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ALSO AVAILABLE A PALE HORSE NAMED DEATH And Hell Will Follow Me
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“
/music
Sweden’s Fiery Phoenix
I
by
Karen Bliss
n Flames eleventh studio album, Sounds of a Playground Fad-
ing, produced by Roberto Laghi, is the first in the Swedish metal band’s 21-year career without its founding member, Jesper Strömblad. The noted guitarist left the multi-million-selling act to tackle his alcohol problem, but lead singer Anders Fridén says his departure didn’t affect the making of the new album, as one might expect. “We’ve been without him for almost two years prior to the actual album recording. It wasn’t so much on the musical side; it was more on the friendship side,” says Fridén, who speaks English fluently through a Swedish accent. “We’ve known each other for so long, and we’ve seen him struggle with his addiction and whatever problems come along with the addiction for quite some time, but the recording was pretty much as always, or even better. The whole vibe was very good within the band.” The lineup has remained intact since the late 90s. Strömblad had put together In Flames in 1990, as a side project to his then death metal band Ceremonial Oath, and recorded the full-length album, Lunar Strain, in 1993 with a session vocalist, Mikael Stanne. It came out in 1994, followed by an EP, Subterranean, with another guest vocalist, Henke Forss. It wasn’t until 2005 that Björn Gelotte came in as the drummer (at first; now he’s the guitarist) and Fridén as the permanent vocalist. Bassist Peter Iwers joined in 1997; drummer Daniel Svensson in 1998. That core remains all these years later. Niclas Engelin, who actually played guitar with the band from 1997 to ‘98 has now replaced Strömbald full time. But having new blood in the studio didn’t change the sound of In Flames, Fridén believes, because he and Gelotte wrote all the material for Sounds of a Playground Fading, and previous albums were always the two of them, plus Strömblad. “It hasn’t affected us on the musical side; it’s more affected us as friends because we never parted ways because we don’t like each other; we never parted ways because of musical differences; we parted ways because we couldn’t work as a unit,” Fridén says. “That is the basic reason and I think this album, yeah it might turn out different if Jesper was involved, but I don’t know how because 12
NEEDLE
And what would happen if someone would give us a sign and say, ‘You only have five years to live; you only have 10 years to live,’ and then that’s going to be the final thing, would that change the way we think? Would that change the way we treat each other?”
—Anders Fridén we approached the album in the same way that we’ve always done. Me and Björn have done 9 of 10 In Flames albums; we were just not part of the first one. To us, it wasn’t that much different.” The album is intense, with various dynamics and nuances from electronic in “Deliver Us” to industrial in “Darker Times,” but the one song that really does leap out because it is different for In Flames is “The Attic,” which is slow and creepy with a bit of a Pink Floydian feel. “That’s totally fine. I like them,” Fridén says of Floyd. “It wasn’t really what I had in mind.” He agrees it is definitely creepy, though. “That was the intention — when it comes to the lyrics as well.” “When we started, Björn had a bunch of riffs and parts of songs here and there and then we had a big bag of riffs where we just didn’t know what to do with them,” he says. “I said, ‘Oh that sounds like something cool. Let’s build something around that.’ And then Niclas [Engelin] who is on the keyboard, we started playing it and it turned into this thing.” The lyrics are a strange story that begins with: “There’s someone in the attic/Building a strange machine…” “It’s a person who hears sounds in the attic obviously and he’s kind of aware that there’s someone building something,” explains Fridén. “It’s some kind of machine or at least what he thinks — I say ‘he’ but it could really be a ‘she;’ it doesn’t really matter — and then he’s more creeped out by the thing. This goes on for a long, long time. The song is two minutes but the story is for years. But it turns out he’s already dead. “He hears the sound and then he disappears for a while and
he’s hung himself and he ends up in the attic because he feels so nature and they probably think that’s how it’s going to be forever, creeped out. He feels like he’s looked at or being followed or people like you always do. But you and me — I’m not saying you — we are spying on him so he hides in the attic and starts building this more take, take, take until there’s nothing more to take and then machine but it’s actually him building a trap to hang himself. we move on to the next place. “And what would happen if someone would give us a sign and “Within the album I wanted parts where you calm things down and give all the other songs more light so to speak and use the say, ‘You only have five years to live; you only have 10 years to live,’ dynamics,” he says. “Then I felt that those kind of lyrics were and then that’s going to be the final thing, would that change the not needed, but it fit the song really well. I haven’t written a track way we think? Would that change the way we treat each other? like that before. It’s almost like, ‘Shit, I’m pleased with myself.’ Would that change our plans or our regrets? So all of the songs I’m not aware while I do it, but after when I play it back, I’m like, are almost pretty much questions,” he explains. ‘This is really good.’” “I ask myself what I would do in these situations. I start thinkThe rest of the songs aren’t like that at all lyrically and seem to ing about my life, my situations, where I am, where I’ve been, be more philosophical. Songs like “Sounds of a Playground Fadwhere I’m going. Is that a good place or a bad place and all the ing,” “Deliver Us,” “All For Me” and “The Puzzle” appear to deal songs are from that topic, so I raise more questions than answers. with a struggle with identity, legacy or mortality. In “Sounds of a That’s my way to communicate with you or whoever is reading the Playground Fading,” there are lines like “I am what I’ve done” and lyrics and maybe one day we can meet and talk about them and “genetic codes of a dying breed;” in “Deliver Us,” “decide then I haven’t preached ‘this is the way it is and this is how you want it to be” and “All For Me,” “It’s hard to say the way it should be.’ Who am I to tell you?” what brought the darkest burden/ For some of us there’s Asked if he would change if he was given five or 10 no answer.” In “The Puzzle,” he sings, “And I don’t care years to live and he says, “I would say so. I’m far from what you think or maybe I do.” perfect. There’s maybe people I’d like to say some things “Overall,” says Fridén, “the concept of the album — to, but overall I have achieved a lot of things. I’m very I mean, it’s not a story like Queensryche’s Operation humble being able to do what I do. I’m very fortunate. Sounds of a Mindcrime type of thing — it’s more I was thinking I’ve gone far beyond where I thought I would be. I met Playground about the world where we are today. There’s only a few a lot of people, which has been awesome. I think I’ve Fading will be available June places in the world that are untouched by man, or people learned a lot along the way.” 21 from Century do live there but they live with the earth together with Media. needle
13
Lights of EndangErEd spEciEs MATTHEW GOOD
Final Fantasy Marissa Nadler’s fifth record was a reality check in more ways than one / by Sam Adams
16
needle
F
or a while, Marissa Nadler wasn’t sure there’d be a next al-
