Being thankful for an earful.
Brand new music by Marie Davidson, Niecy Blues (feat. Joy Guidry), CEL, Marisa Anderson and Luke Schneider, Stina Stjern, Carmen Villain, Murcof, A Lily, and Far Golden Pavilions, with music from the vaults by Tomaga, Ozzobia, Jan Jelinek.
Sushi photo by Lindsay.
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In addition to being an acoustic guitar virtuoso, SteffenBasho-Junghans also delights in painting, particularly landscapes. Thisaspect of his creative life sheds light on his latest album, a soloacoustic trip though wide-open country scenes inspired by his ruralupbringing. Basho-Junghans (he adopted the surname of guitarist RobbieBasho in his thirties as an homage to his idol) approaches the projectmuch like a painting, and the guitar serves as his brush, craftingswirls and flourishes of sounds that fall back in on themselves andreemerge repeatedly. Each of the six tracks serves as a movement, asimple element in a broader scene. The twenty-minute six-string opener,"The River Suite," begins with a light ascension of plucked notes,lifting the music up and across the rapid cascade of tones that beginto rush beneath it. The music follows the stream, building, releasing,pausing, lingering, and all developing over a repeated body ofplucking. The repetition can be somewhat tiring, especially on thelonger tracks, like "The Takoma Bridge Incident." Though the ideas arecompelling in parts, they are exhausted by the end of the piece. Theshorter excursions on the second half of the album seem to discover andconvey their concepts much more effectively. "Rainbow Dancing" finds aclear melody, and stands as one of the more pleasant songs. On thistrack, Basho-Junghans switches to a twelve-string guitar, giving thetrack a lush, full-bodied sound that feeds the pastoral theme of thealbum. It sounds like how lying in a patch of sun soaked grass feels.Another advantage that "Rainbow Dancing" has is that it doesn't lingeron so long that you grow tired of its ideas. The lonely melody of"Autumn II" is perfectly evocative of the wailing voice of a bluegrassfolk spiritual. The weariness expressed by the piece gives off splashesof rust red and fading green, leading into the dusky "Epilogue." Thoughthe span of the album may be marked with lulls, the higher points of Rivers and Bridgesshine through. Basho-Junghans has produced a musical landscapepainting, complete with the valleys and crests, shadows andilluminations; the subtle nuances that make a work worth seeing.
Austin, TX, is a city with a grand music tradition, but lately it's shaping up to be the new Glasgow, with more brilliant indie bands appearing out of there than most cities ever see. One of the mainstays who are enjoying a bit of a creative revival are Spoon. Formed by Britt Daniel and Jim Eno, they garnered a great deal of local attention before releasing their debut on Matador. Then they moved to Elektra, releasing only one album before they were dropped. Hitting the indie circuit again, Spoon found a home at Merge, where they've released the acclaimed Girls Can Tell and their latest work Kill the Moonlight. Where Girls showed off a meaner, leaner Spoon than in the past, Moonlight shows them losing a few more pounds just to have a bit more of a good time.
The songs feature very minimal arrangements—often just guitar/drums, piano/drums/bass, or guitar/beatbox—all with the voice of Daniel pushing them right along. The mood is more light-hearted while the music may be a bit more adventurous. "The Way We Get By" is a perfect summer fun song, where "Stay Don't Go" features a bizarre vocal sample and a falsetto Daniel telling a tale of truth. Then there's the fight song in "Johnathon Fisk," the lust song in "All the Pretty Girls Go To the City," and the self-confidence song in "Don't Let it Get You Down." The CD runs the gamut of emotions and situations over its brief forty minutes, yet it is a joyous ride while it lasts. The band feels more confident or assured, and though it may be a bit of a let-down not to hear the power or feral energy of before, the band deserved a bit of fun, and that's all there is to this fine release. 
