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Isan
Salamander
The long awaited return of Isan on the fabulous Morr Music label!! The term isan stands for "integrated services analogue network," and it perfectly reveals their interest in using dodgy old keyboards to make dodgy old noise. Isan´s music is a kind of ambilvalent thing: simple but pure, noisy but clear, strange but true........they mention influences as varied as artists like brian eno, stereolab, autechre, my bloody valentine...and as a matter of necessity you will find yourself whistling their beautiful melodies regardless of intention and mood. This is delicately refined beauty with one eye focused firmly on the nature and sounds of analogue machinery, with the other intensly locked onto melodies that sound as ethereal and timeless as anything you will ever hear. The highlighs are the "Flash Gordon/Blade Runner" faux-remix tracks at the beginning and end of the album. Essential.
Nicolai Dunger
Tranquil Isolation
Nicolai Dunger sounds like Nick Nolte looks. Beaten down, disheveled, with last night's Jack Daniels still coursing through his veins and this morning's Marlboros still burning in his throat, his careworn experience jostles with his undefeated optimism. He may have Nordic blond good looks, but he has the rough cynicism of a delta bluesman, singing dusty tales of wasted lives and unforgiven mistakes, childhood heroes and lost loves, while collaborator Will Oldham adds skewed harmonies and gorgeous guitar rhythms.
Dunger is ragged and questioning on Hey Mama as a joyful acoustic melody plays around his despondency, while Hundred Songs has him not just hitting the big notes, but battering them into submission against the inebriated rhythm.
He has a tendency to make songs too long - the gently brushed drums and withered violin of Last Night I Dreamt of Mississippi aren't enough to sustain interest - but this is an inventive, affectionate and utterly European homage to Americana. --Betty Clarke, The Gaurdian
Destroyer
Streethawk: A Seduction
Ah yes, the lyrics. Dan Bejar's lyrics have always been one of his greatest assets-- on his City of Daughters album, he penned such memorable lines as "Girls are great/ When grated on my plate," and "Nothing does a body good/ Like another body." On Streethawk, Bejar's lyrics are as cryptic as ever, but still remain oddly compelling. There's an apparent element of fantasy to the lyrics, as evidenced by lines like, "Streethawk tempts the huntress, let the girls go insane/ As we lay down our weapons and sure enough, we are slain." But what's really important here is that Bejar never falls into the trappings of traditional lyric writing-- in "The Sublimation Hour," he throws in an supplementary "princess," where most singers would sing "baby"-- perfectly appropriate for a man who once sang of "the inextricable failure of popular music."
So, friend, what now? Are you intrigued? Are you confused? Are you scared? Don't be scared. Sure, the chords and melodies on Streethawk may at first strike you as unappealingly random. But after having Streethawk all but stuck in my discman for over a month, I am 100% convinced that nothing on the album is unplanned. It's engaging, it’s surprising, and sometimes it's a bit disconcerting, but it all seems completely purposeful, even when the purpose itself isn't entirely clear. You have been given the oh-so-rare opportunity to enjoy the work of a songwriter who has found a distinctive voice that, while clearly drawing on elements of the past, is completely his own. And that, friend, is something worth holding on to.
--Matt LeMay, Pitchforkmedia.com
Broken Social Scene
It's a bit late to be talking about New Year's Resolutions, but mine was to dig through the boxes upon boxes of promos that arrive at the Pitchfork mailbox each month, and listen intently to like 100 of them in one sitting, in an attempt to discover those rare, impossibly great bands that would otherwise slip through the cracks. It's been an absolute bitch so far, and awfully disheartening, but I've hit paydirt a couple of times. And in those moments of glory, it's been worth wading through every cut-up Cuban big beat record, every generic Midwestern rock record, every bar band, every swing band. See, the problem is, it's impossible to know what's what. You have to just dive in and hope for the best, because you never know when some guys with the worst bandname and packaging you've ever seen are gonna strike gold. Case in point: Broken Social Scene.
