The Ladybug Transistor

Can't Wait Another Day

Merge

originally published September 26, 2007

Once, while watching The Ladybug Transistor play, a female companion said something to the effect of "if you're going to fall into the cliché of being a female bassist in an otherwise all-boy band, you better at least be good." Similarly, in the liner notes to Can't Wait Another Day, you can find a picture of a shaggy-haired dude holding a ukulele in front of Brooklyn's Williamsburgh Savings Bank tower, which is the indie-rock equivalent of a middle-aged woman holding a Princess Diana plate in front of fake wood paneling.

But to say something is cliché doesn't necessarily mean that it's bad. You can put on an old disco album today and hear all its overdone elements as glorious and electrifying, either because time allows us to appreciate the sound outside of its historical context or because it was really good all along. Could this happen with our modern indie music? Could, one day, its corduroy comfortability and its affectless pathology sound vital and important? Is the preponderance of its clichés evidence not of laziness but of quality replicating itself organically?

Well, no, at least not for The Ladybug Transistor, which sounds like a nap taken by an eight-year-old in 1974. There's one decent song, "Always on the Telephone," and when I try and remember it when it's not playing, I just think of "Hangin' on the Telephone" instead, which sounds nothing like it, probably. Oh, and that bassist? Still not so good.

Michael Barthel

The Ladybug Transistor is playing at the Caledonia Lounge on Tuesday, Oct. 2.

Animal Collective

Strawberry Jam

Domino

originally published September 26, 2007

It's not often Animal Collective lets a full calendar year elapse between full-lengths, so Strawberry Jam is hitting the radar a little harder than usual. Die-hard fans either want the band to continue forging onward toward the shinier end of the pop spectrum or to retreat into the less penetrable forests of Here Comes the Indian-era abstraction. After 2005's amazing Feels upped the pop ante, it seemed like the latter trajectory was more appropriate - it's what I wanted. But: Damn it. Awesome. "Damn it" because the new album sits blissfully on Cloud 10, presenting an even more streamlined version of the band, and "awesome" because I'm happy about it.

There's no way to avoid mentioning Animal Collective member Panda Bear's recent solo album Person Pitch here. Six months later, not even Strawberry Jam can quite touch its near-perfection. But the taste of it suffuses this album, tempering the obvious star turn of Avey Tare. His vocals have never been so strong or front-and-center. Opener "Peacebone" winds up the requisite synth squiggles and funny noises to new levels, but as playful as it is, there's an immediate sense of the words' radio play. There's more packed into this record than on any previous release, and while it's easy to miss the slow building drones of minimal pop tracks such as "Banshee Beat," it's too much fun hearing the band cram so many hooks and directions into a song and pulling it off. "Fireworks" is the jaw-dropper with its stuttering rhythm and odd, high-pitched vocal tweaks. The lyrics are even kind of precious.

Animal Collective has never been accused of lacking energy, but this is the first time the group has truly surpassed the adjective "hyper." It's a contagious feeling, too; try listening to this without losing your bad mood. The sense of joy throughout can shatter wineglasses, and when "Derek" closes the album on an airy and tender Panda-sung folk-shuffle note, it not only comes full circle by referencing Person Pitch and earlier full-band works, it reminds you of the softness still snuggling beneath all the shiny new foil.

Michael Wehunt

Animal Collective is playing at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta on Wednesday, Sept. 26.

Okkervil River

The Stage Names

Jagjaguwar

originally published September 26, 2007

Over the past seven years and five records, Okkervil River has established itself as one of the more reliable bands around, slowly but consistently improving with each new album. The Stage Names finds the guys distancing themselves from the antiquated connotations that come with being labeled a throwback Americana rock band. Each song is an attempt at explaining some facet of modern life, from the troubles of suicidal poets to the clichés of Hollywood.

Opening track “Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe” shows the band at its most dynamic, shifting back and forth from near silence to bursts of pounding pianos and explosive drums. Frontman Will Sheff waits for just the right moments to release a strangled yelp. The instrumentation on the album is mature, and, with the exception of the occasional forced trumpet or string quartet, comes across naturally.

Lyrically, Sheff alternates his deft wordplay with lines that are touching in their simplicity. “Savannah Smiles” is an understated tribute to parenting that sounds surprisingly genuine for someone too young to be watching his children grow apart from him. “Plus Ones” comes immediately after, a clever tribute to the 97th tear, the 17th candle, and the eighth Chinese brother that don’t appear in titles.

