We Are Serenades‘ [Adam Olenius and Markus Krunegard and friends] are snazzy dressers, and great performers. On May 9th, at Mercury Lounge, the lovechild of Shout Out Louds and Laakso, put on an incredibly fun and technically inspired show – performing a collection of synth-inspired folk songs – ranging from, the beautiful harmonies of “Daydreaming” to the off-tempo-yet-incredibly-fun “Weapons”. I found it funny – a Swedish band performing in the States, sang back-to-back songs about Mexico – opening their set with “Criminal Heaven” [the song from which the album takes it's title] and ending on Christopher Cross’ “Ride Like the Wind”. It also dawned on me that “All the Words” will play at my wedding this summer. Check out some images from the show below:
Other Lives were at the Bowery Ballroom on Friday night as part of their first major venue headlining tour. Coming off of their tour with Bon Iver, Other Lives will be beginning a ten day stint supporting Radiohead. A big step for any young band, but to kick off Radiohead’s first US tour since 2008, it will be huge. The exposure that they’ll get out of this tour will be incredible and it couldn’t happen to a more talented group of musicians.
I last caught Other Lives at Mercury Lounge back in June (Review), but the professionalism at the Bowery showed a definite level of maturity.
New York’s Caveman played a sold-out recordless record release party last week (9/15) for the digital release of their debut album “CoCo Beware” on Magic Man! Records (which you can get here). Packed with psychedelic pop jams from beginning to end, we were ecstatic for the chance to catch these guys live. Their show contained a visual component which was relatively nondescript, but which worked nicely to light the stage in a beautiful way while not distracting the audience from the focal point of the performance, namely the music. Frontman Matthew Iwanusa’s vocals contain traces of the nostalgia that seems to pervade every fuzzy shoegaze band since 2008…which is, of course, essentially every “new” band since 2009…but only ever so subtly and in hearing them live, I felt as though harmonically the vocals were aimed more at creating a mood than a mentality. Anyone you speak to will tell you that if you like Grizzly Bear, you’ll like Caveman, however in a live setting, while a great deal of the albums texture does come through that invariably draws the Grizzly Bear references, I found Caveman to provide what was, for me, a significantly more engaging and exciting performance. Iwanusa alternated between a standing drum and guitar and on songs such as ”My Room” and “Great Life” launched into ferociously heavy tribalesque drum tirades turning the otherwise melancholic and hushed songs into truly dance-worthy jams. It’s rare to find a band with such sweeping and beautiful sounds to also have the pop sensibilities that Caveman has, and perhaps the best example is “Thankful.”
It’s no surprise that Caveman are so quickly generating buzz instantly upon the release of their debut and have gained places opening with the likes of The War on Drugs, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, and the White Rabbits. These guys put on one hell of a good show. Abandoning the sold out crowd with a deafening reverb, Caveman returned to the stage to perform one last unplanned nonalbum song “Wasted Life.” Our recommendation, be sure to catch Caveman at CMJ next month, you won’t be disappointed.
Martin Chohen, bassist turned singer / songwriter and frontman of Milk Maid, formerly of Nine Black Alps, recently recently recorded and released the debut album Yucca. Recorded in Cohen’s apartment in Macnchester, UK Yucca is an intelligent and solid album that offers up gritty guitar and often dark or concerning lyrics over “sweet, sun-drenched pop hooks”.
Yucca is what I imagine a Sonic Youth album would sound like if they had been from California and not New York. The range and versatility of Yucca can be seen with tracks like “Not Me” wailing heavy guitar action, the seemingly happy pop jam “Dead Wrong”, and the down-and-out lullaby “Someone You Thought You Forgot”.
Yucca is an album that could almost be a course book for a class on modern music history but without any obvious or direct references. In the past 2 years there has been a resurregence of bands that nod to 1950′s and 60′s girl group sound. While many of these bands are great many of them alsmost sound as if they could have been released in that era and no one might have known that they were made in the future and zipped back to be released via time machine, logically. Listening to this album you know that Yucca was made in current times – it’s obvious they know too much. The maker of this album must have a matured and very aware sense of where pop music has been and where it is now. They have been exposed to pop rock, garage rock, surf rock, punk and post-punk. They know what they are doing.