bum. After releasing her fourth full-length, Little Hells, in 2009, she was unceremoniously dropped by her label, Kemado, a blow sharpened by the fact that the label named its Mexican Summer imprint for one of her songs. No label meant no advance to fund her next recording. Four acclaimed albums of hushed, atmospheric folk and nearly a decade into her career, she was stalled out. Then came Kickstarter. a stray pedal steel. Nadler, who’d only recently These days, it seems like every indepenbeen introduced to some of the great ladies of dent musician is reaching out for cash, hitting country music, brought records by Tammy up their fans to replace a broken-down van Wynette and Sammi Smith into the studio to or ease the burden of going on tour. But what give producer Brian McTear an indication as Nadler was looking for was more akin to an to how she wanted the record mixed. IPO, a chance to start again on her own terms. “I liked the way that people like that have “I thought at first it was like begging,” says their vocals really high in the mix, so you can have a rhythm section, but it doesn’t get in Nadler, who doled out everything from advance downloads to original paintings in exthe way of the emotional sentiment,” she change for contributions. “But then I realized says. “I used to be worried, because I’m such it’s so much work, it’s not at all like that. a delicate singer, that if I wanted drums, it “I didn’t feel like wasting any more time. always seemed to get in the way and overI’m sure I could have found a nice label that power me.” was run by good people and wanted to put my songs out, but I just didn’t feel like going through that process.” Her fifth album, titled simply Marissa Nadler and released on her own Box of Cedar imprint, starts off in familiar territory with the delicate finger-picking and breathy vocals of “In Your Lair, Bear.” But by the time “The Sun Always Reminds Me of You” rolls around, it’s clear Nadler is in uncharted territory. The song opens with a straightforward acoustic strum; Nadler’s voice joins the fray, then a sparsely played piano. And then the steel guiIt couldn’t have hurt that in the intertar kicks in, a slow swell that feels like the sun regnum between her own albums, Nadler emerging from behind a cloud bank. contributed vocals to the black metal band Even more striking within the context of Xasthur’s final album, Portal of Sorrow. If Nadler’s oeuvre is the way her voice sounds her voice could stand up to Scott Conner’s on “Sun”: full, open and untouched by artiwall of noise, it could surely handle the odd ficial echo. In the past, Nadler’s vocals have drum track. been swathed in gauze, but here they’re al“Old-time country music has this really most naked, as if she were singing into a miraccessible thing about it that makes it so popror, or whispering in your ear. ular,” Nadler continues. “It can be listened to by anybody; anybody can feel that. I think my It was, Nadler admits, a “big deal” to have three songs without reverbed vocals on the songwriting style slightly shifted from enalbum. “I used to think my voice was thin, cryption to something geared a little more toward connecting with everyand it just made it sound better,” she admits. “That was parbody. Something that drives me tially to do with how young I was crazy about a lot of indie rock towhen I started recording. I was day is that there seems to be this really shy—I’m still really shy— style of writing where you have but I think I just got comfortto prove to people how smart able enough with my own voice, you are all the time. I started finally, to use reverb purely as out running that way, covering an aesthetic tool, and know that Pablo Neruda and Edgar Allen I don’t need it on every song.” Poe on my first record, and of Marissa Nadler will be The country influence on Macourse I still like those poets a available June 14 from Box of Cedar rissa Nadler extends further than lot. But something changed in
“
me where I didn’t want to abandon anybody for no good reason.” Where Nadler once took personal topics and buried them in elaborate allegories, now she’s speaking plain. Marissa Nadler songs like “Wind-Up Toy” and “Mr. John Lee Revisited” return to the subjects of past songs with drastically different approaches. In “Mr. John Lee,” from her 2005 album The Saga of Mayflower, the singer vies with a woman called Sweet Marie for the titular man’s affections, and the latter ends up dead, floating in a river. In “Revisited,” she reveals that Marie, or rather her real-life analogue, simply moved away and married someone else. “The original song is about people that I know, but I was kind of crazy back then, so I wrote this thing about people dying and me running away with somebody,” Nadler says. “In this song, I break the mythology around these characters and reveal what’s happening in their lives now, and how we’ve all moved on. ‘The sheriff, he never had to come and wade through the water’—you know, that shit never happened.
Something that drives me crazy about a lot of indie rock today is that there seems to be this style of writing where you have to prove to people how smart you are all the time.” —Marissa Nadler “I felt like the songs I was writing were as close to representational as I had ever gotten before. It felt like it was my most revealing collection of songs, in some way. I wasn’t hiding anymore. I wanted to self-title the record because I felt like I’d regained my independence and know who I am.” There’s a fitting irony in the fact that after stepping out on her own, Nadler has made her most commercial record yet. “Baby, I Will Leave You in the Morning,” with its dramatic crashes, squiggling synthesizer and, yes, drums, would be at home on NPR or any Triple-A station. (Nadler released the track for free in advance of the album, partly to give longtime fans a heads-up.) “I definitely had a fear of abandoning my fanbase, who helped make this record, by putting something so poppy on it,” she says. “But my friends were saying, ‘It’s really not that poppy. It’s just poppy for you.’” Marissa Nadler will tour the West Coast in June. More at marissanadler.com.
17
Back Down the Rabbit Hole
“W
In the wake their founding member’s sudden departure, Battles fight for their right to make one of the strangest sophomore efforts ever / by Sean L. Maloney
e had somebody ask us if we recorded [Gloss Drop] in, like, the Bahamas or something,”
says John Stanier, drummer for post-rock supergroup Battles, whose second album is out this month on Warp. Gloss Drop, the first album recorded since founding member Tyondai Braxton’s departure, finds the band—Stanier (Helmet, Tomahawk) and guitarists Ian Williams (Don Caballero, Storm & Stress) and Dave Konopka (Lynx)—at their weirdest and yet most accessible. It’s a prog-rock party record, full of strange sounds and driving rhythms. It’s a record that bubbles over with energy, excitement and upbeat vibes—the exact opposite of the way it was recorded. “No, we didn’t [record in the Bahamas]. We recorded in the industrial wastelands of Rhode Island.” “It was kind of like The Shining in a weird way, only minus the Victorian hotel and the blood.” Gloss Drop, almost complete when Braxton left the band—reportedly to focus on his solo work—had to be reworked from the ground up, rerecorded and rewritten to fill the vacuum, to save the record from becoming one of the countless never-released orphans on studio shelves across the globe. This is the sort of situation that can destroy a career: dark and pressure-filled days when a band’s entire existence is contingent on saving their work from history’s dustbin. That Battles emerged from that with an album at all—much less an album as effusive and shimmering as Gloss Drop—is a minor miracle. “I had the feeling that if we didn’t fucking make this happen, it [was] just going to haunt us for the rest of our days,” Stanier admits. “Seriously, I was really committed—more than anything I’ve ever been committed to—to finishing this [laughs] fucking stupid record.” Gloss Drop will be available June 7 It’s in this context that one realizes that Gloss Drop is an from Warp album of catharsis, an album of release and revitalization. Where lesser bands might have taken the opportunity to implode, to collapse upon themselves in the wake of an important member’s departure, Battles have exploded, aiming that energy outward and propelling their sounds into unknown territory. They also used the opportunity to incorporate guest vocalists such as new wave legend Gary Numan, Yamatsuka Eye of Boredoms and Kazu Makino of Blonde Redhead—which may seem like a concession to more normative songwriting styles, given the band’s instrumental past, Embattled: (from left) Williams, but actually increases the strangeness withStanier and in. Yes, you read that right: They replaced Konopka the guy who made the blippity-bloops with vocalists, and things got weirder.