Shipping News began a series in 2001, with CD EP releases in specialpackages. Each contained songs that were written and recorded by onemember start to finish in a short span of time. The packages werehand-crafted, with a sewn seam and a bird-shaped platic cutout. Allwere super limited. All of the songs have been gathered and includedwith some new songs for this fully-fledged full-realizedfully-distributed full-length release. Given the setup, it's hardlyunsurprising that the material is far more varied than any of theiralbums. In all honesty, listening to everything thrown together in acompletely new order sounds almost completely lacking in structure.Thankfully that's only the first few times. After getting past theinitial shock of contrast that the material has to all previousShipping News music, the songs begin to reveal themselves asindividuals, prominently standing out from the others. Each approach iscompletely different than the next, with the heart of each song in adifferent spot, jumbled up like a puzzle which keeps resetting itself,buried in a sexy distorted bass of "Paper Lanterns," hidden inshimmering endless delays on "We Start to Drift," screaming through theblaring rock on "You Can't Hide the Mark Inside," or exposed by thenaked sounding, abstract and charmingly dissonant, Jandek-ish acousticand electric guitars on "Variegated." It's never explicitly clear whichperson did which song, something not entirely unlike the Beatles'eponymous white album (which too was more or less a collection of abunch of solo songs, never officially noting who did what where). Fanswill no doubt be divided, and probably pissed off that they'll have toshell out the cash for three bonus songs, but for some of us whocouldn't get our greasy mitts on some of the EPs, it's great to haveall the songs together. 
It is truly hard to find anything terribly wrong with The Aislers Set.With each release, the band offers a gracious gift basket of shinypost-pop which unfailingly brings up the familiar names of Spector,Wilson, et al. Aislers Set prefer to drench their vocals in a healthyamount of reverb which often gives the songs a ghostly feel amidst thepoppiness. Their albums also enjoy jumping out with the first track, sodon't get caught off guard when this third album leaps out headstrongwith the first song, "Catherine Says," a heavenly track which featuresbells and handclaps accompanying Amy Linton's cherubic voice. As thesong climaxes, the chorus rises like church patrons from their pews,getting faster and louder and more celestial; as the chorus hastens,the song's denomination takes on a strange mixture of Roman Catholicismand Southern Baptist, as bells alternate with handclaps and thenultimately join forces. "Mission Bells" features its own blend ofCalifornian minor-key organ and guitar which, through some strangeassociations in my brain, recalled scenes from the film "Three Amigos,"particularly with the antagonist, El Guapo. Incidentally, this song wasreleased as a single on a pleasant 3-song 12" which preceded thisalbum's release. Perhaps my favorite section of this album starts atthe infectious chorus of the abruptly-ending "Action AttractionReaction" (it has this lovely ascending angelic sound) and goes throughthe beginning of the next song, "Through the Swells" (I swear everytime I hear the first guitar part that I am about listen to "BigmouthStrikes Again"). There are great songs on this album, but it stillseems to pale for some reason alongside other Aislers Set albums. Itfeatures the standard Aislers assemblage of rockers, ballads,horn-filled jumpers, and crooners, but sometimes the hooks are missing.The song also seem shorter (and though I have not double-checked myarithmetic, I can say with certainty that most of them are shorter), soperhaps the songs end prematurely, without ever properly filling out orblossoming or earning their hooks. Regardless, this is still a finealbum and it would do well to grace the phonograph or CD player of anyFriday night cocktail party which shows the potential for just a littledancing once the festivities get underway and the hors d'oeuvres areall eaten.
Prior to this album, my only exposure to Pulseprogramming came via asplit EP with Signaldrift and a couple of compilation appearances, allof them striking me as being pleasant but average work that wasgenerally indistinguishable from the ever expanding glut of"indie-tronica" artists. When I heard their track "Blooms Eventually"on a Wire Magazine compilation a few months back, I immediately fell inlove with it, despite the twee lyrics and the use of slightly hokeyfilter effects on the vocals. That track opens Tulsa For One Second,and while it would be hard for any record to hold to a consistentquality after such a near-perfect intro, the eight tracks that followdo a pretty good job of it. The record flits back and forth frominstrumental to vocal tracks, and it's hard to deny that the lyricsaren't exactly deep or thought-provoking ("Off To Do Showery Snapshots"includes a quote from "Row, Row, Row Your Boat"!) - but that's not agreat concern as this is an album that is more about mood and musicthan stories and messages. Tracks such as "Don't Swell Up You GlassPocket" and "All Joy And Rural Honey" evoke a similar sweet and puremelancholy as Múm and various Morr Music artists, while the moreenergetic "Largely Long-Distance Loves" throws layers of gorgeousmelody over a minimal tech-house throb. The disc closing "Bless TheDrastic Space" wraps things up nicely with groovy glitch-beats, mellowpiano lines and some almost psychedelic background swirls, followedafter a couple of minutes of silence by a strange little music boxdeconstruction. On top of all that, the packaging is really nifty,featuring a cardboard sleeve that can be folded out and built into agrey and desolate looking house. The imagery is perhaps a littlestarker than the music deserves, but it's still a nice touch to thisenjoyable project. 