The subject matter may have changed, but The Stage Names won’t have many surprises for longtime fans. It doesn’t show a band maturing or reinventing itself, just getting better at what it's been doing all along.

Mat Lewis

Okkervil River is playing at the 40 Watt Club on Wednesday, Oct. 3.

Cloudland Canyon

Silver Tongued Sisyphus

Kranky

originally published September 26, 2007

As experimental music in general dips further and further into the well of traditional rock, we get mixed results. To those of us who wish the Kranky label would merely drift along blissfully, giving the occasional shout-out to space rock, the broadening can seem a bit bandwagony and to dilute its purity. For those of us who are wise, we embrace the placing of the avant blanket on all things. I find myself contradictorily in both camps, and so I absorb Cloudland Canyon both ways. The members of this German/ NYC duo place themselves on both sides of the line that ideally shouldn't exist, but their altar is that of krautrock, that endlessly cool sound that bloomed in the early 1970s and has never gotten old. More Cluster than Can, though, Kip Uhlhorn and Simon Wojan hail from the ambient synth-driven side of things.

Not a huge fan of their previous full-length, Requiems Der Natur 2002-2004, I was surprised at their signing to Kranky. But just like Deerhunter, the band's stepped up in all the right places. A teaser for a forthcoming full-length in 2008, Silver Tongued Sisyphus ambles patiently through two 11-minute-plus tracks. The first, "Dambala," rides a gentler wave, coasting on the sort of experiments Cluster did with Brian Eno on their seminal collaborations in the late '70s and early '80s. Weaving synths, moaning guitar drones, wheezing keyboard noise, much of it tiptoeing along New Age dreck but thankfully never tripping. The title track actually goes a step further, recalling Vangelis before kicking into vintage trebly kraut hypnosis, locked-groove drums, German vocals and all.

It all sounds inimitably Deutschland-crafted, so if you're one of the many who bow before the Can, you'll find plenty to love here. If you're into the more atypical Kranky sound, this will never usurp your Windy & Carl records, but it has a bit more in common than you'd think.

Michael Wehunt

Oakley Hall

I'll Follow You

Merge

originally published September 26, 2007

The members of Oakley Hall work for a living. Making their full-length debut in 2005, they went on to release two excellent albums in 2006, and with I'll Follow You, they become the latest feather in Merge's cap. Four albums in less than three years is some phenomenal production, but somehow Oakley Hall has handled it like a thoroughbred. And the records aren't just more of the same, as each one has further refined the band's psychedelic country-rock sound, gradually softening the band's harsher, noisier elements.

This process might be carried too far on I'll Follow You, as the occasional seven-minute krautrock-by-way-of-Doug-Sahm epic is momentarily retired in favor of a more straightforward roots-rock direction. The droning barnstormers were a good portion of what made Oakley Hall stand out, and were also the most direct reminder of bandleader Pat Sullivan's previous group, the awesomely confounding Oneida. There's still a lot of impressive guitar work remaining, enough to please any less-than-rigidly-adamant psych fan, but the loss of the mind-freezing repetition found in last year's "Volume Rambler" and "If I Was In El Dorado" is notable. This streamlining would be a poorly planned and reductive decision, then, if Sullivan and his compatriots weren't capable of writing really good songs.

I'll Follow You immediately impresses with the opening song "Marine Life," a gently rolling country-folk number that knows just when to erupt into a firmly strummed chord or two. "Rue the Blues" is a fine rollicking pop song with appropriately vague Dylan-ish lyrics and blazing guitar-picking. "Angela," with lead vocals from native North Carolinian Rachel Cox, sounds like Fleetwood Mac with a Southern accent. And album closer "Take My Hands We're Free" is an ominous and eldritch folk song with sluggish, fractured guitar solos occasionally wafting in. It's like an Alan Lomax field recording with overdubs from a reanimated but mostly brain-dead Jimi Hendrix.

Oakley Hall has been surreptitiously making some of the best country- and folk-influenced rock music for a couple of years now. With weirdness on the backburner for most of I'll Follow You, the band might finally get some recognition from not just the Americana establishment, but also from rock music fans and media in general. It's deserved.

Garrett Martin