Lily Allen
Alright, Still
Capitol
originally published March 14, 2007
Genre effects our experience of music so much that it's an inextricable part of a band's sound. We classify and judge styles of music so as to make quick assessments of the new: this sounds like techno, I hate techno, etc. But imagine if you heard the White Stripes and thought "blues band," and assessed "blues bands are stupid," or "this blues band can't play for shit" and dismissed the group.
This is Lily Allen's problem, because when you first hear her, she sounds like a white English girl badly singing Caribbean music. But her songs aren't actually reggae or calypso, they just use those sounds to complement her voice in pop songs, and this works amazingly well, especially once the album's secret weapon is in place: the massive, booming drums, which push back against the lightness of all that sun-baked flutter.
Plus, the songs are good, chronicling and critiquing bad boys and bad girls in a way that's made some boys uncomfortable (always a good sign). Allen's voice lilts or jabs, as in "LDN," where the verses depict an urban hellscape while she trills up on the chorus: "Summer's in the sky oh why oh why / would I want to be anywhere else?" It's all pop in an outdated way, and in this it's like the Scissor Sisters, who could do a great cover of the Vaudevillian boogie of "Alfie," about her shiftless little brother. Like Allen herself, Alright, Still asks you to take it on its own terms. You should.
The Broken West
I Can't Go On, I'll Go On
Merge
originally published March 14, 2007
It seems like almost an admission of defeat to open up an album with the "Be My Baby" beat, the aural equivalent a note reading, "We have no new ideas, so here's some more crap from the '60s." In the case of The Broken West, though, it turns out to be a feint.
The beat in question opens "On the Bubble," backing a distorted organ hook and leading into clean-driving guitars and sweet harmonies with a tambourine hustle. Yawn. Track three has a lead so standard-issue it's impossible to hear the words for the facelessness of the music, even when more sweet harmonies crop up in the catchy chorus. The next song manages to rip off both Stephen Malkmus and "I Want You (She's So Heavy)." But I Can't Go On, I'll Go On 's tide turns with "Brass Ring." The album's got its share of ripoffs (Belle & Sebastian's "Women's Realm"), but in service of a song that would justify an album's worth of sins: a sunny melody plotted over a sandpit of an arrangement, cooing backup vocals, and a bounce that could go on forever, culminating in a smiling riot. There's even a good guitar solo!
Thankfully, there's not an entire album's worth of sins for which to repent. The second half of I Can't Go On, I'll Go On is solid, and the goodness of "Brass Ring" retrospectively redeems those first few missteps. The sound (keyboards over mod rock, competent male vocals) stays the same, but the songs are more of a piece, and by the end, you're glad you overcame the initial warning signs.
Bonnie "Prince" Billy & Bill Callahan
3 Drag City EPs
Strange Form of Life EP, Lay & Love EP, and Diamond Dancer EP
originally published March 14, 2007
It’s easy to take the talents Will Oldham and Bill Callahan for granted, or not fully appreciate the greatness of songs in the context of a whole album. When Bonnie "Prince" Billy’s The Letting Go was released, the preceding single EP Cursed Sleep was so magnificent that it was hard to listen to the album without feeling somewhat jarred because the rest of the songs paled by comparison.
But in hindsight, Lay & Love and Strange Form of Life are equally rewarding. Both title songs build around subtle rhythmic contrasts to the melancholy tones of Oldham and Dawn McCarthy’s drifting lyrical waltzes. There is therapeutic chemistry here that swells at the opposite end of Oldham’s brooding skulk in the band Superwolf.
The “b-sides” and videos contained herein are playful fringe benefits; want to hear Oldham cover Dylan? They are abstract counterparts to the prominent album cuts that are no less enjoyable. These bits and pieces didn’t make the final cut, but they reveal unique glimpses into the periphery of the mind that sculpted the higher profile and more cohesive albums.