You read that right: They replaced the guy who made the blippity-bloops with vocalists, and things got weirder.
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“It’s not like we made this record and we just erased some parts and played a new guitar solo,” Stanier counters. “It wasn’t that simple. For all intents and purposes, we basically went back into the studio and rewrote and rerecorded the entire album in four months. Which was ridiculous, because it took us a year and a half to get a pile of garbage that nobody was really that happy with anyway. But that’s what happens when everyone is on the same page and you’re a band—an actual working band. Everyone is on the same page, focused. But that wasn’t the case earlier, which, you know, we don’t need to get into that, but that’s honestly what the problem was. “That’s why it’s so strange that the record came out the way it did; I can’t just point my finger and give you a statement on why the record sounds the way it does. It was a really, really difficult, dark, super-super-super-negative place that we were [at], and we took that situation and turned it into a much more positive one. The reason we did that was because we didn’t really have a choice. It’s like, subliminally, we wanted to be in a better place, so we forced ourselves into that with this record.” That drive, the need to elevate themselves beyond the misery of their environment, pushes Gloss Drop to the very edge of what we’ve come to expect from rock ’n’ roll. Simultaneously organized and chaotic, swinging and spastic, crazy-new and catchy-as-hell, this is the sound of a band that has walked through the shadow of death only to emerge with a new lease on life. More often than not, a band faced with this kind of challenge will succumb to it, limp off like a wounded coyote, curl up in a corner and wait for the storm to pass. Battles, true to their name, fought through it to emerge with a career-defining work of art. “I’m amazed that that happened—obviously, it’s become this reality, but I’m still amazed that we made it through that,” concludes Stainer. “I pat myself on the back every day.” Battles are touring Europe and the U.S. through July and playing festivals in August. They’ll curate All Tomorrow’s Parties/ Nightmare Before Christmas in Minehead, U.K., in December. More, including the incredibly weird video for “Ice Cream,” at bttls.com. Read Jakob Dorof’s review on p. 32
Just how super is this supergroup? The march to Gloss Drop Don Caballero, Don Caballero 2
Featuring Battles guitarist/keyboardist Ian Williams, DC2 might just be the defining record from post-rock’s ’90s heyday—it’s really a toss-up between this and their debut, For Respect. Full of hardcore-punk intensity, raging riffs and calculated chaos, DC2 destroys the competition [Touch & Go, 1995]
Storm & Stress, Storm & Stress
If you’ve ever listened to Don Cab and thought, “Boy, this has wayyy too much structure for me,” Storm & Stress will be right up your alley. Not unlike Sonny Sharrock’s late-’60s free jazz explorations, S&S—featuring Williams on guitar—has more skronk-per-square-inch than is legal in most states. [Touch & Go, 1997]
Lynx, Lynx
More “rock” than “post,” Battles guitarist David Konopka’s old band Lynx made driving melodic instrumental music that wasn’t afraid to freak out when the situation called for it. A great entry spot for those intimidated by the genre and its propensity for being willfully abstruse. [Atomic, 1999]
Helmet, Meantime
One of the best heavy albums of the ’90s, Meantime laid down the blueprint for the future of intelligent, aggressive records, a blueprint that’s still being followed. A key component of the bludgeoning, brutal sounds is the incomparable drumming of pre-Battles John Stanier. [Interscope, 1992]
Tomahawk, Mit Gas
We know where Duane Denison lives! Which is completely irrelevant, but we thought we’d mention it. That said, the second album from the Jesus Lizard guitarist, madman Mike Patton, Cows bassist Kevin Rutmanis and Stanier is a brutal and majestic pummeling from some of the best in the business. [Ipecac, 2003] —Sean L. Maloney
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He Sees a Far-ness
On I Am Very Far, Okkervil River’s ever-enigmatic Will Sheff explores how memory works. / by K. Ross Hoffman
T
here are no easy answers on the new Okkervil River
album. The Austin outfit—by now a venerable indie rock establishment that’s been releasing music for well over a decade—has always made records that invite careful contemplation and investigation to reveal their conceptual nuances and rich, literary complexity. But I Am Very Far, the band’s long-awaited sixth full-length, feels especially inscrutable.
“
The music defies simple categorization, straining beyond its humble rock and folk underpinnings with extravagantly expansive arrangements, layered with abundant orchestral and choral elements, but also a handful of even more unexpected, inexplicable sounds. It’s the band’s first self-produced outing, which might partly explain why tales of its recording—marathon sessions with a seven-strong guitar army; noises coaxed from rolls of duct tape and file cabinets thrown across the room; a solo made by rewinding and fastforwarding a cassette deck—can’t help calling to mind the impishly excessive studio experimentation of lateperiod Beatles.
Your earliest memory sometimes feels like a skeleton key to your entire life; like all the mysteries you’re gonna chase down in your life were right there. It’s your own personal creation story.” —Will Sheff And while Will Sheff’s lyrics—ever a crucial element of the band’s appeal—remain as erudite and exquisitely crafted as ever, they’ve never been this cryptic. What once scanned as lucid (albeit dizzyingly dense) prose, reproduced in CD booklets in neatly punctuated rectangular paragraphs, now appear (as in the handsome little volume that comes packaged with the new album’s deluxe edition) in loose, rhapsodic stanzas, yielding a generalized storybook-like character, and plenty of evocative imagery—much of it strikingly vio-
20