Broken Social Scene have, and even made it seem effortless while they were at it. I wish I could convey to you just how perfectly this record pulls off that balancing act, how incredibly catchy and hummable these songs are, despite their refusal to resort to oversimplicity or blatant pandering. I wish I could convey how they've made just exactly the kind of pop record that stands the test of time, and how its ill-advised packaging and shudder-inducing bandname seem so infinitesimal after immersing yourself in the music. And I hate to end this saying, "You just have to hear it for yourself." But oh my god, you do. You just really, really do. --Ryan Schreiber, Pitchforkmedia.com
Califone
It's always amazed me how few people have actually heard Califone's music. It's not like they haven't had the exposure. Tim Rutili and Ben Massarella were the backbone of mid-90's alt-blues noisemongers Red Red Meat, a band that released three full-lengths for mega-indie Sub Pop. Since then, Califone's first LP, Roomsound, has held a vaunted position on Amazon.com's alternative sales chart, and the band opened for Wilco last fall on Tweedy and company's sold out Yankee Hotel Foxtrot tour.
Still, no one seems to have heard this band's music. Ask around, and you'll get a lot of the "I've heard of them, but never anything by them responses." When you consider the critical response to Roomsound, as well as last year's collection of EPs, Sometimes Good Weather Follows Bad People, this is hard to fathom. Califone's isn't seeking widespread appeal, but given their history, exposure, and quality of their output, criminally few people are paying attention.
Quicksand: Cradlesnakes is the second full-length from the band. Rutili and Massarella are still at the helm, but this time they've included multi-instrumentalists Jim Becker and Joe Adamik, opting for a more democratic creative process. The results are near brilliant: to be short, Quicksand: Cradlesnakes is, by quite a length, Califone's most confident and realized album.
Iron and Wine's debut record, The Creek Drank the Cradle, is written, produced, and performed by Sam Beam and features only Beam's voice, a gently strummed acoustic guitar, some slide guitar, and the occasional banjo. Iron and Wine creates intimate and emotional songs, recorded bedroom-style but never letting the lo-fi get in the way of the tune. The obvious comparison has to be Lou Barlow/Sebadoh/Sentridoh, as they share the same breathy voice, melancholy outlook on life, and devotion to Nick Drake. The difference is that there are no traces of punk rock or noise for the sake of noise in Iron and Wine's music.
Beam isn't interested in rocking out or obscuring the beauty that bursts from within his simple songs; he embraces it and lets his sadness twist in the wind for all to see. Besides, his vocal harmonies are more soft rock than punk rock. "Lion's Mane" opens the record and immediately takes your breath away. Beam's voice is so beautiful, and his hooks are razor sharp. Every song that follows is memorable and beautiful, Beam sounding positively angelic as he harmonizes with himself. "The Rooster Moans" is a chilling side trip into Appalachian folk; "Southern Anthem" a falsetto-led indie-gospel track with an absolutely soaring chorus. The simple musical backing never gets boring either, as there are musical hooks to match the vocal hooks — the banjo in "Lion's Mane," the double-tracked repeating slide at the end of "Faded from the Winter," the gently chugging rhythm of "Upward Over the Mountain." As soon as the almost jaunty, Neil Young-esque album closer, "Muddy Hymnal," ends, you'll want to hit repeat and start again. The Creek Drank the Cradle is a stunning debut and one of the best records of 2002.
Portland's Yume Bitsu has been around. In existence since '95, the band has already released four albums, and divides their time between a wealth of side projects: singer/guitarist Adam Forkner makes music with drone-rock surrealists Surface of Eceon; drummer Jason Anderson leads Wolf Colonel; keyboardist Alex Bundy releases solo material as Planetarium Music. Their last album, 2000's Auspicious Winds, was released too late in the year to make most peoples' year-end lists, but was, in itself, an incredibly powerful bliss-out session that echoed Spiritualized circa Lazer Guided Melodies not just in sound and scope, but in that its spacy, intertwining jams would, after several ethereal minutes, eventually arrive at beautifully ebbing-- and strikingly catchy-- pop songs.
Though it has its share of dark shadings (particularly the drones of "Song Six"), The Golden Vessyl of Sound glows with positivity, just as its title would indicate. Yume Bitsu is the sound of four men in love with sound who know how to channel their collective energy. Myths and backstory be damned, this is one of the best psychedelic albums of the year.
