Chris Schlarb
Twilight & Ghost Stories
Asthmatic Kitty
originally published December 5, 2007
Fans of improvised and experimental music know Chris Schlarb as a guitarist in jazz groups like Create (!) and I Heart Lung and as the man behind the eclectic Sounds Are Active label. But in Twilight & Ghost Stories, his first solo album, Schlarb turns his soul, rather than his instrument, inside out. (The album’s story begins in February 2003. Divorced, estranged from his children and unemployed, Schlarb had quit playing music. One stormy afternoon, though, he set up mics outside his apartment and recorded the deluge. Liking this field recording, he asked 50 artists to send him brief pieces that he could edit and arrange into a 40-minute composition.
Given its cut-and-paste assembly and diverse cast of contributors (songwriters like Sufjan Stevens and Castanets' Ray Raposa, indie weirdoes like Dave Longstreth, free-jazz players like Tom Abbs and Bhob Rainey), this work unsurprisingly lacks a prevailing tone or compositional theme. At different points, we hear acoustic guitars dishing out tortuous blues, lyrical piano notes tumbling over one another, and some guy muttering an abstract short story - and none lasts more than a couple of minutes. Fortunately, Schlarb’s careful mixing renders these stylistic shifts as tidal ebb and flow, not a John Zorn-like carnival
A loose narrative does, however, run in the background, as recordings of the February storm and Schlarb’s children suggest a series of deeply personal connections and revelations. When we step away from Twilight & Ghost Stories, we can’t be entirely sure what significance the album or the four years spent making it hold for Schlarb. But we do know it has significance for him, which is enough to give the music a weight and density so often lacking in collage-like compositions.
Chris Schlarb is playing at the Next to Last Fest [see feature here] on Saturday, Dec. 8.
Various Artists
Aluminum Plums
thebootypatrol.blogspot.com
originally published December 5, 2007
The Booty Patrol, a fan site devoted to Of Montreal, has decided that the 10th anniversary of the band, gone otherwise unmarked, needed some sort of tribute to call attention to the situation - and hence, this 25-track web album of covers (downloadable for free at http://thebootypatrol.blogspot.com) goes up. Unfortunately, the enthusiasm with which the participants approach the tunes, which come from the band's entire oeuvre, but are heavily weighted toward its last three records, dwarfs the joy they're likely to evoke in the listener.
While Japan's Elekibass and Athens' own Casper & the Cookies (perhaps not coincidentally, two of the only three bands I'd heard of) turn in cheerful, fun versions of "Springtime Is the Season" and "Penelope," respectively, too many of the many, many songs make one yearn for the originals. Some are too close, like the version of "Suffer for Fashion" that's by a band called Low Digital, on which the lead singer tries for Kevin Barnes' yelps but doesn't really get there.
And others, like Lesbian Afternoon's "Disconnect the Dots," are nearly unrecognizable, defeating the point of a cover album, which is to re-imagine songs without moving into Face/Off territory. If there's one track most worth seeking out, it's the one called "Kevin, I Wish You Were Born in Brazil" by Dustin Hoffman Has Formed An Of Montreal Cover Band, which borrows the melody of "Tim I Wish You Were Born a Girl" to muse on a different topic in almost equally cute fashion. Download it, skim through it, and keep what you like - that's the advantage of this format.
The Cherokee
Temporary Living
Independent Release
originally published December 5, 2007
When I interviewed Zach Hinkle, a former Athenian who records music as The Cherokee, back in the spring, he hinted that the album he was wrapping up would be louder and richer than his live performances. Said album arrives in my mailbox a few months later, and I find out that Hinkle wasn't exaggerating. On Temporary Living, he doesn't just drape a couple of xylophones and distorted guitars around his minor-key, Elliott Smith-like acoustic pop songs; he whipped together a full rock band that comes off like Third-era Big Star.