lent and phantasmagoric, with recurrent references to death and blood; severed throats; crashing waves; memories and dreams—but precious little narrative coherence. So, it wasn’t too surprising that when I caught up with Sheff, on the phone from his home in Brooklyn, he had few easy answers to offer. Not that he was evasive, exactly, but he tended to steer our conversation into vaguer, more philosophical realms. And, perhaps predictably, he had mystery on his mind. “Being alive is mysterious,” he riffed, when I asked whether he saw himself as a particularly mysterious person. “There’s a lot of things we don’t understand: about the world, about consciousness, about what we are, even. You’ll have a dream that messes you up all day long and you’ll think: ‘Where did that come from?’ It shows how alien we all are. I respond to artwork that explores that and intensifies that sense of mystery. When I’m at my most present, that’s how life feels to me, in a beautiful, powerful way.” The album’s mysteries begin, perhaps, with its curious, fragment-like title phrase. Unlike earlier Okkervil titles—Down the River of Golden Dreams (2003) and Black Sheep Boy (2005), named for the songs which, revisited in cover form, became those albums’ conceptual focal points; or The Stage Names (2007) and The Stand Ins (2008), bits of showbiz lingo that pointed to those albums’ predominant fascination with performance, celebrity, artifice and other aspects of mass culture—I Am Very Far is elusive, suggesting an array of interpretations, but offering nothing concrete. Certainly, as perhaps the most basic, face-value reading of the title would imply, the album does seem very far away from the musically direct, Americana-rooted stylings of the band’s earliest work, best exemplified on their marvelous, overlooked 2002 album Don’t Fall in Love With Everyone You See. (In several respects, not least the new album’s mess of nautically oriented material—there’s even a song called “Piratess”!— Okkervil River seem to have suddenly switched places and swapped career trajectories with their similarly bookish brethren in the Decemberists, whose 2011 album found them killing kings, eschewing obfuscation, and doing away with fantastical sagas to embrace simplicity and American roots forms.) Lyrically, too, this album’s themes are just as “far” from the dense web of pop culture allusions strewn
across the conceptual diptych of their last two alyou’re gonna chase down in your life were right there. bums—notwithstanding references in hard-hitting It’s your own personal creation story. opener “The Valley” to “the rock ’n’ roll dead,” which “There’s something about [early memories] that would have fit right in—in a way that makes Far feel seems so true and seems so real… [I have] memories both more private and personal, and at the same time of being a kid that could not possibly have happened— hallucinations; people being in two places at once, more all-encompassing and fundamentally human. Sheff concurs: “There’s a way in which the more perthings like that—[that] I just accepted as real, and when sonal you get, the more universal you have the potenI think back, it obviously wasn’t real. But my memory of tial of being.” That potent if fairly paradoxical notion it is real. And then when you get older, everything gets was one of many subtle lessons Sheff gleaned from his bland and straightforward. There’s something about experience working with psych-rock icon (and fellow that mysterious world I wanted to invite to seep out.” Texan) Roky Erickson on last year’s acclaimed True To my mind, these ideas suggested a different Love Cast Out All Evil—Erickson’s highest-profile alpossible way of understanding the album’s title; the bum in decades—which Sheff explains as “[basically] an Okkervil River record with Roky as the frontman instead of me.” “I think that Roky’s kind of fearless in terms of the things he writes about and the way he writes about them. The way he expresses himself is incredibly free, with not a lot of thought put into meeting people where they are. You have to meet him where he is. [Seeing that helped me understand that] I didn’t need to be musically gregarious; I could be insular and interior in a way, and that that would kind of preserve a bit of that mystery that I’ll always respond to in art; this feeling that there’s a spiritual, mysterious depth and richness to a work of art that you can’t 100 percent access. It’s there, but you can’t quite get to it; you’re peeking through a keyhole. That’s what I wanted out of this record.” thought that “I”—one’s self, or some hidden aspect of one’s self—might be very far away from one’s experiBut if Far is clearly informed by an array of experience—whether Sheff’s own, that of Erickson (which is ence or lived reality. itself the stuff of rock ’n’ roll legend), or some deeper, Sheff was receptive to the idea. “Yeah, there’s somecollective understanding—it also displays an equal, thing to that; it’s better than what a lot of people have perhaps even more prominent strain of innocence. Besaid about it, which is why I almost didn’t want to call yond a prevailing sensibility redolent of fairy tales and the record that. [Many people assume] as a knee-jerk fabulism, the lyrics are full of direct, if still often hazy, thing that I’m talking about myself, or that it’s about progress—like, ‘Look how far I’ve come…’; that’s comreferences to childhood and young adulthood. pletely not what I meant, it doesn’t have anything to “With every record, it’s like you’re trying to be born again,” Sheff explains. “You’re trying to throw away do with it.” So what did he have in mind? “A lot of different your past formulas and rediscover yourself. And for that to work, you need to bring a certain kind of enthuthings—I think of it as a disconnected shard of dialogue siasm. There’s a time and place for a jaded that somebody in one of the songs might be standpoint—Exile on Main Street is a clasthinking or saying at some point… a ‘music sic example of a jaded record; The Stage from another room’ kind of thing. It’s not like a skeleton key to the meaning of the record Names and Stand Ins were kind of jaded. or anything. It’s kind of a twist or an add-on But for this record what I really wanted was not jaded—I wanted it to feel wild-eyed to the record.” and open. Okkervil River will be on tour through late “And that brought me to my own memJune. More at okkervilriver.com ories—to my very first memory. Your earliI Am Very Far is est memory sometimes feels like a skeleton available now from key to your entire life; like all the mysteries Jagjaguwar. Photo by alexandra valenti
Far and away: (from left) Justin Sherburn, Lauren Gurgiolo, Cully Symington, Will Sheff and Patrick Pestorius
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VINYOLO!N ALS
VINYOLO!N
Warren Haynes Man In Motion
My Morning Jacket Circuital
Tedeschi Trucks Band Revelator
IN STORES 6/7
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the
Unbearable Lightness of
How a couple of kids from San Diego spun easy, breezy blog sensation “Go Outside” into the most buzzworthy debut of the summer.
Cults
story by K . R o ss H o f f m a n photos by sh a ne m c cau l ey
It’s Thursday night in Brooklyn
and I’m sitting in a room full of kids in their early 20s. There’s a pair of worn vinyl sofas, beer in the fridge, a table spread with crackers, cheese and fruit. We’re chatting about Twitter, bus travel, big-box stores, natural gas fracking, bicoastalism (everybody I talk to seems to hail from San Diego). Everyone here is over the legal drinking age—if only barely—but there’s still something sheepish about the way Ryan—a tall, grinning fellow with chest-length hair and a peach-fuzzy dusting of facial scruff—cups his Miller. (His buddies inform me that his actual drink of choice is Budweiser: “Bud, burgers, pizza, Coca-Cola… he’s an all-American boy.”) Across the room, the petite, doll-like Madeline—who has equally long hair framing a cherubic face—is breathing deeply, trying to quell her stomach, which has been troubling her since she arrived earlier after downing a dubious-sounding slice of Caesar salad pizza.
