I’ve enjoyed Los Campesinos!’s records in the past and I’m pretty excited about the prospect of a new release. This song doesn’t deviate too far from their previous releases although to my ear it sounds a bit more musical (more instruments, more vocals) and less abrasive. The basic elements are still there:great lyrics delivered in a more or less spoken way, followed on its heels by big shouty sections (and the whole band seems to be shouting along on this one).
This song also feels a little warmer, although the lyrics “by your hand is the only end I’ve foreseen” is either really dark or really naughty depending on how well it correlates to the verses. Regardless, the chorus is catchy and fun to sing and the lyrics are wonderfully twisted. Los Campesinos! have done it again.
And here’s the video.
[READ: September 16, 2011] “Jean-Baptiste Labat and the Buccaneer Barbecue in Seventeenth-Century Martinique”
I was interested in this article because it talked about the boucan and the buccaneer, and both of these things were mentioned in Book 9 of The 39 Clues. It was a weird sort of coincidence that the boucan which I had never heard of before should appear in two things that I read about week apart (and then this weekend the Pa Renaissance Faire was pyrate themed!). I was also interested because of the way this article was presented in the email to us: “if you have ever wondered on what foods a seventeenth-century missionary from the island of Martinique dined, check out this article from Gastronomica. (Hint: They include manatee, lizard, and parakeet)” made it a must-read.
While the article does, indeed make mention of these foodstuffs, it is by no means the extent of the article. Rather, Toczyski looks at what Labat, a French priest and a missionary, wrote in his extensive chronicle about his stay in the Caribbean. In particular, she focuses on the amazing breadth and depth of his gastronomical accounts (which includes details about all the meals they ate en route (the ship was amazingly well stocked–they even had a garden on board, which was under guard day and night (!); and then on the island he also talks in loving detail (with recipes) of all of the native dishes that he would eventually consume (including turtles, frogs and the palm worm (see picture at right (the picture and an awesome description of eating the palm worm is here at Boots in the Oven, at the bottom of the page).
By most standards this Neil Young album is a disaster. It’s so bad that despite updating his entire catalog and releasing all kinds of bootleg concerts, he has never issued this disc on CD in the States. So, just what’s so awful about this disc?
Well, mostly it’s awful as a Neil Young disc. Meaning, if you like Neil Young (either flavor: country/folk or hard rock/grunge) this disc is a big fat HUH?? Neil Young has gone all synthy? And not just synth but computerized synthy–sometimes his voice is utterly like a computer. It’s a travesty, it’s a shame, it’s an incredible surprise. Unless you listen to it without thinking of it as a Neil Young record.
But after all that introduction, the biggest surprise is the first song. You’ve been prepped for this weird album full of computer nonsense and you get the fairly standard (if a little dull) rockabilly type music of “A Little Thing Called Love.” It’s a pretty standard Neil Young song for the time. Hmm, maybe the album isn’t that weird.
Well, then comes “Computer Age” and the keyboards kick in. Interestingly, to me anyhow, this is the year that Rush released Signals. Signals was the album where Rush fans said Woah, what’s with the keyboards guys. Similarly, “Computer Age” makes you say, geez, was there a sale on keyboards in Canada? The keyboards are kind of thin and wheedly, but the real surprise comes in the processed vocals (Rush never went that far). The vocals are basically the 1980s equivalent of auto-tune (no idea how they did this back then). Because the song is all about the computer age it kind of makes sense that he would use this weird robotic voice. Sometimes it’s the only voice, although he also uses the computer voice as a high-pitched harmony over his normal singing voice.
“We R in Control” sounds like it might be a heavy rocker (anemic production notwithstanding) until we get more computer vocals. Again, conceptually it works (its all about the dominance of CCTV), but it is pretty weird as a Neil Young song.
And then comes yet another shock, “Transformer Man.” Yes, THAT “Transformer Man,” except not. This original version of the song is sung entirely in a processed super high pitched computer voice that is almost hard to understand). The only “normal’ part of the song is the occasional chorus and the “do do do dos.” It sounds like a weird cover. Sarah, who loves Neil Young, practically ran out of the room when she heard this version.
“Computer Cowboy (aka Syscrusher)” continues in that same vein. Musically it’s a bit more experimental (and the computer vocals are in a much lower register). Although I think it’s probably the least interesting of these songs.