Which isn't to say that this new material isn't as folksy or emotionally probing as the stuff Hinkle was playing in his concerts. His compositions are still rooted in acoustic guitar - but now they're rounded out with warm keys and crisp drums. And although Hinkle hasn't quit singing about nights wasted and lonely, he does so this time out in a more mature manner, adopting a slightly drawly, storyteller intonation on this record's best tracks. In short, The Cherokee has developed a classic pop sensibility that Engineering, Hinkle's early post-hardcore-ish group, lacked.
But while in some songs Hinkle channels timeless artists like George Harrison and Johnny Cash, in a couple of spots - usually on his more amped-up numbers - he doesn't execute his songs convincingly. I blame drummer Matt Compton, whose beats are often elementary, sapping the louder tracks of their combustive energy. Quibbles aside, Temporary Living is a well-crafted first album, as melodic as it is sincere.
Sylvain Chauveau
S. / Nuage
Type
originally published December 5, 2007
Recent years have seen some young composers enjoying success outside the strict boundaries of classical music, adventurous souls weaned on Brian Eno and the textures of electronic processing as much as Philip Glass and Beethoven. Max Richter, Jóhann Jóhannsson and Sylvain Chauveau are three prominent examples of those working within a traditional (read: old people) template yet resonating with the indie (read: young people) crowd. This in turn has led to an exciting and welcome interest in purer classical music, with composers such as Arvo Pärt now touching a new generation. Chauveau in particular is beginning a fertile period, releasing two new records on the Type label, the S. EP and the full-length Nuage.
2003's album Un Autre Decembre explored unabashedly romantic themes of cinematic minimalist classical, more suited for film scores than the auditorium. After a string tribute to Depeche Mode (more worthy of your ears than you'd assume) and a handful of other projects, Chauveau has dropped S., moving to a more ambient-leaning label and making an immediate statement. The EP is, quite simply, one of the best collections of electro-acoustic minimalism. Along a drifting bed of soft white noise, Chauveau dresses "Composition 8" with electric guitar plucks, a simple rhythm and then skews the whole thing with clicks and pops, creating six minutes that beautifully can't stay on track. "P." follows with bare-bones piano and gaping silence between notes. "A_" takes a granular drone and shifts it relentlessly while the low end blooms over and over along with Chauveau's clipped, barely-there vocal snippets. The majority of the five pieces border on academic, but manage to remain affecting and lovely.
Close on its heels is Nuage, a full-length that's only 10 minutes longer than S.'s 22. Here Chauveau circles back to Un Autre Decembre with a combination of two scores composed for Sébastian Betbeder's films. The 19 pieces flash buy like Polaroids, and although many are beautiful and warm, none linger long enough to bear the listener's emotions. Consisting primarily of violin, viola, piano and electric guitar, the music is fragile and elegiac, but with a wisp of hope. Chauveau's always had an affinity for Satie, Debussy and other plaintive pianists, and this is on vivid display across most of Nuage. "L'approche du Nuage" is breathtaking, but can't begin to speak its mind in less than two minutes. Nearly every track suffers from this anemia. Perhaps the visuals of the films explain the gorgeous gasps of Nuage, but released as an album on its own, it shouldn't require that backdrop.
If you can't get enough of any of the above composers, Nuage deserves your time, just not enough of it. S. might tread more avant-garde waters, but it's bursting with crackling ideas while balancing them with restraint. It lacks the strings but pops and sings with the smeared stuff of genius.
Future Of The Left
Curses
Too Pure
originally published December 5, 2007
Future of the Left's singer-guitarist Andy Falkous is set in his convictions. His previous bile-fueled vehicle Mclusky enabled him to rail against pretty much everything with no small amount of sneering wrath. But his Welsh accent and wit spiked the venom with a bit of absurdity, so no matter how pissed off Falkous sounded, hilarity inevitably ensued. Shortly before Mclusky expired, presumably due to Cynical Rage Fatigue Syndrome, Falkous quipped to Magnet something along the lines of "All keyboards sound like shite, and if you cite Ben Folds Five as an exception, I warn you, I have access to hand grenades." That said, there are keyboards all over Curses, and it appears that Falkous has determined that explosives and synths need not be mutually exclusive.