Bill Callahan's Diamond Dancer is a teaser for the forthcoming album Woke On A Whaleheart . Neil Michael Haggerty’s production hand is immediately noticeable in the title song's catchy, sultry strut, which subtly echoes the drive of Rod Stewarts “Do You Think I’m Sexy.” Callahan has long incorporated a conscious element of dry humor into his songwriting and it’s hard to imagine him not smirking in the studio when crafting the song’s pelvic beats. But Diamond Dancer is unmistakably the artist formerly known as Smog removing himself one step further from his dense and foreboding former glories.
The track “Taken” exudes a quasi-Caribbean pulse that’s imbued with his stylistically awkward, but straight-faced sense of humor. Both cuts embody rhythmic elements that aren’t typical of Callahan’s mild-mannered presence. It signifies a landmark in his slow journey out of lo-fi depression that began with Knock Knock way back in 1999. For Callahan, slow and steady does indeed seem to be winning the race and Diamond Dancer promises greatness.
Rjd2
The Third Hand
XL Recordings
originally published March 14, 2007
R.J. Krohn is no stranger to pop music, although the majority of his fans will be at least perplexed by The Third Hand , his third proper full-length under the Rjd2 moniker. Oddly enough it was with his collaboration with MC Blueprint as Soul Position that I began noticing a pronounced leaning toward a rhythmic structure more akin to pop than his usual cut-up hip-hop style. Even 2004's Since We Last Spoke boasted a few hidden pop frameworks. But now Krohn has shrugged off nearly all his electronic wizardry and made the jump to live instrumentation. Why a guy recognized as one of the only sampling wizards able to rub shoulders with DJ Shadow would decide to go Jon Brion singer-songwritery is fascinating. And even at The Third Hand 's worst, it's still better than the last DJ Shadow disc.
Real drums, guitar riffs, the whole works, and all played by Krohn himself. That voice he first tried out on Since We Last Spoke is far more confident now, gracing almost every track. The essential sampler is still by his side, but now relegated firmly to the background. If not for a swirling loop underpinning the song, "Reality" would be a purely non-electronic work. But Krohn still is the master of tweaking a bass, and this is in full display on "Rules For Normal Living." Anyone missing the Dead Ringer days need only consult this track. Granted, the hip- hop's still largely MIA, but it's the perfect distillation of Rjd2 then and now.
It's a rock-solid album from someone trying rock for the first time. If you're looking for pop ecstasy anytime soon, Panda Bear's new LP Person Pitch , out next week, is absolutely the way to go. But if you still have an itch after that, The Third Hand will scratch it just fine.
David Childers & the Modern Don Juans
Burning In Hell
Little King
originally published March 14, 2007
As they usually do, David Childers & the Modern Don Juans have cut a record that’s tighter, richer and more decisive than any record they’ve cut before. As usual, it’s an even mix of high-powered rural rock, salty sawdust-floor country and impressionist folk. As usual, radio probably won’t know what to make of it, but, as usual, that’s radio's loss. All of his available “formats” have a growing hard-on for upbeat mediocrity. Childers’deep, commanding voice and shell-shocked charisma are a tough sell.
No matter how good the Modern Don Juans get, this will always be Childers’show, and he’s never had a better-constructed stage. The band has nailed down the last of its loose floorboards, and the big guy’s haunted magnetism claims all the attention it needs.
The usual cast of bad-tripping rabble and overdue romantics populates Burning In Hell . Its protags usually commence their journeys by fleeing some sort of abuse; whether they were the victims, the aggressors, or just fucked up in the head is seldom made clear. Whatever sort of fresh trouble they find, they never escape their fundamental conditions. Childers never suggests that they might have. Even when the narrator of “In the Early Morning”(a series of sad, ridiculous postcards that fits next to “Darkness On the Edge of Town”) discovers “a skeleton sitting in an office space,” still holding a telephone receiver, he can’t bring himself to react with much more than numb acknowledgment.
But these people always go down swinging. Like Bukowski, his spiritual mentor in many ways, Childers never punches up the pathos or the absurdity, so that both are left to communicate on their own terms.