Mark Richardson, Pitchforkmedia.com
Formed in 1978, The Clean have persevered through breakups, hiatus runs, and numerous reformations to become a somewhat irregular but highly inventive institution among the hierarchy of Indie rock. Their fresh and challenging sounds have influenced numerous bands (Pavement, Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo) over the years and given the prolific New Zealand music scene a permanent place on the underground radar. Looking back at this marvelous and ongoing career is the new double-CD set The Clean Anthology, a creative and historical document that uses hard to find, out of print, and unreleased material to illustrate a remarkable if somewhat exhaustive portrait of one of the most innovative bands of the last twenty years.
Beginning with the far-vision-fueled ‘Tally Ho’, disc one covers the first phase of The Clean’s career where the band incorporated a garage rock immediacy into their broad musical palette. Songs such as ‘Beatnik’ and ‘Thumbs Off’ are classic rave-ups, while others like ‘Flowers’ and ‘Slug Song’ keep the vibrant energy flowing but with hints of melancholy and reflection with stunning affect. This is not to say The Clean of this era were simply a retro outfit. On the contrary, they were effective synthesists forging new sounds from old ones. Whether on its surf music from the outer reaches (‘Fish’, ‘At The Bottom’), over-stellar inner-drive explorations (‘Point That Thing Somewhere Else’, ‘Quickstep’) or the shimmering, climactic brilliance of ‘Getting Older’, The Clean were definitely in uncharted territory.
P. Crose, Rewireviews.com
You can't take pretentiousness out of the Brits, but you sure can take it out of their music. Experimental Aircraft takes the dense, swirling brushstrokes and dreamy
atmospheric sheen of such turn-of-the-Nineties imports as the Catherine Wheel, Lush, and most importantly, My Bloody Valentine, and welds to it a thumping vigor that keeps them
firmly rooted in the trenches of rock & roll. Many a heady, atmospheric Brit-rocker has gradually floated deep into the clouds of indulgence and irrelevance, and Austin's ExAir
has seemingly learned from this folly, in the process landing a deal with San Francisco indie Devil in the Woods to re-release this 31-minute debut first released locally back in March. The thumping rhythm section gives the band ammunition to rock hard when moments of floaty rapture give way to a colorful sonic barrage. At times, it adds up to an earthier version of My Bloody Valentine's wombadelic bliss, most apparent on the standout "Electric Surgery." Rachel Staggs' ethereal honey-soaked vocals, eerily in line with MBV's Bilinda Butcher's, carries the track through a slow-strumming, echo-drenched buildup, and a sudden pause. Then waves of sound come crashing down as if somebody cranked up the long-lost hidden track from Loveless. Thick sheets of phased guitar form a wall of sound that melts into a vertigo-inducing whir that's a dead ringer for the Kevin Shields tremolo sound. And while the ExAir oeuvre is more on the rock end of the spectrum than much of MBV's work, it's exciting to know they are capable of such ethereal moments.
Michael Chamy, The Ausin Chronicle
The visceral punch of the thematic content is backed at every turn by melody among serrated riffs and amorphous percussion. Discussing the highs and lows of Bright Lights would just be splitting hairs, given its consistency, but a few tracks stand inches above the others. Of the two songs to be carried over from their self-titled EP, "NYC"'s conflicted show of conditional love for the streets of Interpol's hometown is still one of the most brilliant cuts present. And as tight as the EP was, Interpol show how much more they're capable of with "Obstacle 1" and "The New," the range between which is striking. "Obstacle 1" is as close to Joy Division as Interpol gets, coupling harsh, restrained outbursts of aggression with disturbing imagery as Banks clearly gasps, "You'll go stabbing yourself in the neck." The tense lead guitar is a counterpoint, giving these explosive bursts added depth, just as Ian Curtis' emotional collapses were made more poignant by the fragile guitar that cradled them. By the time the album reaches "The New," the anger has dissipated, leaving only the calm sound of sober acceptance.
We might have otherwise mistaken Austin's Sound Team for an artist collective trafficking in 2nd-grade-level media. As it turns out, though, the accompanying album Into the Lens is far more than a soundtrack to an imaginary coloring book. The fantastic, whimsical artwork, the clever, wordy song titles, and the slightly goofy, laid-back, retro-psychedelic pop music contained within are all more than a little reminiscent of the Elephant 6 collective of bands that includes the Olivia Tremor Control, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Elf Power. Sound Team also possesses the Elephant 6-like ability to surprise at every twist and turn, dishing out in equal helpings pied-piper Moog marches, helium-drenched carnivalesque jigs, pulsating analog thumps, and chilled-out pastoral psyche-folk ditties. It's all tossed off casually, with the youthful grin that Wayne Coyne and Jonathan Donahue lost long ago in favor of a contrived wink. Into the Lens never fails to be interesting, but it does lose a bit of oomph as the band shrouds their exuberance in a swirling analog haze. Sound Team = a band, and another great example of the stream of local musical riches currently flying under the radar.