Just to confuse the listener further, “Hold On to Your Love” is a conventional poppy song–no computer anything (aside from occasional keyboard notes). Then comes the 8 minute “Sample and Hold” the most computerized song of the bunch and one of the weirder, cooler songs on the disc. It really feels like a complete song–all vocodered out with multiple layers of vocals, not thin and lacking substance like some of the tracks. It opens with personal stats (hair: blonde, eyes: blue) and proceeds through a litany of repeated “new design, new design” motifs.
This is followed by a remake of “Mr Soul” previously only on Decade. This is a new vocodered-harmonies version of the song.
The biggest failure of the disc to me is “Like an Inca” it’s nine minutes of virtually the same guitar riff. The chorus is pretty wonderful, but it’s a very minor part of the song itself. It is fairly traditional Neil song, I just wish it were much shorter.
So, this travesty of a disc is actually pretty interesting and, for me, pretty enjoyable. Most of these synthy songs sound kind of weak but I think that has more to do with the production of the time. I’d love to hear newly recorded versions of these songs (with or without the vocoder) to see what he could do with a great production team behind him.
Trans is not a Neil Young disc in any conventional sense, but as an experiment, as a document of early 80s synth music, it not only holds up, it actually pushes a lot of envelopes. I’m not saying he was trying to out Kraftwerk Kraftwerk or anything like that, but for a folk/rock singer to take chances like this was pretty admirable. Shame everybody hated it.
[READ: July 5, 2011] Five Dials 19
Five Dials 19 is the Parenting Issue. But rather than offering parenting advice, the writers simply talk about what it’s like to be a parent, or to have a parent. It was one of the most enjoyable Five Dials issues I have read so far.
CRAIG TAYLOR & DIEDRE DOLAN-On Foreign Bureuas and Parenting Issues
I enjoyed Taylor’s introduction, in which he explains that he is not very useful for a parenting issue That most of the duties will be taken on by Diedre Dolan in NYC. They are currently in her house working while her daughter plays in the next room. His ending comment was hilarious:
Also, as is traditional at most newsweeklies, someone just put a plastic tiara on my head and then ran away laughing at me.
I resist Parenting magazines, from Parents to Parenting to Fretful Mother, they all offer some sound advice but only after they offer heaps and heaps of guilt and impossible standards. So I was delighted to see that Five Dials would take an approach to parenting that I fully approve of. Dolan writes:
Nobody knows what works. Most people just make some choices and defend them for the next 18 to 50 years – claiming nurture (good manners) or nature (crippling shyness) when it suits them best.
And indeed, the magazine made me feel a lot better about my skills (or lack) as a parent. (more…)
Just when I was convinced that Primus were a done deal, I learned that they were not only touring but had just released a free downloadable EP of their recent rehearsals. It’s got 4 songs: two super oldies, 1 pretty oldie and one not terribly old one (these designations are in terms of albums releases, not length of time ago, as they would all be old ones by that reckoning).
The two oldies are my favorites: “Pudding Time” sounds wonderful–a few updates, and slight improv things, but basically that’s the song that introduced me to Primus. “Harold of the Rocks” is the other one. I love Harold, because it is such a weird, crazy song (even by Primus standards). Lyrically, it’s about some guys who meet the fabled Harold of the Rocks. Sometime later the narrator meets Harold again. Harold is currently lit up like an old Christmas Tree and he tells the narrator that he doesn’t remember much about what happened that night. And that’s pretty much it. It even mentions Schooly D! Great stuff.
The other two songs are “American Life” which comes from Sailing the Seas of Cheese. It’s a deep cut as opposed to the more obvious single, “Jerry was a Race Car Driver.” It’s nice to hear that song again, as it wasn’t very high-profile, although it is surprising to me that it’s 3 minutes longer than the original. “Duchess and the Proverbial Mind Spread” is from The Brown Album, an album I don’t know all that well. It’s got some good stuff in it, including a pretty good solo from Ler.
This EP features the drumming of Jay Lane, who was in Primus even before “Herb” (who I miss very much) and was in Sausage. “Herb” by the way, was in A Perfect Circle and THE BLUE MAN GROUP! Holy cowboys!
Primus sucks!
[READ: July 25, 2011] “Last Night”
This is an excerpt from Zone One, a book Colson Whitehead signed for me at BEA (I really must read it one of these days).
The story opens with something happening on Last Night. It’s a little confusing, and since no context is provided, it doesn’t make all that much sense until the very end of the excerpt which (the end) blew my mind.
