Bonde do Rolê
With Lasers
Mad Decent/ Domino
originally published August 29, 2007
When we argue about culture, how much does the object itself matter? Usually, when a cultural argument arises, it may concern a particular artistic effort (like, say, A Million Little Pieces, or the "Sensation" exhibit, or UGA's own Iron Horse fiasco from the '50s), but it's really a debate over wider principles: how much truth matters, how valuable offensiveness is, etc. Few people ever really care about the individual work that much, and you don't even need to have consumed it to take part in the discussion.
But doesn't the object at hand have a strong pull on the shape of the argument, or even distort the discussion of principles taking place? For instance, while I like the abstract ideas involved in the JT Leroy scam, the fact that "his" works were horrible makes me reluctant to rush to their defense. If slaughtering an infant is a necessary part of creating an incredibly moving work of art, should you shun the work itself?
The members of Brazil's Bonde do Rolê throw a welcome monkey wrench in the argument about cultural tourism surrounding baile funk, their chosen genre, by being totally awesome. On "official" debut With Lasers, they shout dirty things, mostly in Portuguese, over deceptively basic beats that evoke Miami bass and Latin rhythms. They do a lot with those basic elements: "Office Boy" uses electric guitar to make a cheeky, bright pop song, while "Divine Gosa" is dark and sexy. The electric guitars are key, and while we could have a whole other debate about dance music pandering to rock kids, it's more fun to just put the album on and have a party.
Bonde do Rolê is playing at the Drunken Unicorn in Atlanta on Friday, Oct. 12.
Sir Richard Bishop
Polytheistic Fragments
Drag City
originally published August 29, 2007
Sir Richard Bishop plays like the devil. Or so said the late, great John Fahey. And an honest assessment of Bishop's talent should place him alongside other guitar greats like Fahey and Robbie Basho, if not as an innovator, than certainly as a peer.
Polytheistic Fragments, the sixth solo album by Bishop - he's also a founding member of the truly marvelous Sun City Girls - is, stylistically speaking, not as all over the map as could be expected from its divergent influences. True, Bishop explores gypsy, old-time, African and other styles on this album, but this is a complete work. Opener "Cross My Palm With Silver" runs seamlessly from its gypsy strum into the mournful, wailing "Hecate's Dream." Appropriately named after the Greek goddess of the crossroads, the piece is emotionally heavy with single notes extended to a length almost painful - to the heart more than the ears - to experience.
Southwestern jazz piece "Elysium Number Five" places the listener in familiar territory before the album shifts again to the unfamiliar ground of "Rub' Al Khali." The latter, a guitar ode to the North African lute instrument the oud, is stirring and anxious. Bishop takes up the piano on "Cemetery Games" and "Saraswati." The former is a jarring, beat-driven and dark tune, while the latter, an unsettlingly pretty composition, makes ample use of its empty space.
If in naming this album Polytheistic Fragments, Bishop meant to introduce or pay tribute to the gods of various styles, nations and people, that makes sense. It's not a resume of styles or a showy collection of talent. It's a story to be experienced start to finish. It's up to you to determine what he's saying - or rather, what his music says to you.
Sir Richard Bishop is playing at the 40 Watt Club on Saturday, Sept. 1.
Nina Nastasia & Jim White
You Follow Me
Fatcat
originally published August 29, 2007
The term "singer-songwriter" has become nebulous. Its most negative connotation ("sensitive dude with guitar") is still common, but it incorporates, technically speaking, everyone from R. Kelly to Dan Deacon. Nina Nastasia is a great example of the good places this slippage has led, as the albums released under her name alone sound not unlike a brainy post-rock band. But by marrying those careful sonics to a singer-songwriter's focus on melody, lyrics and singing - something that can be an afterthought for post-rock bands - she ends up with a whole richer and more rewarding than any of its parts.