I didn't quite know what to make the first time I heard Ryan Moore'sdub project, whether it just a side project, an experiment, or a joke.Six years and 10 releases later, the jury has returned with a verdict,and it is that the Circus is something solid, reliable, and fantasticenough to keep fresh and enjoyable with every listen. For the as of yetunconverted, this disc is a great recap, as it collects 12 tracks fromthe years. All of Moore's dub is instrumental, completely void oflaptop glitchery, and only ever employing the usage of old schooldelays for effects. Popular old favorites like "Lowell and Nine" and"Horsie" are representative of the catchier early bass, organ, drumpieces, while "Fams," employs a twangy guitar in a very SpaghettiWestern-like ghost town dub, and songs like "Trinity" only ever addsubtle instruments like melodica to the mix. Moore might not be doinganything that stretches the perceptions of the universe beyond allgalactic possibilities, but what he does, he does exceptionally well. 
Lovingly culled from the rarest of flexi discs found hidden in European used vinyl shops, compilations like Beat at Cinecitta and Popshoppingbrought to the light of day scores from Italian films lost to historyand German commercial jingles from decades ago. Crippled Dick's latestcollection seems loosely bound together thematically: 21 pieces fromvarious TV and movie soundtracks from the '60s and '70s. However, these"peas" as the liner notes call them, call attention to Crippled DickHot Wax!'s mission of rescuing these tiny gems from disappearing intoobscurity.It's easy to imagine that a vast majority of these tunes came frompolice thrillers or suspense films, because they're jam packed withboth tension and an air of cool. They're often fast-paced and funky,with a streak of eeriness or mystery to them -- and lest we forget,they're also catchy as hell. The sound is dated, but that's part of theappeal. There's blaring horns, wah-wah bass, jazzy percussion andexotic flourishes like xylophones and violins tossed in for goodmeasure. Tracks like Paul Kuhn's "Gateway to a Crime" and Made inGermany's "Sprungbrett 1" are choc full of enduring vibrancy, whileothers like Günter Platzek's "Heavy Steel" embody 1970s smoothness.Sadly, the packaging lacks extensive information on each of the piecesand artists, which is unusual for CDHW! releases.
CerberusShoal have a long history of interesting musical choices, and theirlatest split-EP series is no exception. Available in limited editioncopies with varied types of original artwork on different media, theseries features the Shoal working with artists they know personallyand/or greatly respect with no set format. There are no pre-arrangedrules, only that both collaborators agree to a loose theme of somesort, or a method to the madness. In the case of this initial offeringin the series, the Düne and the Shoal each recorded original songs withlittle vinettes in between. The songs are acoustic instrument-based,and are all about love or personal relationships in various forms. Itsounds almost like a combination doomed for failure, but the endproduct will surprise fans of both bands. Herman Düne's material issimple and quick with pleasing melodies and energy, with themes thatstart light and energetic and end dark and labored. "I Want a Woman"features a brilliant spoken-word interlude about a planned date, andlamented harmony vocals about the plight of the lonely man. "If SomeoneLoves You" is musically playful, but the theme is a little more urgentand depressed with its chorus: "If someone loves you, it sure is notme." They definitely prepare you for the tone of Cerberus Shoal on"That Woman is a Murderess," where sparse violin and percussion meetwith the haunting vocal of David-Ivar Herman Düne. A strange vinettefollows, and the Shoal saunter in with "Sweetie," far from the purelyloving song that its title might suggest. Middle Easterninstrumentation and rhythms meet with a grand choral vocal performance.It's spine-tingling, and when the lyrics do eventually reveal theirquiet horror, it's no real surprise, but it still raises hairs. Theirother proper song, "Bouzouki," has the same general vocal performance,with a greater concentration on harmony, and the pace of "Hava Nagila."You can see, especially at the end, how both bands incorporatedelements of the other, making sounds that stir and slide as well asthey jab and jump. Collaborations like this are rare, and I certainlyhope these groups find time to work together proper in a studio. I canhardly wait to hear what they'd conjure up then.