The story concerns Mark Spitz–not Mark Spitz the swimmer (or maybe it is Mark Spitz the swimmer–again, no context), –a teenager who goes to Atlantic City with his friend Kyle. And for the most part, the story is pretty tame, almost dull (but Whitehead is a great writer and he invigorates what could have been a pretty typical Atlantic City gambling weekend). The boys gamble, get comped and basically don’t leave the casino for the duration of their stay.
What I love about the story is that little things, meaningless sentences like, “They did not watch the news nor receive news from the outside” [when you are on a casino weekend with buddies you do not check the news] seem innocuous–like little details that would fill out any story. It’s only later that… (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: BRENDAN PERRY-Live at KEXP, July 26, 2011 (2011).
Brendan Perry was the mastermind behind Dead Can Dance, one of the more influential bands on the 4AD label. I really haven’t listened to them in ages (goth is so 1990s), but I was delighted to see that Robin Guthrie and Brendan Perry performed a live set at KEXP.
There’s an interview explaining what Perry has been up to since his last solo album (in 1999)–he has a new one from 2010 that was just released in the States. He explains a lot about his early musical career and his interests (and living in New Zealand). But the magic really comes when he starts singing. And sadly his set has only two songs: “Song to the Siren” and “The Carnival is Over.”
Indeed, I had forgotten what a great, resonant voice Perry has. It is instantly recognizable and brought me back to Dead Can Dance immediately. “Song to the Siren” is a Tim Buckley cover, which he (and others) recorded for This Mortal Coil’s It’ll End in Tears album. This version has Robin Guthrie on guitar.
The other song, “The Carnival is Over” is a Dead Can Dance song (from Into the Labyrinth). This song is piano and strings and is immediately recognizable as a Dead Can Dance song. I admit it’s not as moving as the Tim Buckley song but that would be hard to accomplish (what is it about Guthrie’s echo pedal that is so amazing?). Nevertheless, it’s a great reunion and wonderful to hear his voice again.
[READ: July 19, 2011] Modelland
When I was at BEA, there was a lengthy line forming at one of the publisher’s tables. I found out that it was for Tyra Banks, who was making a “surprise” appearance. I certainly wasn’t going to wait for her, but after a few minutes, I heard people saying that she would be coming momentarily. So I hung out and when she arrived with her entourage, I snapped a few pictures and left.
A few days ago, my former co-worker Sandy came to work and left me a [signed!] copy of this excerpt (she had waited for Tyra and got her autograph). I really had no intention of reading the book, but I was delighted to have a copy of it. In the interest of embarrassing full disclosure, Sarah and I watch ANTM. However, in our defense, we FF just about every time someone speaks. We basically like it for the photo shoots and the final pictures. But we both feel that Tyra is a looney-tunes egomaniac.
But seeing the book on our table made me have to read it.
So how good could this book possible be, especially when the main character is named (seriously) Tookie de la Crème (and her sister is named Myrracle). Oh and holy cow Tyra’s own introduction says that this is the first book in a trilogy! Good grief.
The summary of the story is:
Welcome to Modelland, where every girl dreams of the beauty and glamour of the Land on the top of the mountain. Every girl but one.
Right.
Well, surprise, surpise…the story is actually quite interesting. (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: THE RESIDENTS-Meet the Residents plus Santa Dog EP (1973/1972).
Like a proto- Negativland meets Primus, The Residents took the world by storm in 1973. Their debut album (pictured here) bore the unmistakable tagline: The First Album by North Louisiana’s Phenomenal Pop Combo. And so it is.
Read more about the album in the Jon Savage essay below.
“Boots” is a sampled and remashed version of “These Boots Are Made for Walking.” “Gylum Bardot” sounds like a Primus demo. “Breath and Length” is noise and noise and effects and a soothing female vocal singing the title. “Consuelo’s Departure” is a noisy soundtrack to nothing and “Smelly Tongues” sounds like a hammered dulcimer with a menacing bassline behind it until the vocals come in: “Smelly tongues looked just as they felt”. And all 6 of these songs last less than ten minutes total.
“Rest Aria” changes tempo of things. It’s five minutes long. It starts as a simple piano track (slightly out of tune) but it slowly adds crazy horns and what sounds like children’s instruments. The other longish song, “Spotted Pinto Beans” comes with a kind of faux chorus (female and then male) singing a kind of call and response which is overtaken by noise.