I highly recommend picking up Yucca and blaring it while the weather is still nice. Preorder it at FatCat Records.
When something seems too good to be true, it likely is – or so goes the old adage. When “Go Outside,” the debut single from New York twosome Cults, was unearthed back in February 2010, the track elevated Madeline Follin and Brian Oblivion to instant hype band status – but the question of how they might grow after such an impressive start remained. How could this pair, so heavily indebted to the bubbly radio pop of the 1960′s and 70′s, flesh out their sound and retain the same magic? Turns out, the answer is pretty simple: just stick to the script.
See, Cults aesthetic isn’t much of a mystery. Oblivion lays down the arrangements on a foundation of guitar and percussion, then rounds things out with an assortment of peripheral gear and technique that includes bells, xylophones, piano, and light distortion to simultaneously identify the sound with throwback hits of past generations and modern indie rock’s latest trends. Over all of this Follin’s sugary sweet voice floats, ripe with innocence and curiosity. Her style borrows from old Motown and R&B singles, often replicating the stuff you’d hear if you dropped a couple of quarters into one of those table jukeboxes they have at retro diners. But this is obvious – it’s the same stuff we heard on “Go Outside” that made us question sustainability in the first place. The thing that sells the band, that really ignites and extends the magic, is the hidden evil lurking behind their pretty, peppy, cuddly outer shell.
“Abducted,” a single released in April that went a long way towards proving the band wasn’t just going to be a one-off outfit, begins with chugging guitar and the sound of far-off voices. Later, similar voices resurface in the aforementioned “Go Outside,” as well as “Most Wanted,” and, easily an album standout, “Oh My God.” These voices, as it turns out, belong to neither Follin nor Oblivion, but rather to famous cult leaders Charles Manson, Jim Jones, and Patty Hearst. Coupled with lyrics about growing up, daunting feelings about a relationship’s nebulous future, and even substance abuse, the contrast between content and sound gives the band the sort of inner turmoil we appreciate in the characters from our favorite movies. Their seemingly innocent, playful melodies paint Cults as well-intentioned folks, but like the songs, dig a little deeper and you’ll find skeletons below the surface. This isn’t glorifying darkness though, but rather a reminder that sometimes wonderful things are born out of tumultuous events.
But on an album of phenomenal tracks, perfect for summertime, the best comes in the form of “Bumper,” a he said/she said song that analyzes a crumbling relationship from the perspective of both inside parties. Follin’s voice is great, but the effect gained from tossing the microphone back and forth is what really sets this song apart, giving it a sound unique to any other on the record (though it adheres to the general blueprint). It’s also chock full of great quotes: “I threw his shit on the floor,” Follin sings with the sauciness of a tried and true diva, while Oblivion snaps back, “she rushed me out the door.” Later, it gets better, with Folin reciting “I’ve had it up to here/I can’t take this anymore,” only to have Oblivion fire back with the hilarious and identifiable “if she’s this crazy now/there’s no telling what’s in store.” In between each of these exchanges, Follin’s vocals flutter around in re-verb in the background, simply offering up “la la la la la.” Again, it’s a whole dynamic of pretty sounds laced with venomous subjects that gives the band not only it’s identity, but also a fountain of ways in which to stretch that identity.
Any apprehensions about whether or not Cults could turn “Go Outside” into a successful, full-length should hastily be put to rest. In every feasible way, Cults punctuates the discussion. Not only that, but it illuminates a promise that Follin and Oblivion may have many more indelible, pop treasures still to come.
Experiencing a band in a live setting is almost certain to change your relationship with their music. Of course, the way in which it might change isn’t static. A great show could ignite a long-lasting listening binge, while a sub-par outing could shelf a band’s records for a spell. But sometimes things can change in unsuspecting ways. For me, My Morning Jacket is an example of such a strange case. After seeing them play Merriweather Post Pavilion in May 2010 — a brilliant show by any measure — it become difficult to get back into their studio recordings. They have such a powerful live presence that, who knows, maybe listening to their albums couldn’t quite measure up. And so Circuital arrives in a unique way for me: a brand new album from a beloved band tasked with reigniting a love for all things studio, a record challenged by the lofty expectations of one sensational live performance.
