of wheels on a bicycle. Annie Clarke’s voice is sweet, haunting, mingled with accordion and drums that echo, and she sings about how love can be like a ghostly encounter (“I blinked, and you were gone”). Listening to this song makes you feel like Annie – followed by a ghost, a deliberate and haunting presence. It’s beautiful, and mesmerizing.
Give it a listen, or two. Continue reading →
21
May 09
Animal Collective – Summertime Clothes (Dam-Funk Remix)
“Summertime Clothes” is playful enough as it is, with sweet lyrics and a dizzy beat, but Dam-Funk makes it ten times more so with squiggly synth and classic remix-groove drums. What I most appreciate about this remix is how it doesn’t mess with the lovely story Dave Portner’s lyrics tell, only adding elements to make it more joyous, lighthearted, and ecstatic. Particularly over the “Just you, just you, just you, just you” at the end, the waves of sound and drums ease the song off into the ether like the wind’s blowing it away.
Listen to a radio-rip from BBC radio 1. Continue reading →
20
May 09
Modest Mouse – Satillite Skin
Satellite Skin’s got this country feel – but not really. It sounds like a desert plain and a wide sky, and it sounds like Modest Mouse too – but unlike most Modest Mouse songs, it doesn’t sound pissed off. It lacks the sheer punch of jams like “Dashboard” or “Ocean Breathes Salty,” maybe just because it is less angry. The twangy guitar and delicate piano make me think sunset out west, but Isaac Brock’s snarl and Johnny Marr’s solos make me think late-night back east. Give “Satillite Skin” a listen. Continue reading →