The one-minute “Skratz” comes between these two longer songs and is mostly mumbling spoken vocal. “Infant Tango” sounds like a normal song. It opens with a funky wah wahed guitar. Of course, the skronking horns and mumbled bass vocals tell you this is not going to be a hit. It runs 6 minutes long with a strange little “guitar solo” in the middle.
“Seasoned Greetings” (with it’s weird holiday wishes at the end) segues into the 9 minute “N-Er-Gee (Crisis Blues”). “N-Er-Gee” is a piano “melody” which is really someone banging the same notes very hard on the piano. The voice on both tracks sounds like the aural equivalent of blackface until the sample (a very long sample that apparently voided placement on some releases) of “Nobody But You” morphs into a manipulated sampling of the word “boogaloo” and eventually becomes a dissonant chant of the title.
The appended Santa Dog is a bit more song-like. Totally weird songs yes, but there’s actual melodies and lyrics. Like on “Fire”: “Santa dog’s a Jesus fetus.” “Aircraft Damage” is mostly a bunch of people reciting bizarre lyrics over each other. The whole EP was about 12 minutes. It’s weird but more palatable than the LP.
Despite how much this album foreshadowed loony alternative bands in the future, there is a clear predecessor in Trout Mask Replica. Although Captain Beefheart followed a (relatively) more conventional song structure, you can hear elements of the Beefheart within. This album is also notable for being made in the early 70s when the technology to do this easily was very far away. You could whip this album up in a few minutes now, but back then with splice and paste, it would take ages.
It did not sell as well as the similarly titled Meet the Beatles.
[READ: June 16, 2011] Five Dials Number 11
Five Dials Number 10 was a special issue, but Number 11 goes back to the format we know. It sort of has a theme about lists. It contains half a dozen short essays and one long short story by Paul Murray (author of Skippy Dies). This issue is also something of a surprise as it weighs in at a fairly small 16 pages (sometimes smaller is perfectly fine). The issue also raised a couple of totally weird coincidences which I will point out as they come up.
CRAIG TAYLOR-A Letter from the Editor: On Wilton’s and Lists
Number 10 was designed to be ready for an evening at Wilton’s Music Hall on February 26th. But the real theme of the issue is lists. In part this is inspired by the Raymond Chandler entry, it’s also inspired because Taylor keeps lists around the office. At the end of the letter he provides a list of all of the notes he’d left to himself in the office. Some are about the issue (Paul Murray manuscript), other are seemingly more random (USA 5 Canada 3, men’s Olympic ice hockey result; Canada 7-Russia 3, men’s Olympic ice hockey result; ‘Range Life’–Pavement). And the one that is most coincidental to me–(The Umbrellas of Cherbourg–Jacques Demy). This is coincidental because on the day that I read this, my friend Lar wrote a post about this very movie, which was completely unknown to me. (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: TRENCHMOUTH-Vs the Light of the Sun (1994).
I learned about Trenchmouth from an interview with Fred Armisen on The Sound of Young America. He informed us that he was the drummer in Trenchmouth before he was on SNL. And he and Jesse Thorn had an amusing discussion about how he was sure they would make it big. I can’t recall if they played a snippet of the band or not, but it’s a pretty laughable thought that Trenchmouth might be his claim to fame. Because they are awesome, but they are totally NOT commercial.
In fact, just a few seconds into the lead-off track “Washington! Washington!” will tell you how noncommercial they are. (It’s a sort of fast heavy punk version of prog rock–jazzy guitars, independent bass, wonderful drumming (Armisen kicks ass) and the screamed hyperkinetic vocals of Damon Locks (he’s passionate, man).
There’s a lot of atonal work here (“Washington! Washington!” opens with drums and Lock’s ragged voice), and once the guitars kick in, it actually makes the song more confusing. “A Prescription Written in a Different Language” opens with wavering harmonic notes before busting into a full on punk noisefest. The album lurches around to different styles of weird noise rock (most of the songs are quite short, although “A Man without Lungs” runs over 6 minutes).
But before making it sounds like this is a mess of a record, a few listens will reveal the sanity beneath the chaos. There are even some discernible choruses: “Here Comes the Automata”‘s “Everybody needs protection” and “Bricks Should Have Wings”‘ “Let the bricks fly” are fun to sing along to. Similarly, the guitar work that opens “Set the Oven at 400” is rather conventional and quite pretty.
This disc is not for most people, but Trenchmouth is a cool band that has been unfairly lost to the annals of history.