So by crediting as co-artist Jim White, who's drummed on some of her previous releases, Nastasia is acknowledging the degree of collaboration on You Follow Me. The whole album is just White's drums and Nastasia's guitar and voice, and White's inventive drumwork allows the songs to grow beyond the limitations of the singer-songwriter format. The added dynamic range allows passages to float or pound, not just progress, and the three elements sync up in remarkable ways throughout the album.
While it's impressive that so limited a palette works so well and so broadly, the album drones on sometimes. The songs themselves are consistently strong: "I Write Down Lists" lurches like two drunks ineffectually wrestling, and "There Is No Train" conjures a deceptive calm. It actually sounds a lot like White's band The Dirty Three, and the sound of the missing elements makes you wish they hadn't limited themselves so strictly. Such minimalism is, well, a little too singer-songwritery.
Warm In The Wake
American Prehistoric
Livewire
originally published August 29, 2007
I know a lot of people disagree with me, but I find Wilco to be one of the most execrable bands of the past 15 years. Damnedest thing, though, is how far reaching its influence is. By the time the cult of Wilco filters down to a listener, what you're hearing is a copy of a copy of a copy of the bands Wilco is copying. For instance, take the title track from this new Warm in the Wake album - it's got that jumpy, half-step feel of Tweedy & Co., complete with needless, pseudo-spacey keyboard swooshes. And it's an unfortunate way for the Decatur band to start things off, because there are a couple of really good songs on this album.
"Airport Girl" has a great shuffling back beat with a deliberate, pretty piano melody and tastefully restrained orchestration. The lyrics aren't much to speak of (the whole album suffers from poor lyricism), but musically, the track shines. And "She'd Never Seen It" features a killer chorus with plenty of sweet, mid-level harmonies.
The main problem with American Prehistoric is that it just sounds so put on. In short: I don't believe 'em. Even if the characters on this album were culled from real people, they're not treated with tenderness or respect, but, rather, simply as song fodder. Similar to photographers who exploit the poor or the tragic to make their art, Warm in the Wake wants to tell us about authenticity but is possessive of none to show.
This may well be the problem of America itself (to say nothing of the utterly phony genre Americana). There's a gut feeling among some of the ensconced, gated, suburban and/ or collegiate crowd that there exists something more real just outside their walls. Bands like Warm in the Wake exploit this desire by pretending that one can experience authenticity without getting one's hands dirty. The audience, now fooled, walks away with little more than the same experience they would get during an afternoon at a shopping mall. Authenticity can't be bought, but it can be mimicked. Warm in the Wake certainly has that down.
Warm in the Wake is playing at the 40 Watt Club on Friday, Nov. 9.
Stuporhero
Last Star Shining
Basement Tape
originally published August 29, 2007
Stuporhero is the boy/ girl/ mannequin indie pop band from Seattle featuring the husband-and-wife duo of Jen Garrett (bass, vocals, cello and synth) and Will Troy (guitar, vocals, trumpet and synth) and their plastic companion Chuckles on drums. When performing live, Will and Jen play to pre-recorded drum tracks while Chuckles sits behind a child's drum set. Stuporhero's latest effort, Last Star Shining, is a collection of 16 exuberantly peppy pop melodies, jangly guitars and hopelessly endearing lyrics.
The only negative to Last Star Shining is the unflattering arrangement of tracks on the CD. It opens with "Flying Discs," which is surprisingly a bit of a snoozer. Second track "Superball" has an incredible build-up that entices the audience to take a closer listen, which would have been more suitable for an opener. The rest of the album is packed with catchy upbeat hooks and fleeting somber moments. The best track on the album, "Vantage Point," encompasses both ends of the spectrum as Troy croons, "Let's open up the windows and let in the rain / Drive away and don't look back / I don't wanna remember us this way." The album ends with the buoyant acoustic song "Punk like You," which dissolves into hypnotic tabla and Wurlitzer over chanting "Let your freak flag fly."
Last Star Shining ends up being one part Television Personalities and one part Guided by Voices mixed to the beat of something resembling lo-fi pop-punk; a generally happy little album for generally happy little people.