This is an old record in more ways than one. Released in 2001 inNorway, it was recently picked up and released by Ipecac this February.The album is a mix of old-timey soul, rhythm & blues and doo-woptimbres and samples pasted together very well with electronics and liveinstrumentation. Kaada is essentially Eric Kaada and four powerbooks,augmented with live drums and bass and a mixture of sampled and livevocals in the aforementioned doo-wop and soul vein. I really liked thefact that the songs aren't stereotypically "electronic"—no fast cuts ofnoise for no good reason except to be "glitchy", no weird electronicnoises for the sake of weird electronic noises. Throughout the album, Ifound myself humming along and enjoying the songs because they're funand poppy enough to do that. Between the thunderous rolling drums of"Black California" and the hypnotic second single, "No You Don't" withit's sway between sad and creepy. Speaking of "No You Don't", check outthe video, over at Kaada's websiteis worth checking out, as is the website itself, with background infoon the songs themselves and some very nice content., and the uniquejuxtaposition of sounds that feel old and sounds that can't be old, I found myself listening to this record over and over, because I just wanted the music to not stop. 
Many US fans of SOTL had not heard this album when their 2-CD epic, The Tired Sounds of...was put out on Kranky, so the label released this 2000 full-length onthese shores in time for the band's East Coast tour last fall.Originally released on the Belgian Sub Rosa label, Avec Laudenum was a shift in the science that is SOTL, as they tried more structure on their long, ambient compositions. After hearing Tired Soundsand listening to this release, the gap between their earlier works andthe splendor of that set is filled in quite nicely. Brian McBride andAdam Wiltzie recorded Avec Laudenum by mail, but you couldn'ttell by what you hear. It's just as warm, dense, and compelling astheir earlier works, but there's more of a desire to make everythingmove like a symphony. The songs start off with minimal melodies onkeyboard or sampler, instruments are added, and the ingredients swelland soar, expanding to a large, full sound. For a band like Yo La Tengoto record music to accompany nature films seems somewhat odd; Stars ofthe Lid would not be out of place at all to record an album of musicfor aquariums. It's the kind of music you want to relax to, to put onbefore you go to sleep to work new dreams for you, or to learn aboutthe secrets of the deep or the universe. It prepares your mind foralmost anything. The first three tracks, "The Atomium" parts onethrough three, are a hint at the multi-part extended works to come,with a very simple note progression that shifts through three tonesalong its path. Encompassing half the album, it was the duo's mostambitious effort yet, and also their most moving. It ends abruptlybefore the nine-minute "Dust Breeding," a swell-and-buzz track wherethe space between the notes is just as important as the notesthemselves. The echo on the track is particularly effective, but as itfades away to let in more crystalline keyboard sounds you'd never missit. The album closes with the beautiful "I Will Surround You," proofpositive that you don't need much in terms of instruments and notes toevoke tears. For fans it is a must, and for others I would recommendthis release as an introduction to the band. It's just enough of ataste to prepare you for the outer reaches of their brand of orchestraldrone. 
After their disastrous EP, No. 4, I was really hoping New Wet Kojak would find a way to get back to the ultra-sexy grooves of the past and obliterate the stain that release had left on them. Early reports about this new album suggested I might be horribly disappointed. NWK had decided to record a concept album about consumer culture. I was worried, but I shouldn't have been. This is the real New Wet Kojak.
This is the Glamorous is that rare album that defines a band. It's the album NWK has always had in them but had never released. The time is definitely now. Perhaps the work its two members did with their other band, Girls Against Boys, on the soundtrack to the film Series 7 has affected the band as a whole in a new way. The soundtrack's best track, "One Dose of Truth," is the blueprint for this whole CD. Scott McCloud's lyrics are still laughable at times, but the stream of consciousness way they come out on these songs makes it seem like someone watching a TV or reading a magazine and saying whatever comes out. Musically, NWK are closer to GVSB than they ever have been, and that's a very good thing. This is amplified sex rock with horns and keyboard effects. This is the club sound of nowhere that should be everywhere. Track after track is another gem. "In a world of shampoo" and "I just want to be unique, just like everyone else" might seem pedestrian on paper, but set to this music they are chants designed to inspire booty-shaking. "It's in the effects you select, it's in your cigarette" and "Like it's in me and it's in you" on the quasi-title track, with its low bassline and chiming guitar melody, make for smooth sailing. There's no need to speak of highlights, because there isn't a track on this album that is a lowlight. I'm with Mikey on this one: I like it, I like it. This is the New Wet Kojak, just like the Old Wet Kojak. Only better. "And if you haven't got it yet you might as well be dead." 'Nuff said. 