Micheal Chamy, Austin Chronicle
Sometimes you can just tell a band is going to be cool, even before you hear the first note. Consider the name "Warlocks," passed like the Olympic torch from the Grateful Dead to the Velvet Underground (both briefly adopted the moniker) and now to this eight-person Los Angeles outfit. Or the resume: lader Bobby Hecksher, a veteran of psych-punks Charles Brown Superstar as well as the Magic Pacer, has worked with Beck and the Brian Jonestown Massacre and lists as influences Eno, Fripp, Kraftwerk, Neu!, Merzbow, Spacemen 3, Sonic Youth and the Melvins. Or even the visuals: the band's self-titled 2000 debut sported eyelid-peeling sleeve art by pop abstractionist Anthony Ausgang. Of course, it's after you hear the first note of the new Warlocks album, Rise and Fall, that surrender turns total. Opener "Jam of the Witches" is a 14-minute, massed-guitar symphonic invocation of Spacemen 3, early Pink Floyd, Space Ritual-era Hawkwind and the MC5's "Starship."
"There is nothing like the sound of two drummers playing in unison along with three guitars playing the same thing," says Hecksher. "On paper, it doesn't sound very psychedelic, but it isvery powerful. That song, in fact, was done on the first take. It came almost at the end of an entire day of studio time blown, everyone drunk, stoned and bored. But we've played for two years together now, and jamming comes very easy for us."
My Morning Jacket, the Louisville, KY outfit that continue to defy categorization, return with a new E.P. entitled "Chocolate and Ice." Equal parts Southern Blues, Americana and dreamy psychedelia, My Morning Jacket's appeal stems from, among other things, the hauntingly raw vocals of lead singer and guitarist, Jim James. While seeming to simultaneously channel the spirits of both Neil Young and Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne, Jim James leads his musical cohorts along a journey of reverb-drenched melodies, velvet melancholy lyrics, and instrumentation that combines old country swagger with classic pop sentimentality. --Bad Man Recording (Read More)
David Kilgour
New Zealand singer-guitarist Kilgour breaks loose from his veteran band The Clean for this brilliantly named solo outing. It'll be familiar turf to fans of The Clean, but while that band's charm relies as much on their keen post-punk thud as it does on Kilgour's individual musicianship, A Feather In The Engine is a kind of modern psychedelic guitar record. Nothing flashy, mind -- just a fluid procession of jangling electrics and acoustics that dovetail with a low-fuss backdrop of piano, strings and electronics.
If you think you haven't heard a great anti-guitar-hero record since The Soft Boys' Underwater Moonlight -- okay, since Pavement's Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain -- this is the place to pick up again. Recommended for fans of: Velvet Underground, The Clean, Yo La Tengo, Robyn Hitchcock. Kilgour opens for Lambchop at Lee's Palace, March 7. --Canoe (Read More)
Li'l Cap'n Travis
LISTEN: "Little Drops of Summer"
ONCE IN A great long while, a group comes along with uncommon grit, guts and tenderness. Li'l Cap'n Travis is just such a group. This young band of Texas roqueros is riding up on the horizon of hardcore country music with saddlebags full of Buck Owens and Beach Boys, Loretta Lynn and the Flaming Lips.
Originally formed in the late nineties as a side project for Austin indie-roquistadors Christian Braafladt (Pajamacus), Adam "Earthpig" Bork (Earthpig and Fire), Jeff Johnston (Orange Mothers), Matt Kinsey and Mandon Maloney (both of Wookie), Li'l Cap'n Travis quickly gained its own momentum, gaining a nod from Austin Chronicle writers as best new group of 1998 and being chosen by Austin American Statesman writers as one of the top four live acts of 1999, among such artists as the Gourds, Kelly Willis and Willie Nelson. The year 2000 finds Li'l Cap'n celebrating the spring release of its self-titled debut, recorded in Austin at Sixteen Deluxe's famed Bubble studio.