Strategy
Future Rock
Kranky
originally published August 29, 2007
Part of me wishes Paul Dickow would sign to the DFA label. Dickow creates such an exciting fusion of dance music and a dozen other things that I can't help but think about all the incredible remixes he would do for others and vice-versa were he on a more "hip" imprint. Just take disco-drone anthem "Can't Roll Back," the opener on Strategy's second full-length for Kranky, Future Rock. Mostly mid-tempo, wafer-thin guitars jangle beneath a lush bed of soft noise and Dickow's processed lazy vocals. Reverbed-to-hell drums pound their way in along with funky cymbals for a groovy little interlude before the guitar returns. If the DFA could get their hands on this track, it would be an indie-disco wet dream.
However, the rest of me is ecstatic that he's right where he is. Dickow at first listen, seems to clash with everything going on in flourishing Portland, OR. But that impression soon changes. And in a strange way, he belongs on ambient haven Kranky, as well. 2004's Drumsolo's Delight was certainly a dance record, but its floor-filling aspirations were moderately concealed (and enhanced) behind a curtain of gauze and texture. Future Rock virtually explodes from the speakers, always maintaining a fierce pop sensibility, never going for full-tilt ass-shaking delirium, but filtering that euphoria through a fascinating prism of many colors, reflecting off dub, drift, house and anything else that catches Dickow's magpie eyes.
I'll keep my fingers crossed that LCD Soundsystem and cohorts will give Strategy a leg up. That way we can keep this left-field rump-moving cake and eat it, too, with all the bells and whistles the current disco-punk scene can throw at it.
Andrew Pekler
Cue
Kranky
originally published August 29, 2007
Andrew Pekler has spent many years now flitting along the fringes of the experimental electronic music sphere, releasing albums on some venerated boutique labels such as ~scape and Staubgold. His music melds the often clinical chill of minimal techno/ clicks plus cuts with the more organic nature of warm jazz and the imperfect heartbeat of dub. But never one to rest on his laurels, Pekler has vaguely but effectively shape-shifted over the years, but never before quite as boldly as on Cue, his debut for Kranky.
The 11 tracks here sprang from a rigid, almost academic experiment: Each piece began as a notation (listed alongside the titles on the back cover) outlining the idea and mood Pekler wanted to achieve before a single note had been written. Sort of like classical music's tempo notations, but in layman's terms. "Dust Mite" aims "towards the incomprehensible, microscopic danger; harmonic feedback." "Steady State," with its "repetitive bed for science/ mystery, miniaturized percussion" accomplishes just that in its four minutes. There seem to be dozens of clicky and bangy things providing the rhythm for the ebullient melody of the synths. With merely a ghost of jazz or dub present, Pekler has crafted a riveting collection of loop-based headphone happiness, calm and pleasant, never overstaying its welcome.
There's never a dull moment, and the only time things get a bit rowdy is on closer "Floating Tone," on which the "frozen fuzz guitar" threatens to burst the song's seams. Overall, Pekler tries very hard not to blow your mind with Cue, and therein lies the album's staying power. It's wonderfully inconsequential.
Various Artists
Total 8
Kompakt
originally published August 29, 2007
A far cry from a perfectly arranged deejay mix, less coherent than a single-artist album, and not nearly as practical for club use as a crate of 12" singles, Kompakt's annual Total compilation aims to bring slammin' minimal techno tracks to the dabblers, the attention deficient, the home listeners. And for eight years now, these collections have hit their mark, garnering endorsements of the "If you buy only one album of electronic music this year…" variety from pop fans of all stripes. This year's double-disc model is par for the course.
Although none of the cuts here cross over into chart-friendly territory (no Justices or LCD Soundsystems to be found) or even Krush Girls-friendly territory, fans of more linear and more organic genres will find many fascinating points of departure, especially on starlit, disco-tinged Disc One. Traces of krautrock turn up at every corner: Superpitcher's "Rainy Nights in Georgia" mounts splattery drum machines and a maudlin RPG melody onto a modulating, Faust-like keyboard vamp, and The Rice Twins' "Can I Say" masses effects-soaked keys into a trance. If those tracks sound too heady, then you can seek refuge in "Ãœber Wiesen," a collaboration between Tobias Thomas and Michael Mayer that teems with schmaltzy piano lines that could have been lifted from an Olympic highlights film.