[READ: April 4, 2011] “Rome, 1974”
I had received a pre-pub of Bezmozgis’ novel The Free World, but I haven’t read it yet. I am interested in Bezmozgis’ writing and was planning to read the book. As it turns out this “story” is really an excerpt from the novel.
The story is about the Krasnansky family, a Jewish extended family emigrating from the Soviet Union to Italy. The opening scenes detail the physical hardship that such a move would have taken (it’s played for somewhat comic effect when the large duffel bags are thrown off the train). There is much dissent among the family members although they sem to settle in well–except for patriarch Samuil who is disconcerted by everything and unhappy to have left the communist country he feels comfortable in. (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: LES CLAYPOOL-5 Gallons of Diesel (DVD) (2005).
I’ve loved Primus for years. And if you love Primus, chances are you love Les Claypool. And Les Claypool has created and released music with all manner of bands since Primus broke up (they have since gotten back together and have planned a new release for July). I don’t love all of his solo releases, but they all have something to commend them, and he’s made some great, unheralded music during those years.
This DVD covers the years from Sausage through to 2005. At first I was pretty excited by the DVD. The set opens with the off the wall video for Sausage’s “Riddles Are Abound Tonight” which is followed by a mercifully short “making of” video.
Then things started to go downhill somewhat. The rest of the DVD is live, which is fine (Les live is a thing of beauty). It’s just that for many of the videos the quality is terrible. The audio is also not ideal all the way through (that may have been my setup, but there were certainly songs that were much quieter than others). Now I accept that there weren’t professional film crews out for Les Claypool’s Holy Mackerel tour, and that these videos are basically bootleg, but it seems like they may have spruced them up a bit for the DVD.
Things change with the switch to Oysterhead. I could have watched several songs from Oysterhead and I wonder why they chose only one. This is a professional quality mix (although it is a little dark) and I have to say that the whole song is stolen by Trey Anastasio’s guitar thing. It’s a guitar (called the MatterHorn) but during the verses of the song it appears to be a kind of theremin on the reverse side (with a full-sized antler sticking out of the bottom) . He holds the thing upside down and waves at it to generate noise. It was bewitching.
But Trey wasn’t the only one with a weird instrument. For the Frog Brigade set(s) on one of the songs, Les plays a “bass” which is just one string (called the Whamola). He hits it with a stick and changes the notes with a movable handle that he raises and lowers. I’ve never seen anything like that, either. Most of the Frog Brigade set is outside at a festival. The lighting is good but the sound is awful. In one song, the poor guy on percussion is banging away at various things and you simply cannot hear them. Les also uses a secondary microphone (the Sandman–which has a great story behind it) but its volume is also quite low, which is a shame as you can’t hear him for quite a bit.
When Colonel Claypool’s Bucket of Bernie Brains the setting is an odd one (they appear to be on a cruise(?)). It’s basically two lengthy jams, which is fine. Buckethead amazes with his skills. But the Bernie on keyboards, I can’t tell if he was screwing up or messing around during his solos.
There’s two more songs attributed to just Les Claypool, and this version of “Riddles Are Abound Tonight” is especially neat because there is a sitar playing the majority of the riff.
The DVD extras are fun. There’s a weird set from a band called 3 Guys Name Schmo which is 2 bassists and a drummer. The other bassist is miked very loud and it’s hard to hear Les (imagine outbassing Les Claypool!). Then there’s the second official video on the disc for “Buzzards of Green Hill” (very low budget). This comes with a making of the video video and a making of the audio video. Both are interesting and brief, giving tidbits of info without overwhelming us.
The final two items come from an actual TV show called Fly Fishing the World. I don’t fish, so I never knew this show existed. But sure enough, there’s our Les going to two separate locations and fishing on. The best part is that they play lots of Primus music between fishing (probably the most Primus music ever played on non-music TV), and they interview him as well (I didn’t know he had such cute kids). Despite my not knowing the show or caring about fishing, I found the whole program enjoyable and fascinating (and they catch and release as well). It’s well worth the time.
So overall, this is a mixed bag. There’s not a lot of video of Les’ non-Primus music out there, so in that respect this is great. I just wish the quality was better.
[READ: March 25, 2011] “Life in Three Houses”
This is an excerpt from Suicide. The introduction states that days after delivering the manuscript of Suicide, Levé killed himself. I suspect that that is the main reason that this story was published here.