My Morning Jacket named their new album Circuital because they viewed it as something of a return to a previous point in their careers. They returned to Kentucky — specifically a church gymnasium in Louisville — to record this one, landing them in a similar setting with familiar surroundings. Interestingly enough, depending on which song you’re listening to, the album sounds like one of two things: a quiet ode to the days of It Still Moves and Z or a confident respone to critics who dogged the exploratory sounds of Evil Urges. Even more interesting is that it’s the latter that leaves the biggest imprint, while the former mostly comes and goes without a whimper, sounding uninspired and repetitive.
“Victory Dance” is one track that reflects back on the band’s earlier days with success, building an entire song around triumphant horns that act as the soundtrack to a large scale celebration. But from then on, any attempt to replicate their past achievements seems fuzzy at best. The title track gets better and better with each listen but still can’t escape classification as a fairly standard Southern rock anthem, while “Wonderful (The Way I Feel)” is a painfully cheesy slow burner that only highlights the way in which Jim James’ songwriting has changed over the years. Gone is the unbridled, unrivaled romanticism of “I Will Be There When You Die”, replaced by gushy swoons over places without disease and need for authority. The sentiment isn’t bad, but the way it’s all arranged makes it difficult to take seriously. Of course, at least it leaves a mark. “Slow Slow Tune” and “Movin’ Away”, which run out the album’s final nine-plus minutes, can’t say the same. A couple of other tributes to My Morning Jacket of the early-2000′s, these songs end the album doing what the band no longer does best. There was a time where the band was essentially James’ personal creative vessel, making the slower songs a lot more affective. Now though, as the band has grown and evolved, they’re much better suited for thicker instrumentation and grander arrangements. They can still knock a mellow tune out of the park here and there, but that’s not their predominant strength in 2011. For them to close out that way causes Circuital to fade away rather than burn out, an unfortunate turn for a band capable of so much more.
It’s not all disappointing though. In fact, there are some phenomenal songs on this album. Coincidentally, these are the ones where the band sounds as large as they’ve become, where they indulge their influences and play for a stadium rather than a smoky bar. “Outta My System” is a highlight, a compact radio-ready track with a defined climax and without wasted airspace. This one, unlike some of the slower throwbacks, operates with a pop aesthetic in mind, cutting straight to the point and crossing the finish line. It just feels like there’s less pretense going on. “Holdin’ on to Black Metal”, meanwhile, sounds like it could have come straight from the Evil Urges recording session, a potpourri track that takes some time to sink in, but ultimately winds up as one of the album’s most rewarding cuts. Along with “You Wanna Freak Out”, there are certainly highlights here. In fact, these three tracks are greatest hits material. The stuff around it though… well, that just mostly feels in the way.
Circuital feels like an album torn between two places. Clearly the group feel indebted to their roots, which means they’ve also got an appreciation for the fans that were with them from the start because of a certain sound. But at the same time, tracks like “Holdin’ On to Black Metal” (and everything they did on Evil Urges) suggest they don’t want to spin wheels either. They want to take their sound down different avenues — and clearly, they’re more than capable of doing it. It’s a difficult place for a band to find themselves in, loyal to home and intrigued by what the road has to offer. If Circuital is any indication, the time may have come to pack up once and for all and explore what the world has to offer.
One of the biggest mistakes a band can make is trying to replicate a truly monumental album. For The Antlers, Hospice represents their mecca: a singular narrative made up of equal parts beauty and emotional wreckage encapsulated flawlessly in its own unique moment in time. And so with the band’s fourth full-length, there is no chasing of elusive ghosts. Instead, Peter Silberman and company have crafted an entirely different memento of near-equal magnitude. They’ve called it Burst Apart.