Cults
Glancing around, this could be any party of post-collegiate adopis the brainchild—or perhaps better said the lovechild— tive New Yorkers, kicking it in a Williamsburg pad. In fact, we’re of this singularly endearing twosome, Follin and Oblivbackstage at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, where there’s a buzzion, who, a little more than a year ago, weren’t much different from worthy launch event underway for Vice magazine’s new video-based any number of transplanted New York college kids. Both San Diego music website, Noisey. Ryan—better known as Brian Oblivion (he natives, they met in San Francisco when Oblivion was playing guitar cribbed the moniker from David Cronenberg’s Videodrome, a film with Richie Follin’s band the Willowz, and shortly thereafter relosix years older than he is)—and Madeline Follin, along with several cated together to New York to study film—he at NYU, she as a cinema of the hometown buddies gathered around them, comprise the band theory major at the New School. When the buoyant, preternaturally Cults, whose self-titled debut album will be released in a matter of catchy “Go Outside,” the very first song the pair wrote and recorded weeks by In the Name Of (a new imprint of Sony/Columbia overseen together, became a music-blog sensation virtually overnight—within by Lily Allen), and who will be headlining tonight’s show. a week after they first posted it and two other MP3s to their page at bandcamp.com, the song was picked up by Gorilla Vs. Bear and PitchIn addition to the after-effects of overly heavy, er, pizza dressing, Madeline’s internal distress stems from the fact that her band is fork, launching a remarkable wave of online enthusiasm—they were about to take the stage with a new, essentialjust a couple of overworked, over-stressed unly untested lineup. Her brother Richie, who’s dergrads, making music in the spare moments played with Cults since the beginning, just between demanding internships (Oblivion departed to focus on his own group, Guards, was working for film producer Scott Rudin; Follin, as it happens, for Vice) and full-time reducing their onstage personnel from six to five. Meanwhile, the latest in a Spinal Tapschool schedules. like string of drummers recently broke his Both of them had plenty of music in their arm, so another friend, Mark, is filling in. And backgrounds. Follin was exposed to the record this particular configuration has only logged a business particularly early on thanks to her few hours of rehearsal, earlier in the day. “I’m stepfather, Paul Kostabi, a California punknervous because everyone else is nervous, rocker who was in the band Youth Gone Mad, you know?” confides Follin, the band’s magas well as the original lineup of White Zomnetic lead vocalist. “I’m not doing anything bie. “When I was really little, I wanted to be a different. But it’s just scary; everybody else singer,” she recalls. “I was on my stepdad’s reis picking up two other instruments they’ve cord when I was eight years old.” (Follin also never played at our shows.” showed me a fawning fan note she’d written —Follin, age 6, Incidentally, Oblivion’s drinking tonight to herself at age six: “Dear Madeline, you’re written to herself is indeed minorly sub rosa, since the band’s so cute and funny, and you know what? I love manager (who also happens to be Madeline’s your clothes. You sing so well. Love, Madeline. mother), concerned about a flubbed note or P.S. Marry me?”) But despite childhood stints two during soundcheck, has suggested that he playing bass and drums, she became more stay sober until after the performance. He demurs, however: “I need ambivalent about music as she grew older, in a sort of inversion of to have at least one or two right before I go on, otherwise…” traditional filial defiance. “I wanted to rebel against what my parents Follin chimes in: “…or else you don’t have the energy!” (The two were doing. I went back and forth in stages where I was like, ‘I’m not have a habit of finishing one another’s thoughts.) “If you don’t have gonna do that. I’m gonna be a cheerleader.’” a drink, you feel like you’re not really awake.” Oblivion, meanwhile, moved to New York at 17 to pursue a music
Dear Madeline, you’re so cute and funny, and you know what? I love your clothes. You sing so well. Love, Madeline. P.S. Marry me?
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career, after testing out of high school early. “But it didn’t go very well,” he recounts. “The band broke up, there was a bunch of drama and after that happened I thought that music wasn’t really in the cards.” So, he refocused his energies on film, limiting his musical activities to the occasional Willowz gig, every few months or so. “The first songs that I’d written in two years were the songs that we wrote for this band. So, I was kinda out of it. But it made it more fun to come back to it, having somebody to work on it with that I liked and saw eye-to-eye with.”
From
the outset, there were no grand ambitions for the project. “It was just something fun to do when we were sick of writing essays and stuff,” says Oblivion. “I think that came out in the music a little bit.” It’s true that many of Cults’ songs evince a desire to escape from life’s complications; a yearning for the innocence of childhood, for a less complex (and probably imaginary) bygone era, or just the prospect of living more simply and sweetly. The wistfully breezy “Go Outside”—whose title works as both metaphorical and literal suggestion—is a prime, almost self-evident example, but there’s also the fervent wander lust of “Oh My God” (“I’m ready to walk right out that door… all I want is to know I have never wasted my time”), the dark, desperate promise in “Bad Things” to “run away and never come back,” and “Rave On”’s laundry list of mundanities they’d gladly forgo in exchange for the blithe rock ‘n’ roll rapture evoked in the song’s title. It’s easy to hear all of this as a reaction (in some cases, a highly sensationalized one) against the frustrations and tedium of schoolwork and “slave labor” internships, coupled with the nagging ennui Oblivion describes as either quarter-life crisis or postteen angst: attending parties that feel “more like networking opportunities”; looking to a nebulous future that seemed to promise only stifled ambition and further drudgery. “Subconsciously, a lot of our songs are about that period of time: not wanting to live a normal life, not wanting to go to work every day, being really afraid of that, because we were just about to graduate school and that’s what we were facing.” You could chalk it up to garden variety post-adolescent Peter Pan-ism. “A lot of it’s about the drive to stay young,” he admits, glossing Cults’ recurring lyrical impulses, and Follin continues: “…wanting to go out and have a good time, and screw your responsibilities.” But Oblivion sees broader sociological implications there as well: “It’s a big problem with our generation. I feel like our parents grew up and the goal for them was to better their situation: ‘I’m gonna go to college, and then I’m gonna go get a job at a pharmaceutical company, and then I’m gonna have a house and kids, and that’s the
life I want.’ Whereas we all expect that we’re gonna be rock stars and famous directors, and that we have some huge untapped creative ability that the world just has to see. Anything’s gonna be a disappointment when you’re thinking that way. The big thing for us is taking that attitude, which we obviously have as well, and actually doing something about it. “That’s partly what ‘Go Outside’ is about: the drive to actually make something out of your life and have something to show for it, rather than just sulking around and playing videogames and critiquing other peoples’ stuff. That’s really important for our generation to realize, that you’re never gonna get what you want unless you ask for it.” Still, Oblivion is quick to shy away from any notion that Cults are “speaking to the youth,” or anything grandiose like that—or even that they’re speaking from experience. “When Madeline and I sit down to write a song, we don’t write them about ourselves. We think, ‘Okay, what are the characters in this song, what’s gonna be going on?’ and
hair and makeup by liset garza. styling by Jenny Volodarsky. dresses designed by Caycee Black.
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we build a dramatic musical structure around that.” Hence, perhaps, an explanation for this pair of unabashed lovebirds penning numbers like the agonized, heartbroken “Abducted” (which Oblivion calls a Lynchian “girl in distress” song), or the unflinching, psychologically candid kiss-off “Never Heal Myself,” as well as the lovey-dovey boygirl back-and-forth of “Bumper.” “It’s not like we’re speaking from the heart,” he maintains. But, Follin counters, “Obviously, the heart seeps in.” And it’s easy to imagine many of their songs as mildly refracted reflections of a not-toodistant childhood, with all its attendant darkness and light. “We always wanted to write songs about and for outcast kids, misfit kids,” Oblivion states. “I think we were both like that growing up. We’ve grown to be more well-adjusted with the world, but we were both kinda freaky art kids. I didn’t wear shoes in high school, and that was pretty gross. I had so many weird ideas about the way you’re supposed to live. In eighth grade I just decided I was gonna have long hair, and I’ve never looked back…”
Oh yeah,
about that hair: All but one member of the band sports dark, freely flowing tresses, which gives their onstage appearance both a decidedly youthful and a slightly, well, cultish, aspect. “It was totally uncalculated,” Oblivion asserts. “They’re just our friends from San Diego, and we all fell into the same thing.” Like most everything else about their story, the duo’s process for assembling live musicians to flesh out the songs they’d created in their apartment was essentially unpremeditated. “We got the opportunity to play good shows and have a fun band, just off of nothing, so we called our best friends [in California] and said, ‘Dude, it’s going
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pretty well; why don’t you come out here?’” Bassist Nathan Aguilar was a deliveryman for “a very unsuccessful pizza business” when he got the call and, in Oblivion’s account, it took about zero seconds for him to accept. “He got on a plane like three days later and has been out here ever since. It’s kind of a Cinderella story.” Really, it’s been pretty storybook all around, with Brian and Madeline as a picture-perfect readymade Prince and Princess Charming. You could almost resent them if they weren’t so utterly, endearingly ingenuous about it all. And so, with enviable rock ’n’ roll fantasy-land logic, making music at home with your honey led to traveling around on tour with a bunch of friends and family. Follin insists it’s not quite as idyllic as it seems: “I don’t think that anybody would want to be in a band with us… we have a weird sense of humor that’s sometimes lost on people.” Oblivion illustrates by example: “We went on tour with the band Twin Sister, and they stayed at our hotel one night because we were out late drinking. The next morning we were in the van and Nathan, our bass player, started saying he was gonna puke.” Follin interjects: “This is a normal thing, he pukes every day.” “And so we pulled over the van at the center divider of a freeway, and he was puking there and we were all shouting at him and laughing at him. Then we just drove away and went to a Starbucks and hung out for 15 minutes, and just left him in the middle of the freeway.” “He didn’t care, though,” adds Follin. “…He thinks that kind of stuff is really funny,” Oblivion continues. “But the whole time [the Twin Sister guys] were appalled, like, ‘Are you serious, is he gonna be okay? Do you think we need to take him to the hospital?’ And I’m like, ‘No, dude, he’s just drunk. He’s an idiot, he shouldn’t be drinking that much.’” “Everybody’s really kind of mean to each other, but in a loving way.