It opens promisingly and very interestingly in the second person. The story tells us that you set off to play tennis with your wife, but you backtrack and go into the basement where you shoot yourself. Your wife finds you moments later but misses the clue you set out for her (that was handled very well).
The rest of the story (and there’s quite a lot) gets confusing. First off because it stays in the second person (even after death) but it also goes into apparent flashbacks. Even more confusing is the addition of an I as the narrator. An I who knows “you” but who was not present for the suicide so how could he have all these details?
The book is being published by Dalkey Archive Press. It’s possible that the excerpts do an injustice to the full book, but I fear that I will not be reading any more by this author.
SOUNDTRACK: PJ HARVEY-Live at the Warfield Theater, San Francisco, April 14, 2011 (2011).
NPR was given permission to share this PJ Harvey concert. However, they were only allowed to share about half of it. The show is fairly short to begin with (about 75 minutes) but the downloadable portion is barely 40 minutes. It turns out that NPR was given the rights to all of the songs from the new album, Let England Shake.
Now, I have no idea how things like this work, why they are only given access to these songs as opposed to the other ones, or why an artist (or management) would not let her fans hear the ten or so other songs she played that night. Legal restrictions are weird and usually stupid. But as I’ve mentioned before, you shouldn’t complain about free stuff.
So, what we get here is a spliced together concert (it sounds seamless, although they have removed all of the banter (if there was any)). The album is played in its entirety (although we were not given “Written on the Forehead” which happens to be the song they are playing the most on the radio here), but it’s not played in order. It was also interspersed with older songs “The Devil” and “Silence” from White Chalk, “The Sky Lit Up” and Angeline” from Is This Desire, “Pocket Knife” from Uh Huh Her, “Down by the Water” and “C’mon Billy” from To Bring Her My Love, (I’d like to hear how she handles the older songs, now that’s she’s singing primarily in the higher register). And, “Big Exit” from Stories from the City.
It’s pretty clear that Harvey is no longer the young woman who made those first couple albums. And she sounds strong and confident here. It’s a great set; the autoharp never sounded better.
[READ: April 20, 2011] Five Dials Number 5
I have been enjoying all of the Five Dials, but this issue is easily my favorite so far. The “theme” of this issue is translation. Translators are the unheralded workers in literature, and while I have been trying to give them credit in my posts, I don’t always pay them enough attention (except when a translation is awkward or clunky).
But in addition to the theme (and the really cool interviews with some translators, I thought the fiction was outstanding and I loved Alain de Botton’s Advice column. The whole issue was great. (more…)
Surfer Blood is a confusing band. Their music sounds like a whole bunch of different late-80’s alterna-rock bands that I love. But their vocalist (and the music of the verses) doesn’t really fit that style–I’m not sure what those sound like) and some of it is drenched in a kind of Beach Boys-reverb that befits the Surfer part of their name.
It’s a fascinating amalgam of styles that works very well and which is chock full of catchy choruses. “Floating Vibes” opens with a big loud guitar note, that quickly morphs into a catchy verse line. Conversely, “Swim” opens with a strange shouty kind of introduction and then morphs into a crazily catchy chorus (also shouted).
“Harmonix” opens with a “rock n roll” 50s style riff, then jumps to cool guitar harmonics and then turns into a song that sounds unmistakably late 80s to me (although maybe it sounds like a song my friend Garry wrote back in the late 80s).
“Neighbor Riffs” is a rocking 2 minute instrumental, which is followed by “Twin Peaks,” a song that sounds unmistakably late 80s but I can’t decide why (it’s also great because it’s about, you know, Twin Peaks). I’m confused by the next pair of songs: “Fast Jabroni” and “Slow Jabroni” as they do not seem related and the Fast song is much better. In fact the combination of “Slow Jabroni” and the next song, “Anchorage” really drag the disc as those two songs are over 12 minutes in total (whereas most of the songs are in the 3-4 minute range). Neither of the songs is bad (in fact “Anchorage” is pretty cool), they just both last too long.
As I try to process who this band sounds like, I’m going to let Carrie Brownstein provide the best description of them:
Sometimes an album comes from people who you can tell love some of the same music as you. And when they interpret the bands you both love, when they run it through their own brains and hearts and hands and amps, instead of sounding like a watered-down version of the progenitors, it sounds fresh and heartfelt and energized. That’s Surfer Blood for me.
And me too.