Henry Flynt & Nova'billy
“I Was A Creep (Soul Mash)” / “Left Ear (Greensboro Senior High Song)”
Locust Music
originally published March 14, 2007
In 1975, Henry Flynt was the hillbilly of the NYC avant-garde scene. The Greensboro, NC native embraced the drone music that emanated from the likes of La Monte Young and did a brief stint in the Velvet Underground. Both played powerful roles in shaping his musical vision, but he had no problem poking fun at them with a wave of his fiddle stick.
Flynt retired his fiddle circa ’83, and, for a time, his recordings slipped into obscurity. But as his catalogue is slowly unearthed, his Southern-fried sensibilities culminate in hours of graceful minimalism. However, these live cuts recorded in 1975 capture a sound torn between the Velvets’heroin haze while eyeballing No Wave looming on the horizon. Flynt breaks the tension with a rollicking country-blues strut.
“I Was A Creep (Soul Mash)” is a funky number that explodes with "Saturday Night Live"-style saxophone exuberance. Flynt’s Muppet voice honks through the muddy recording qualities, sanding-off the detailed edges. The flip side, “Left Ear (Greensboro Senior High Song),” is a tangle of high and lonesome twang and hooks. Flynt shreds the strings with a passion that transcends the uptight arts of the times. Rockabilly guitar licks go round-for-round with the violin in a high-energy exchange. Nova’billy’s line-up remains anonymous, but the record is a monumental blast in the secret history of Henry Flynt - one that casts a raucous light on his aesthetic.
Graboids
Infinite Delay
StickFigure Recordings
originally published March 14, 2007
Yes, the Graboids are the fictional sand-worm like monsters terrorizing a small town in Tremors , but they are also a four-piece instrumental band from Charlottesville, VA. And if you're not careful, both will mess you up, big-time. Graboids play ambient post-indie, psychedelic and often prog-rock inspired experimental indie music. Layered soundscapes, dissonant riffs, atmospheric distortion and delays, and an innumerable army of effects create Infinite Delay .
Surprisingly enough, the album remains cohesive and yet uncompromisingly eccentric. Songs carry on way past the five-minute mark, but with so much going on in one song, they would have to. Graboids have taken propriety up to the roof and are more than happy to let it dangle precariously on the edge. At best, Infinite Delay most closely resembles Godspeed You! Black Emperor and the Mars Volta or even a little of Explosions in the Sky, but it quickly shifts gears and leers into another genre before a comparative finger can be pointed. Each song has its own personality, and, depending on what you're in the mood for, there's a song that will match it perfectly; whether it is the delicate, dreamy song "Tremolo" or the psychedelic assault of "A Certain Ratio of Ducks," it's hard not to just fall into this album.
The track "Top of the Network" is stellar, despite the fact that it's a witty political jab in rap form appearing out of nowhere on an instrumental album. The final track, "Cowboy Killer," makes the perfect ending, starting off like a moody Tool song and building into a wall of sound that matches the complexity of King Crimson or Pink Floyd.
Bloc Party
A Weekend in the City
Vice
originally published March 14, 2007
The problem with presuming a band's influences is that there's no real connection between the kind of music we like hearing and the kind of music we sound good playing. You can love jazz all you want, but if you can't improvise to save your life, you're going to have to try punk.
So it's nice to see the members of Bloc Party dispelling some common ideas about their musical affections. On the first album, Silent Alarm , everyone assumed they were influenced by the same four post-punk bands every other band was supposedly influenced by during 2004. But on A Weekend in the City , you can hear a different kind of post-punk in the swooning, writerly vocals: Morrissey. Singer Kele Okereke works involved, melisma-rich melodies that often stay slightly out-of-step with the music, while offering choruses like "tonight make me unstoppable / and I will charm, I will slice / I will dazzle them with my wit." Swoon!
But it's a punk Smiths, as their sound has been beefed up with some fantastic drumming and assorted electronic accoutrements to create a sound that slips away from you, turning sharp corners or floating before crashing in with driving intensity. On "I Still Remember," though, they follow another '80s icon: The Cure. It's "Friday I'm in Love" for the new century, an absolute pop triumph, but it's just another facet on an album glittering with 'em. Bloc Party grew up and got better, and its influences have fallen away.
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