Instead of chronicling one tale from different perspectives as they did on Hospice, Burst Apart is broken down into 10 smaller stories, some of which do borrow from common themes (references to dogs and teeth are prevalent). The songwriting certainly feels less ambitious than when we last heard from The Antlers, but that comes as a refreshing alteration rather than a frustrating one. Hospice was so affective that not only does the band need to step back from it, but listeners do as well. And to keep things in perspective, the writing on Hospice set the bar astronomically high. Still, the stories of Burst Apart stand as a testament to Silberman’s proficiency. “No Widows”, one of the many great sonic revelations on the album, sounds written from the perspective of a soldier isolated from family and friends overseas. “If I never get back home/there’s no garden overgrown/no widows in the walls/no widows left alone”, Silberman sings, as if the protagonist is trying to convince himself that not making it out of his situation and back home might not be so bad after all. As the song progresses, Silberman grabs the harmony by the shoulders and lifts it up, sending it soaring over the track. Indicative of literally every song here, there’s an otherworldly power to each note, vocal run, and arrangement.
With the stories pushed a bit to the background, the band have really put an impetus on expanding their sound. The biggest influence here, especially on the first two singles “Parentheses” and “Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out”, is Radiohead, which isn’t a likeness that gets accurately thrown around often. These songs don’t just sound bigger, but they actually take on a dynamic, alien quality unlike anything the trio has done before. But even though they’ve magnified their sound — thicker layers, heavier percussion — their ability to make a stripped down song into something mountainous hasn’t withered, especially on the last four tracks. On “Corsica”, Silberman’s voice and the gentle, romanticized guitar strums that run up beside it take on a gorgeous echo as if the song were recorded from inside an enormous empty coliseum. Self-produced by Silberman and bandmates Michael Lerner and Darby Cicci, this song replicates some of the things that made the narratives of Hospice work so well: even though the instrumentation is held at a minimum, it sounds completely cavernous and expansive.
On the band’s profile over at the Frenchkiss Records website, there’s a bunch of quotes about how the new album came together and what the benchmarks were. Towards the end, Cicci is quoted as saying something that not only frames the record wonderfully, but attaches the perfect wording to it. “We want to draw people into the world of the record,” he says. And when you listen to it, that statement really crystallizes. Its sound and content might be different, but that’s because Burst Apart is an entity all unto its own: a captivating world brimming with a ravishing, hypnotic magnetism.
David Andrew Strackany is an experimental folk artist who performs under the guise of Paleo. More than a poet and musician, Strackany is a road warrior, putting on more than 700 shows since 2005. The running list posted to his otherwise minimal website is awe-inspiring. His music, on the other hand, is something of a mixed bag. Its smart yet challenging, personal yet detached.
Strackany is another in a long line of folk singers who weren’t born with the suitable means to be technically proficient singers. Such a list has too many names to list, but right there at the top is Bob Dylan, owner of one of the most cringe-inducing voices in all of popular music history. But like Dylan, Strackany gets by. His words are often a shield against the sandpaper abrasiveness of his voice and his instrumentation, though off the beaten path of traditional American folk, is regularly enough a nice distraction. “Lighthouse,” the opening track on Fruit of the Spirit, is a great example of this. This cut plasters Strackany’s strained voice over top of rugged acoustic instrumentation. You can hear his fingers against the fretboard as he switches chords, even amidst the constant fluttering percussion. There are moments almost identical to this scattered all throughout the album. But as many brilliant moments as Strackany sets up and knocks down, there are that many truly agitating ones waiting just around the bend.
“Poet (Take 1)” takes some of the most brutal instrumentation you’re likely to hear all year — the clunking, rhythm-devoid instrumentation isn’t experimental, its painful — and throws it over top of ironic lyrics about the fallacies of considering yourself a poet. In a sense, this song is like hearing Strackany rebel against himself. Taken that way it doesn’t seem like such a bad creation; artists don’t often skewer their own music and mock their songwriting so freely. But taken as simply another song amongst a collection of them, it represents a turn-off of staggering proportions. Strackany’s Kristian Matsson-meets-Jackie Greene-meets cheese grater voice isn’t intolerable (all the best singers have deficiencies, anyway) but is a challenge, so it would seem logical to make things sound as appealing as possible otherwise, not take the complete opposite course. And especially not twice — “Poet (Take 2)” is essentially the same architecture recycled.