Disc Two takes a more austere tact. It features ace selections by Herve Ak, DJ Koze, Gui Boratto and Justus Kohncke, all of whom produce stark, minimal robo-funk. If you're still bobbing your head by the time the comp draws to a close, you'll do well to delve even further into Kompakt's extensive catalog.
Studio
West Coast
Information
originally published August 29, 2007
Two episodes from Tortoise's April 2004 performance at the 40 Watt stick out to me.
Moment 1: during the coda to "Seneca," one of the percussionists scales, Bono-style, a stack of amps and leads the crowd in a boisterous handclapping session, eliciting full-scale audience participation from a bunch of folks who spend a typical day vice-gripped by a pair of headphones, music cushioning them, encasing them.
Moment 2: the band begins its encore by flubbing through "Owner of a Lonely Heart"; from the looks on their faces, all of the bandmembers really like the song. Whenever I feel stiff-armed by Tortoise's intertextual meanderings, its record collector in-jokes, I remember that concert, and I remember that these guys can ham it up and wear grins like any Georgia Theatre jam band.
Studio, a pair of gentlemen from Gothenburg, Sweden, who may or may not play any instruments, is what the members of Tortoise might sound like if they were always such crowd-pleasers. Like the Chicago-based post-rock pioneers, Studio delights in smashing genres from different continents and decades into one another, but their well of inspiration - buoyant Afro-pop a la King Sunny Ade, expansive disco of the Tom Moulton variety, arpeggiated college-rock in the vein of The Cure - is more jubilant and melodic. Sometimes - on "Origin," for instance - the duo even sounds like a revved up, arena-ready Tortoise, all slinky, angular, filtered guitars and mantra-like grooves firing at maximum intensity.
During its troughs, the album flails like typical '00s indie-dance-rock, influences apparent but done little justice. At its least self-conscious, West Coast suggests Primal Scream playing Paul Simon's Graceland, and, for a moment, we feel animated, social, thirsty for a community of flesh and blood, not of vinyl and plastic.
Magicicada
Everyone Is Everyone
Public Guilt
originally published August 29, 2007
Considering the fact that Atlanta's experimental/ ambient/ whatever scene leaves a lot to be desired, and has been lacking since the dawn of time, Christopher White could almost call himself its godfather. Granted, typically only cities large enough to have something of everything will properly nourish a vibrant drone or noise scene (though some in Athens might disagree), so I can't point too many fingers. There just aren't enough people here. But White's doing his best to at least maintain its pulse in his low-profile way. Finally, his longtime main project Magicicada is more publicly active. Before this year, the last time I'd caught White live was three years ago, when Magicicada trafficked in blistering noisescapes. Nowadays, that noise has been folded into a delicious ambient omelet, one packed with many strong flavors. Everyone Is Everyone offers a scattered, smothered and covered amalgam of wispy drones, plucky acoustic guitar, found sounds, and the veiled threat of hazy noise.
"Wellbelow" clunks and pings alongside frequency-tweaking drones and White's mumbled vocals, finishing up with a cartoonish chant. Maybe if Greg Davis and Bird Show released a one-off EP on Warp and forgot to bring the beats, the results might fall along these lines. Most of the album is permeated with a sense of psych-folk and noodling around in the woods, both of which suit White well. "I Demand My Fucking Cloud" is the centerpiece, clocking in at 16 and a half minutes. A simple finger-picked melody is slowly swallowed by modulated vocal and guitar tones that pick up distortion and staticky noise like moss. Field recordings huddle with crunch and low-end rumbling.
Everyone Is Everyone is a messy and heady affair, make no mistake. But White's made a meanderingly bold statement that's unique, particularly to Georgia. I only hope he proves to be a totem pole we droners can rally around.
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