[READ: May 16, 2011] “We Come in Peace”
This is one of my favorite short stories that I’ve read in a long time. It appeals to me for a number of reasons (I love the conceit of angels tinkering with humans), but it’s also very well written and thoroughly engaging. I think the only disappointment about it is that it’s a short story and not a novel (although the intro to the story says that this is merely an excerpt from the short story which appears in full length in Gartner’s new collection of short stories, Better Living Through Plastic Explosives).
I feared that the story would be daunting at first because it includes a dramatis personae (which can be intimidating for a short story). But the dramatis personae just tells us which angels are matched to which humans. For yes, this is a story about five angels who are sent to earth to learn about the five senses. Amusingly, this is spurred on because humans have discovered the extra taste sensation known as umami.
So, the five angels are sent to a Canadian suburb to inhabit the bodies of 5 students: Bashaar, an athlete and dancer who is beset by local radical muslims to get him to join; Stephan a good student (ie., dork) who is turned cool by his angel, much to his family’s dismay; Leo, a nice dude; Jason, the school bully, who is inhabited by a happy angel; and Jessica, an anorexic girl who suddenly eats, develops a nice body and becomes romantically involved with 16-year-old Cullen. Each of the angels subsumes the personality of the kids (whose families are, needless to say, freaked out by the changes). (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: KANYE WEST-My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010).
Before buying this album I really only knew of Kanye West as a loudmouthed guy who tweeted a lot and told off George Bush. But then everyone was raving about this album (Pitchfork gave it a 10 out of 10!). So I decided to check it out. And I can’t get over how great an album it is.
Now I’m going to start this review by mentioning a few things I dislike about rap as a genre. 1) I dislike all of the “guests” that appear on a record–I bought the album because for you, not your friends. 2) I dislike excessive use of “unh” and “yeah” at the beginning of a track; when you have nothing to say–let the backing music flow, save your voice for actual words. 3) Rap is still terribly misogynist and vulgar–I’ve nothing against vulgarity per se (I do have something against misogyny) but excessive use is lazy, and it stands out much more in a rap song since you’re saying the words not singing them.
The Kanye West album is guilty of all three of these things, and yet I still think it’s fantastic. The first reason is because it goes beyond a lot of rap by introducing real musical content into the songs. This is not an “all rap is just a beatbox” dismissal of rap, it’s an observation that rap tends to be more about the lyrics and the musical accompaniment can get kind of lazy. West’s songs have (beautiful) choruses, strings, and samples that augment the rest of the song, as opposed to samples that ARE the song. And Kanye West’s voice is great. His delivery is weird and twisted, a little cocky but more funny, with a twisted attitude that is really cool–and to my rather limited palate of rappers, it’s original.
The opening of the disc “Dark Fantasy” has a chorus singing “Can we get much higher” which is catchy and cool (and is used in the promo for The Hangover 2). The switch from this opening to the rapping works well (aside from the FOUR “yea”s). Although I don’t love the yeahs, I love his delivery, and that he occasionally ends lines with these weird “hunh” sounds, that are wonderfully emphatic.
The guests start showing up on track 2, but even the guests can’t detract from the excellent guitars of the song (and the cool solo). And I’ll say about the guests that I like some of them, but for the most part I’d rather hear Kanye.
“Power” samples King Crimson’s, “21st Century Schizoid Man”; anyone who samples King Crimson is alright with me. But to use it so perfectly, to make it part of your song is real genius. It works musically as well as within the overall concept of the album.
“All of the Lights” (with the pretty piano intro) features scads of guests including John Legend, The-Dream, Elly Jackson, Alicia Keys, Fergie, Kid Cudi, Elton John (!), and Rihanna. I can hear some of these people but not Elton John (why would he agree to be on a track where you can’t even hear him?). It is a beautiful pop track nevertheless.
“Monster” is a monster of tracks with yet more guests (I like that some of these guests break with the typical guest, like Bon Iver (!)). And I really like Nicki Minaj’s verse. [I’m not familiar with her work at all (in fact I keep wanting to say Minja instead of Minaj) but her verse with the wonderfully crazy vocal styling she displays is weird and cool and very powerful–I would like to check out her solo album, but the samples I heard weren’t that interesting]. It also has a great repeated chorus of being a “motherfucking monster.”
It’s followed by the even more catchy “So Appalled” (with FIVE guest rappers–some of whom I’ve never heard of but who do a good job. I love Cyhi da Prince’s lyrics: “I am so outrageous, I wear my pride on my sleeve like a bracelet, if God had an iPod, I’d be on his playlist” or “So call my lady Rosa Parks/I am nothing like them niggas baby those are marks/I met this girl on Valentine’s Day/fucked her in May/she found out about April so she chose to March” or this line, “y’all just some major haters and some math minors.”