A few minor tweaks and modifications aside, Future of the Left slips ably into Mclusky's well-worn trainers. The formula remains very much the same: power-trio simplicity boiled into a cruel, crushing force of unnatural immensity. The angriest Pixies songs are fine points of reference, but this recording sees Falkous moving on from his prior recording engineer of choice (Steve Albini, who famously hailed Mclusky as the best band in England) to a sort of arena bravado that goes beyond his nervous ticks of years past. "Adeadenemyalwayssmellsgood" is a great example, boasting some Queen-sized drums but warning the listener, "There are no bold statements in my paradiddle!" It's a combination of big dumb rock and clever little non sequiturs that define Future of the Left's modus operandi. "There's nothing like being owned," Falkous sneers mid-album. Consider me owned.
The Deathset
Rad Warehouses Bad Neighborhoods
Morphius
originally published December 5, 2007
It will take me longer to write this review than it will take me listen to Rad Warehouses Bad Neighborhoods even once. Luckily, I've listened to it many, many times and plan on actively continuing this trend. Twelve tracks long and just under 16 minutes in duration, the Deathset's latest release is everything mass-marketed punk rock isn't. That's not to say the bandmembers haven't been bought and sold a million times over already; I know very little about them. I can tell you that they are from Baltimore and, if we're to believe the singer, he's got "a face like a million bucks." Good enough for me!
So, you've got your programmed drums, you've got your three-chord progressions, you've got your sub-Casio synth tones. And then there are the vocals: can we, we as a group of vaguely literate-minded, musically "interested" young people reclaim the word "snotty" from the 1970s? We can? Well great, because it's perfectly applicable here. These dudes are snotty as hell, and I love it. That is, if they're even dudes. The yelping on Rad Warehouses is a stripe of androgynous joyful energy that could come from either side of the gender aisle, and without the clean-cut image-making and running-mascara pout of modern punk rock, sexing the band seems irrelevant.
It's party music, and to hammer the point home, queer-positive Brazilian party starters Bonde do Rolê as well as arrested-developed smile-maker Dan Deacon take up remixing duties. In short, it's a killer record, and the only thing it could possibly benefit from is the application of the "Repeat" button.
IAMX
Alternative
Independent Release
originally published December 5, 2007
Perhaps the most unfortunately named band of all time, Sneaker Pimps hit it big in the late '90s with Becoming X. The album capitalized on the trip-hop craze of the time, riffing on Portishead and Massive Attack with an eye on the pop charts. And for all that it was a decent album and doesn't sound incredibly dated today. Now Chris Corner feels he has completed his Becoming and now claims the name IAMX. His second album, Alternative, beefs up the energy of his electro-fied debut by darkening the dance floor a bit, with menacing synth lines and some attitude guitar.
The first strike is how uncannily Corner's voice, when used to its fullest extent, is a twin of the singer of Muse. Therefore Alternative could almost be a batch of remixes for those mundane Radiohead ripoffs. "The Alter" in particular reeks of Muse, even though Corner seems like he's aiming his voice toward the Verve's Richard Ashworth. When he dramatically rolls the first "r" in "enraptured," he's falling short.
Strike two is the pseudo-goth/industrial-lite vibe sprinkled over these 11 tracks. Nothing against dark-tinged club music, but Depeche Mode is one of the very few pop groups that can dress beats up with eyeliner with great success. Whether it's the growling bassline in "Bring Me Back a Dog" or the reverbed vocals and overly distorted chorus depleting the awesome atmospheric guitar in "The Negative See," there's an element in nearly every song that hobbles its potential.
The inevitable third strike comes: "Spit It Out" is actually a pretty solid pop song, although it again sounds like Muse by way of the Faint. But it's catchy as a fishhook, with anthemic rather than anemic and overblown choruses. The song soars, and illustrates why the rest of Alternative falls flat on its face. You're out.
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