It’s like we’re all brothers and sisters,” Follin elaborates. “And it’s can remember: on the radio; on bus trips; at those fake school sock weird because [Brian and I are] in a relationship also, so people feel hops… I feel like those are the first songs you really learn.” She cites like they’re in the relationship, too. Brian and I will be in an argument a few favorites, revealing a taste for the cheesily cheery—Lesley and people will say, ‘Well, why don’t you do this?’ and I’ll be like, ‘Why Gore’s “Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows”; teenaged ’50s sister act don’t you stay out of our relationship?!’ There was an ongoing joke Patience and Prudence. this round of tour… I got in a fight with Brian, But the pair’s preeminent musical heroes and I said, ‘You know how much it hurts me are bad-girl O.G.’s the Shangri-Las. “I think when you lie to me?’” It was a really serious there’s something instantly connectable conversation. Then for the rest of the tour about them, especially for kids that don’t everybody kept saying that to me: ‘You know normally like pop music, because there’s a lot of rebellious spirit in it,” muses Oblivion. how much it hurts me…?’” In his case, that connection came about partly Although they rarely get time alone on the road (“only when we’re in, like, Birmingham, through a less conventional sort of rebellion, Alabama, and hotels are 20 bucks each—then against the opposite musical extreme: “I used we’ll get our own room,” says Follin, “but even to play in all these math-rock bands with then somebody will usually come in and ask kids in suburban San Diego, and it was like to stay with us”), Oblivion and Follin have a competition of who could like the weirddeveloped ways of protecting their relationest music—you know, Acid Mothers Temple, ship against the pressures of touring. “We’ve Merzbow…” After a while, burnout set in. “So, learned to kind of turn it on and off,” Oblivion I got a Beach Boys record, and I was like, ‘Oh explains. “When we need to do something semy god… this feels so good!’” It’s that inverted rious, when we need to have a talk with somesubversion again. “Exactly,” he chuckles. “Rebody or something’s going wrong with the bellion through conformity. Kind of a First equipment, we’re not in relationship mode. World problem.” We’re able to distance ourselves. Then, once “Oh my god, Mary Weiss actually just we have time alone, to be relaxed, it’s like, added me on Facebook a few days ago,” Follin ‘Ahh, what’s going on, babe?’ If not, everything gushes, referring to the Shangri-Las’ iconic would just get too personal. If every time you lead singer, with an expression of fan-girlish had some kind of professional problem, you enthusiasm that seems strangely anachroturned it into a personal argument, it would nistic in multiple ways. “It’s weird because just be hell, but we’ve been good at avoiding everybody’s been telling me I remind them of that. Which has been a very important life her.” Follin was dubious, but then she started watching live videos of Weiss performing. “I skill for us. But it makes things way better — oblivion having someone you love and care about on watched this one video in particular, and I tour instead of just a bunch of bros.” was like, ‘Is that me?’ She had the same hair“Yeah, a bunch of bros—that would suck!” cut and everything… it was weird.” giggles Follin—although it does sound like they have a bit of both The resemblance is audible, too. Many of Cults’ songs update the worlds. And it swings the other way, too: “I make them help me pick Shangri-Las’ flair for melodrama; “Bad Things”’ sparsely shuffling, what color nail polish I’m gonna wear. I make them be my girlfriends slightly menacing groove owes a certain debt to “Remember (Walksometimes.” ing in the Sand)” (as does “Abducted,” which echoes that song’s dramatic tempo changes), and they also nod to the group’s use of interstitial dialogue with spoken samples from films and, in at least youthful craving for sweetness and simplicity that’s so achone case, cult leader Jim Jones. But while the duo’s affection for the ingly conveyed in Cults’ lyrics (albeit counterbalanced by sounds of the early ’60s—sunshine pop and bad-kid blues alike—is distinct undercurrents of alienation, hopelessness and despair)—and certainly palpable in their music, Cults are hardly strict revivalists. that resonates remarkably well with their charmed and charming Much like Lykke Li’s excellent Wounded Rhymes, the 11 songs that experience of being a band thus far—is also brilliantly matched by make up Cults’ first full-length appropriate myriad retro signifiers, their music. Like a growing number of their contemporaries, they only to refashion them in their own, coolly modern image. Alongside borrow from the girl-group pop and soul sounds of the late 1950s and its handclaps and finger-snaps, doo-wop arpeggios and gloriously early 1960s. But unlike more fuzz-toned quasi-resurgents like Dum outsized melodies, the album is equally replete with dryly snarling Dum Girls and Vivian Girls, Cults tend to eschew the era’s rockier guitar leads; distant ghostly organs; airy synths and other swirling impulses to focus, above all, on the primacy of melody. Every single electronics; syncopated rhythms subtly informed by hip-hop and funky post-punk, and a level of vocal reverb that would make Phil song they’ve unveiled so far boasts an absolutely stunning melodic line: long and fluid; not too simple, not too complicated; rendered Spector blush. indelible by Madeline Follin’s high, tensile voice—girlishly thin but still piercingly potent—and often doubled or tripled, on glockenspiel, guitar or organ, for good measure. a short and sweet debut at just shy of 34 minutes, The music of the girl-group era is shot through with nostalgia contains four of the five tunes that trickled out onto the web during the band’s first year or so of bubble-like, bubblingon just about every level: it’s music by, for and about youth, from a time when rock music itself was in its infancy, and it’s also muunder fame, along with another seven equally delightful offerings, the sic that multiple generations of listeners first encountered in their cream of five months’ worth of piecemeal studio sessions. The band’s own childhood. Follin, for instance, has listened to it “ever since I description of that period—nonstop touring alternating with nonstop
We got the opportunity to play good shows and have a fun band, just off of nothing, so we called our best friends [in California] and said, “Dude, it’s going pretty well; why don’t you come out here?”