While Fruit of the Spirit does have its charms — the aforementioned “Lighthouse,” “Over the Hill and Back Again,” and “In the Movies” are all worthy standouts — they are ultimately weighted down by its shortcomings. Its clear that Strackany doesn’t have a good voice, but what remains uncertain is whether or not he’s aware of this. Throughout the album there are moments where he strains too far, stretching out to latch onto notes that he shouldn’t even be thinking about. These instances tend to hurt. And while the instrumentation backing him up may maintain a certain level of consistency (save for those two atrocious “Poet” tracks), that simply isn’t enough to make this an album worth digging too deep into.
Formed in 1993 in Chicago, The Sea and The Cake have all the credentials of one of indie rock’s best kept secrets. They’ve got eight full-length albums to their credit — nine when counting their newest, The Moonlight Butterfly — as well as a few scattered extended plays and singles. Each of these releases have been well-received, yet still, the band never seems to have escaped the cusp of stardom. As of press time, the group’s last.fm page touts less than four million plays. How many bands will emerge just this year and quickly surpass that?
For those who haven’t already been initiated into the band’s secret society of fandom, here’s what you need to know: The Sea and The Cake are distinctly unoffensive and impossible to feel disdain towards. Their sound is a fusion of more than two decades worth of indie rock (remember, indie rock when they released their self-titled debut in 1994 has evolved a lot since then), pop, and smooth jazz-rock that shouldn’t be confused with the blubbering nonsense you might have heard on your parents’ radio. The Midnight Butterfly illuminates their overall sound well: pancake fluffy, gentle, and relaxing. You might not be blown away, but you’re likely to be come away in a comfortable zen-like state.
The first thing you’re likely to pick up on this album — or any of the band’s past work, really — is how delicately Sam Prekop’s voice glides over the instrumentals. On “Covers,” the five minute opener, the arrangement is a fairly simple percussion-driven beat with some light, almost transparent guitars blanketed over top. The tempo steadily bounces upward, but the flux is hardly noticeable. Typical of the band’s nature, they’ve got a destination but are in no hurry to get here. Prekop’s vocals reflect this too. He sings with potency, not urgency, his words organically frothing from his mouth. And while his words aren’t likely to turn your world on its axis, they’re potent too: engaging and identifiable, worth tipping an ear to.
As sugary as these six songs do sound, there is a tendency to feel like The Moonlight Butterfly is just a level away from being elevator music. A little over halfway through “Lyric” there’s a rock-out moment with guitar, drums, and little splashes of cymbals and bells for accent. But the spike in energy is still at a minimum; they’re a little bit too composed. It highlights the troubling notion that even when The Sea and The Cake unhinge themselves, they still lean towards adult contemporary a bit too much. Even the electronics on the title track feel deliberately leashed.
The Moonlight Butterfly is a nice listen — smooth, unassuming, and bathed in warmth — that goes great with a sunny day, cold drink, and a book out on your back porch. And without a doubt, there’s a value in that. But certainly you shouldn’t expected to be overwhelmed by this particular selection from the band’s catalog. Instead, enjoy it for what it is and treat it as an introduction to a wide discography that deserves far more exploration than it seems to have received thus far.
The first time I hit play on New Numbers’ Vacationland, I did so with the volume cranked and the bass high. It was as instantly jarring as it was completely unintentional. “Death and Dying,” the frightfully-titled opening track, begins with the slow crank of gritty feedback backed up by subtle yet effective bass. It was sort of like experiencing a concert in reverse (because, you know, those things often end with stray instrumental noise even as the band has stopped playing and is exiting the stage). From there the band descends — or, more appropriately, ascends — into their own brand of pavement-smooth rock.
Those first moments of “Death and Dying” don’t only jar, but they kind of deceive too. From just those few seconds it’d be easy to expect something of the lo-fi, Times New Viking-meets-punk-rock concatenation. Rather, New Numbers are actually quite the rubbery outfit. There’s an unmistakable 1980’s aura on many of the songs (the vocals on “Verbal” are prime 80’s real estate), glimpses of standard issue, modern day indie rock, and even synthesizers blended in amongst the otherwise guitar and drum driven tunes. This may just be a debut — and a self-financed one at that — but its nice to hear that the band isn’t overly pushy with immediately establishing their own definitive sound. There’s a cohesion to it all, but the boundaries of such uniformity are pretty liberal.