“Devil in a New Dress” opens with a bunch of “unhs” (which I dislike) but this is nice ballad in the midst of all of the noise (and it has some clever lyrics). It morphs right into “Runaway” one of the more audacious singles I can think of. The piano melody is so simple (a single note to start) and the lyrics show Kanye as a loser in relationships. It’s a surprisingly thoughtful song for a song with a chorus that goes: “Lets have a toast for the douchebags, let’s have a toast for the asshole; a toast for the scumbags every one of them that I know. You been putting up with my shit for way too long…runaway fast as you can.” It gets even more audacious when you realize the last 4 minutes of the song are a solo with distorted voice. And the video…the video is 35 minutes long!
The sentiment of that song is erased by the next one, “Hell of a Life”. It opens with a great distorted guitar riff and lyrics about sex with a porn star. “Blame Game” is a surprisingly honest song about being nasty to your girlfriend (“I’d rather argue with you than be with someone else”). It features a sample of Aphex Twin’s (!) “Avril 14th”. And it’s quite a sad but lovely track. It ends with a very long skit by Chris Rock. I like Chris Rock, but this dialogue is kind of creepy because the woman who Rock is talking to (about the great sex she gave him) seems to be a robotic sample–why not have an actual woman talk to him?
The final track, “Lost in the World” has a lengthy intro by an auto-tuned Bon Iver. It’s one of my favorite tracks on the disc, especially the end, where the processed vocals get even weirder but accent the beat wonderfully. This track morphs into what is the actual final track, “Who Will Survive in America” which is basically a long recitation from Gil-Scot Heron. It works great as an album closer.
So, despite several things I don’t like about the disc, overall, it’s really an amazing release. And I can overlook the few things I dislike because the rest is so solid. I can’t decide if it’s worth looking for his earlier releases. How can they live up to this one?
[READ: May 6, 2011] McSweeney’s #37
This is the first McSweeney’s book where I’ve had to complain about the binding. The glue peeled off pretty quickly from the center cover. Fortunately, the back cover held up well. I’m guessing it’s because there’s an extra book tucked into the front cover which prevents the book from closing nicely when it’s removed.
But aside from that, the design of the cover is very cool. It is meant to look like a book (duh), but actually like a 3-D book, so the bottom right and top left corners are cut on diagonals (this makes for a very disconcerting-looking book inside–with triangles cut across the top). The artwork inside is also cool. In keeping with this appearance, each two page spread looks like a book with a spine drawing in the gutter of the pages). And the bottom of each page has lines making it look like the bottom of a book. (The illustrated margins are by SOPHIA CARA FRYDMAN and HENRY JAMES and there are interior paintings by JONATHAN RUNCIO).
The front matter is wonderful. Although it gives the usual publishing information, the bulk of this small print section is devoted to counteracting all the claims that the book is dead. It offers plenty of statistics to show that not only are the public reading, they are reading more than ever. The introduction also goes a long way towards arguing against the idea that people are reading less now than in the past. When was this “golden age” of readers? There’s also the wonderfully encouraging news that 98% of American are considered literate.
SOUNDTRACK–LOS CAMPESINOS!-“By Your Hand” (2011).
I’ve enjoyed Los Campesinos!’s records in the past and I’m pretty excited about the prospect of a new release. This song doesn’t deviate too far from their previous releases although to my ear it sounds a bit more musical (more instruments, more vocals) and less abrasive. The basic elements are still there:great lyrics delivered in a more or less spoken way, followed on its heels by big shouty sections (and the whole band seems to be shouting along on this one).
While the article does, indeed make mention of these foodstuffs, it is by no means the extent of the article. Rather, Toczyski looks at what Labat, a French priest and a missionary, wrote in his extensive chronicle about his stay in the Caribbean. In particular, she focuses on the amazing breadth and depth of his gastronomical accounts (which includes details about all the meals they ate en route (the ship was amazingly well stocked–they even had a garden on board, which was under guard day and night (!); and then on the island he also talks in loving detail (with recipes) of all of the native dishes that he would eventually consume (including turtles, frogs and the palm worm (see picture at right (the picture and an awesome description of eating the palm worm is here at Boots in the Oven, at the bottom of the page).
I Just Read About That... 