The
Cults,
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Oblivion’s
theories about attention-spoiled 21st-century fame-seekers notwithstanding, Cults are hardly self-satisfied about their sudden success. After a full year in the eye of the hypestorm, they’re still refreshingly wide-eyed about the rock ‘n’ roll fairy tale they’ve stumbled into; Oblivion, particularly, seems almost oblivious to the idea that the attention might be well-deserved: He’s slow to make any allusion to the evident talent and craft that goes into the band’s music, and quick to chide himself about, for instance, his foolish, headstrong attempt to mix the album himself (“I don’t know what the hell I was thinking”), and his general lack of professionalism (“I’d get so little-kid pissy,” he says of a typical experience working on a video. “Any time anybody made a critique, I’d just be like, ‘Alright, I’m not answering e-mails for a week.’”) As he told me when we first sat down, they never set out to be rock stars. “We think of our band, from its birth, as more of an art project than a band, really. It’s just the two of us, making our own album art, consulting on our own videos, making music together. Neither of us are lifetime road-dog musicians or anything. It was never our dream. It’s just something we’re having a lot of fun with.” His partner has a slight quibble: “I mean, it definitely was my dream,” she says. “You saw my note; I was telling myself that I sang so well... I guess I never wanted to admit it.” So, how does it feel to be living her dream? Madeline beams. “I’m really happy, for the most part. Touring’s tough, but it’s fun. It’s really fun.”
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recording—sounds utterly hectic and exhausting, but they’re enthusiastic about the experience and how it affected the album’s gradual evolution, giving them the opportunity to play songs live and make changes as they went. “It was really healthy to take our time with it as opposed to trying to capitalize on a moment,” says Oblivion. Their initial impulse, given the unexpected, rapturous reception of “Go Outside,” was to try to recreate it. “‘We gotta write a bunch more like that!’” Oblivion recalls thinking. “But any attempt that we made to make a song that sounded like that just fell flat; we hated all of them.” So, they allowed themselves to branch out, exploring a variety of directions without succumbing to eclecticism for its own sake. “And that’s how we ended up making the album; we wrote 10 dark songs, eight happy songs, five weird, noisy songs. And then, instead of thinking, ‘Well, this is our first statement as a band, we want it to be cohesive,’ we just grabbed the best songs and put ’em together. Which is kind of a vintage way of thinking about an album.” To be fair, Cults definitely still sounds like a fluid, cohesive work, and, despite the band’s intentions, there are a couple of tunes that capture an insouciant uplift readily reminiscent of “Go Outside,” though nothing that could be called a blatant facsimile. (“Oh My God” comes close—in sound, feel and message—but it’s so deliriously exultant in its own right that it’s nearly impossible to mind.) But the album never feels like it’s trying at all hard to be anything in particular, which is probably the single most fundamental, underlying key to the band’s appeal, both on record and in person.
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in the green room at the Williamsburg Music Hall, in the cocoon of their bandmates and adoring friends, merrily boozing and bantering, periodically stepping out to go watch the other bands on the bill, Madeline is equal parts fluttering hostess, level headed den mother and nerve-stricken ingénue. She’s been keeping watch by the door of the bathroom, making sure everyone who goes in knows not to push in the lock (because it’s broken and they might get stuck inside.) But it also seems like she’s partly keeping close by in case her stomach starts to get the better of her. (Not a typical occurrence, she assures me; but this show in particular seems to have ratcheted up her anxiety: “I guess I’m more nervous than usual.”) By the time Cults take the stage, those nerves have dissipated, and Madeline is all smiles once more. The awkward repartee with which she and Brian attempt to engage the crowd between songs (“It’s getting too Noisey!”) doesn’t come across as flustered or uncomfortable so much as amiably offhand, like they were just cracking bad puns for a room full of old friends. And, of course, they needn’t have worried about the performance itself. The rejiggered version of the band breezed through their eightsong set like the seasoned pros they secretly sort of are. And actually, without the noisier, shoegazey element of Richie Follin’s supplemental guitar work, the songs sounded cleaner and tighter, closer to the crisp arrangements on the record. It felt like a small, precious moment; a minor revelation, even if it’s just one in a continuing, dizzying string for Cults themselves—still youthful, open to freshness and wonder, just at the beginning of an amazing adventure. It was a blessing just to be there, basking in that joy, sharing it with them. P.S. Marry me? Cults will tour the U.S. and Canada in June and July. More at cultscultscults.com and cults.bandcamp.com. Cults will be available June 7 from In the Name of/Columbia.
new music reviewed and graded for your aural pleasure
Fantastic Mr. Folkie S
Fleet Foxes
Helplessness Blues Sub Pop
photo by Sean Pecknold
eattle’s Fleet Foxes have been key players in
indie’s ongoing coming-out party of the past half-decade— the one that culminated in all those who-the-fuck-is-theArcade-Fire moments in the wake of last year’s Grammys. Having sold nearly half a million copies of their eponymous debut fulllength, they reside in the same neighborhood of the pop culture consciousness as the most recent Record of the Year award winners—a middle-class suburb between the affluent gated communities of the mainstream and the blue-collar underground. Not only has anticipation of sophomore effort Helplessness Blues been stoked by how well the debut was received nearly three years ago, but if there’s another band waiting in the wings to get
Robin Pecknold’s grip on Fleet Foxes’ reins is stronger than ever, and we’re not complaining who-the-fucked at a future Grammy ceremony, it’s almost certainly Fleet Foxes (now that LCD Soundsystem’s done, at least). “White Winter Hymnal” is still Fleet Foxes’ most reliable entry point. Loose, front-porch folk collides with choral washes, taking traditional music 31
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borne of unsophistication and dressing it up for concert halls. On Helplessness Blues, the band’s still best at their most church-y, and the near constant harmonies are nearly as constant. But a number of the songs are direct in a way that’s jarring—or at least as jarring as a band as tempered as Fleet Foxes gets. With the new album, one voice in the chorus is obviously the primary one. Even as Robin Pecknold sings matter-of-factly, “I’d rather be a functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me,” it’s apparent he’s the
gear turning the others. That’s not meant to belittle the contributions of the other Foxes—one would be hard-pressed to find a band in which this scenario isn’t the case to some degree—but Helplessness Blues’ titular helplessness seems to radiate from Pecknold’s drive to reconcile an increasingly insular point of view with a desire to work toward the greater good. While Pecknold’s voice sits more front and center, the new album isn’t lacking in the pastoral flourishes that have become the band’s calling card. “The Plains/Bitter Dancer” floats