Perhaps more than anything else, Vacationland is an album that makes you wonder — and much of that goes back to the whole self-financed thing. On this release, New Numbers seem poised and ready to make an impact. Hell, on tracks like “Islands” and “Creature Comforts,” they not only leave such an impact, but they do it better than a lot of label-supported artists. So the question then becomes: what if these guys had some backing? By no means is this the kind of record you’d easily fawn over, but its pretty easy to hear that the ingredients for such a thing. Just imagine if they had the resources afforded to many of the groups we switch in and out of our listening rotations. New Numbers could be a big thing.
Above all, Vacationland is exactly what the title suggests: an album chock full of fun cuts. There’s no overbearing pretentiousness or forced gimmicks. Its just a nice little do-it-yourselfer that deserves a spot somewhere on your summer soundtrack.
Yuck and Tame Impala played a sold out show at Webster Hall on Monday 25.4.11.
For a band that formed only a little over a year ago, the London/Hiroshima/ New Jersey foursome, Yuck are quickly becoming one of the best new bands out there. They might sound like they belong in the early 90′s but they are one of the more technically gifted guitar acts to tour in a long time, and prove themselves to be more than mere “Nineties revivalists” in concert. Drawing obvious inspiration from grunge and shoegaze bands from over a decade ago, they somehow manage to sound all their own, frontman Daniel Bloomburg channeling a bit of a young Dylan-esc stage swagger on a raw version of ”Georgia”, and the band showing a more melancholy dreamlike side on “Suicide Policeman”. Substance o
Aussie musical ensemble Tame Impala took the stage last and is a beast. Their 70 minute psychedelic hypno-groove melodic rock performance was packed with enough emotion and atmosphere to keep your head swirling around like the light show they project behind them. With 9 flat screen monitors featuring a psychedelic light show rigged up to their guitars, the band tightly ripped through the entire Innerspeaker album, some lesser known tracks off their debut EP and even covered “Angel” by Massive Attack! Check out the full setlist and some pictures from the whole show, below:
Songs about love, lust, longing, and desperation are nothing new. These are tried and true subject matters that work well because they’re something that, to one degree or another, we can all relate to. But every now and again a band comes along and tightly grabs hold of these basic premises, shaking and twisting them in magnificent ways. With their self-titled debut, after three years of touring and video-making since releasing a five-track EP called Bedrooms in 2008, Brooklyn-based Xylos have, through stark romanticism and composition, done exactly that.
Xylos is a record that brings together and animates a vast assortment of sounds both complex and familiar, breathing new life into each individual strand of its genetics. Monika Heidemann doesn’t just sing on this record, she rakes herself across the hot coals of passion, both fondly recalled and forgotten, requited and unfulfilled. On “Darling Dearest” she plays the submissive role, calling out to her lover in desperation as jolts of electronics and percussion close in around her from every which way. And as great as this record sounds, with intricacies billowing from every track, its really these evocations that consistently propel this thing forward. Though she displays extreme longing on “Darling Dearest,” she later sings “I want to stay in bed all day alone” on “Second Order”, coos seductively across urgent instrumentation on “Not Enough,” and still manages to power her way through the album’s tail end with unrelenting power despite having run herself through the emotional wringer.
Though the griping emotion is its biggest selling points, there are really countless qualities to love about this album. Fans of shoegaze will find familiar artifacts sprinkled throughout. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Cocteau Twins, Kate Bush, and Malory have all left an impression on this band and this album. But there’s also the kind of sexual tension dished out by The xx and enough big-time pop melodies and moments to add variety and extend reach. “Mission,” for example, is a decadent anthem about innocence that bursts the album open behind exploding percussion and the soft howl of a powerful chorus. In an album full of impressive highs, this is among the tallest peaks.
As debuts go, this is about as good as they come. Xylos is the kind of record you can get lost in, either by getting entangled in the well-conceived songwriting, being swallowed by the saturating instrumentation that unveils a new dynamic with each additional spin, or both. Truly, this lascivious, refreshing collection of songs deserves undivided attention — and lots of it.