The new album captures LCT's inventive take on classic country, featuring sand and surf-washed harmonies, eerie Moog organ and plenty of honky-tonk gusto. With songs about life in Amarillo, rodeo clowns, Trans Ams, little drops of summer, and washed-away ponies, the Li'l Cap'n may make you stomp your feet, pop a top, or just flat-out weep.
With member-for-life Bork relocating to New York City, LCT has added pedal steel tophand "Sweet" Gary Newcomb and is upping the stakes in C & W exploration at live shows throughout Texas and beyond.
Trail of Dead
AUSTIN CHRONICLE
by Greg Beets
Rating: *** 1/2
Like lettuce wrapped around a steaming egg roll, Austin's Trail of Dead revels in the yin-yang of discordant extremes. Their debut gushes forth in a manic pattern of rising and falling, whispers coupled with screams, and quiet, unassuming beginnings followed by torturous, hyper-climactic endings. The real pleasure for the listener is trying to figure out how they're going to get back down from whatever feedback-blistered fix they've willfully thrown themselves into. Traces of Sonic Youth, Nice Strong Arm, and My Bloody Valentine dot Trail of Dead's warbled cacophony, but the nice, thick snare adds a bit of home-fried punk backbone to the stew. Amid this wall of noise, the sweetly desperate "Half of What" could actually be a parallel universe hit single on account of its urgent, pulse-raising backbeat. All eight songs seem to be thematically tied together in loose form by the triumph of celebrity over humanity as a not-so-subtle form of fascism. However, Trail of Dead's musical take on this concept is a lot more Euro-cinematic and ambiguous than Pete Townshend's or Roger Waters'. No matter how you slice it, this music resonates with the sound of 1000 screaming car alarms begging you to prick up your ears in a world where anything less isn't even worthy of a passing glance.
Wilco Yankee Foxtrot Hotel
So does Yankee Hotel Foxtrot justify the controversy, delay and buzz? Everyone, I think, already knows that the answer is yes; all I can offer is "me too" and reiterate. And after half a year living with a bootleg copy, the music remains revelatory. Complex and dangerously catchy, lyrically sophisticated and provocative, noisy and somehow serene, Wilco's aging new album is simply a masterpiece; it is equally magnificent in headphones, cars and parties. And as anyone who's seen the mixed-bag crowd at Wilco shows knows, it will find a home in the collections of hippies, frat boys, acid-eating prep schoolers, and the record store apparatchiks of the indiocracy. No one is too good for this album; it is better than all of us.
But for all the talk of terminally hip influences-- Jim O'Rourke, krautrock, and The Conet Project-- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot still conjures a classic rock radio station on Fourth of July weekend. And this extends beyond the alternating Byrds/Stones/Beatles comparisons that pepper every Wilco review ever written; Yankee Hotel Foxtrot evokes Steely Dan, the Eagles, Wings, Derek & The Dominos and Traffic. The slightly disconnected, piano-led "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart," is delicately laced with noise, whistles and percussive clutter, like some great grandson of "A Day in the Life." The muted, "Kamera" strums along darkly with acoustic and electric guitars; the twittering electronics in the background don't quite mitigate the tune's comparability to the clever and precise (though now largely neglected) jazz-inflected blues-rock of Dire Straits' stunning debut. --Pitchfork (Read More)
This is pop music that brings joyous sounds to your immediate environment and beyond. Both folk and psychedelia help reflect the groupsí eclectic background. Featuring members of Ladybug Transistor, Sixth Great Lake, Silver Jews, and Jim OíRourkeís touring band.
Translucent dream pop describes the debut album of this US trio. Their gently distorted sound hovers somewhere between My Bloody Valentine (obviously) and Low. The album gives you the sensation of a 45-minute trip in the mountains, where the air is so thin that it's difficult to breathe and instantaneous tiredness makes you see black spots everywhere.
Listen to Should (MP3)
Crescent features former and current members of Flying Saucer Attack, Movietone and Amp. From dubbed-out moonscapes to fractured psych mysteries, from barely there piano ballads to dissonant guitar-clamor, Crescent explores the edges of sound. If you enjoy This Heat, Talk Talk or Joy Division, you'll love this track.
Crescent's "Lights" (MP3)
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