along in Simon and Garfunkel fashion, while “The Cascades” takes mountain music across wideopen valleys. Moving into less familiar territory, the second half of “The Shrine/An Argument” drifts into free-form quasi-jazz skronk—and it works. But even if large portions of Helplessness Blues feel more like a solo record (“Blue Spotted Tail” even features Pecknold unaccompanied), it’s still a pretty great one. At least there’s some version of a middle class out there that isn’t feeling the squeeze. —Matt Sullivan
This Must Be… Pop? With one frontman down, Battles fight for their right to party
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hat do you do when the pretty-much-frontman of
your band up and leaves to do the solo thing? If you’re Battles, the NYC now-trio whose guitarist/vocalist TyonBattles dai Braxton recently went rogue, you start with a blank slate—and dump Gloss Drop as much bright ’n’ sugary shit on it as you can find. Forget a replacement: Throw an ice cream social, just for yourselves (and a few of your friends warp who can sing pretty good, sure). Have fun. Get saccharine. That’s how it works on the aptly titled Gloss Drop, and it works damn fine. Without Braxton’s multi-instrumental skills and gas-huffing gnome chanteys (are you going to miss that second one?), Battles are indeed a different beast than they were on 2007’s debut LP, Mirrored, but all the compensatory sweet equity actually pays off. “Wall Street” is powered by nose candy jitters just like the real one is, “Dominican Fade” gets its cheery Caribbean steel groove on (with handclaps), and the soft-serve guitar swirls of “Ice Cream” are churned out with summer drives and carousel rides in mind. Matias
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Aguayo sings on that one, à la Animal Collective when they aren’t too drugged out, and surprisingly puts ol’ Gary Numan— whose “My Machines” wail, disappointingly enough, makes for the one clunker here—to shame. Everything else tastes nice on first bite, though—just don’t call it lightweight. ExHelmet man John Stanier’s drumming is every bit the muscle and math you’d expect, and the dense pastiches Dave Konopka and Ian Williams slather on top are no joke. Gloss Drop is Battles gone pop, but it’s made with some pretty heavy cream. —Jakob Dorof
photo by Jason Frank Rothenberg
Antony and the Johnsons
Swanlights
Secretly Canadian
When merely hypnagogic just isn’t enough Having one of the world’s most beautiful voices has only helped Antony Hegarty build a comfortable niche for himself amid the interstices of indie rock, experimental music and dark cabaret. But with collaborations, the 40-year-old New Yorker’s blessing often turns to a curse. Not for Hegarty, exactly. It’s just that Björk, Bryan Ferry and pretty much everybody else he’s ever shared a mic with ends up coming off like Donald Duck in comparison. His collabos with non-vocalists tend to fare far better, per Oneohtrix Point Never’s “Swanlights” remix. Drone innovator Daniel Lopatin doesn’t so much deconstruct the song as turn it into a heavily bejeweled version of its somnambulant skeleton. Spectacular as it is, though, Lopatin’s treatment serves mainly to send us back, again and again, to the soulfully psychedelic original. Two additional tracks—both previously unreleased—close the loop, resulting in an EP richer than most albums. —Rod Smith Arctic Monkeys
Suck It and See Domino
Perhaps “perfect” is a bit strong, but... Less Strokes than Borg, Arctic Monkeys assimilate everything they sense—to the extent of anchoring punk-into-grunge rock club natural “Brick by Brick” with a riff lifted from Ernie K-Doe’s 1961 novelty R&B hit, “Mother-in-Law.“ It’s neither their fourth album’s only foray into transcendent silliness—“Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I Moved Your Chair” even boasts a perfectly formed “yeah, yeah, yeah” chorus—nor the only patch of new terrain they successfully lay claim to. (For every snob who dismisses singer, guitarist and creative core Alex Turner’s dalliances with U.K. Americana, at least three Travis fans are bound to mess their Dockers.) Hater bait aside, most of Suck It revisits the sexed-up wonderland they’ve been exploring at least since 2007’s Favourite Worst Nightmare, with fewer theatrics than ’09’s Humbug, more virtuoso performances, more romance (check “She’s Thunderstorms”), and the trickiest takedowns to date in their perpetual wrestling match with the sublime. —Rod Smith Beastie Boys
Hot Sauce Committee Part Two Capitol
Licensed to kick ill’s ass. It occurred to more than a few people that Adam Yauch’s 2009 cancer diagnosis and treatment might have given the Beastie Boys pause to reflect on their place in the great cosmic plan, somber contemplation that would be displayed on the
sleeves of their long-delayed Hot Sauce Committee Part Two. Screw dat. HSCP2 might as well have been titled You Gotta Fight for Your Right to Piss Down Cancer’s Back, as it bumps with crackling intensity and trademark humor hearkening back to the psychotically excellent Paul’s Boutique. The Beasties hit for the cycle on Hot Sauce: pure funk extract (“Make Some Noise,” “Funky Donkey”), deep dub with a ska/pop sheen (“Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win”), blistering indie rock (“Lee Majors Come Again”), atmospheric rap (“Too Many Rappers,” “Nonstop Disco Powerback,” “Here’s a Little Something for Ya”), new wave electropop (“Ok”) and some crazy-ass shit (“Crazy Ass Shit”). Hot Sauce is no cancer survivor afterschool special; it’s a full-bore mixtape circus, and maybe the best thing the Beasties have dropped in a decade. —Brian Baker
The Cars
Move Like This Concord Music Group
Orr maybe it isn’t? Pshaw! This sounds like a thousand other synth-driven dance-y rock bands that live in a cabinet in some warehouse in Williamsburg. All these kids ever do is rip off the Cars and try to pass it off as their... oh, wait, this is the Cars. Well, this rules. Or, at least as much as a Cars album can rule without original bassist Ben Orr. When Orr passed away, we swore that we would never listen to an Orr-less Cars reunion—it seemed like heresy, frankly—but Move Like This is respectful of the legend’s legacy, and even includes a “Drive”-like moment with the new cut “Soon,” so we’ll let ’em slide. (And yes, we know that Ocasek wrote “Drive,” but it’s Orr’s vocal that makes the song.) We were skeptical—we’ve been burned by reunion albums before—but Move Like This is a great contribution to the classic band’s catalog. —Sean L. Maloney Chateau Marmont
2008-2009-2010 Chambre404
Dap Funk Although this Parisian quartet has found fame recently engineering nouvelle electro remixes for like-minded acts La Roux and Röyksopp, this collection of EPs hews closer to Chateau Marmont’s true bread-and-butter: Daft Punk-inspired synth pop. Endless grooves and vocoder-assisted vocals on “Nibiru” draw further parallels to the group’s French countrymen, while a series of remixes of last year’s Nibiru EP (including an ace mix of “Monodrama” by LCD Soundsystem auxiliary member Gavin Russom) strip some tracks down to their bare-bones essentials. 2008-2009-2010 bypasses linear sequencing in favor of an approach that drops the group’s slightly older material (including the standalone/ standout “Beagle” single) in the middle of the newer catalogue, but what’s missing is a hint of the impish humor at the heart of the best Daft Punk singles. Still, it’s all frothy and effervescent enough to
suggest that Chateau Marmont are really only one “One More Time” away from finding their ultimate groove. —Nick Green
The Coathangers
Larceny & Old Lace Suicide Squeeze
Crime pays For two albums, the women of this Atlanta quartet, who now take the band as their last name, Ramones-style, have danced this mess around in no wave chaos and monster mashes. While the latest, named after an episode of The Golden Girls, shows them flirting with more formal structures, there’s no danger of them really settling down for good. If anyone can have fun with heartbreak, it’s the Coathangers, from the opening stomp of “Hurricane,” to the tart girl group-ish “Go Away” and the outer space freakout of “Johnny.” The vocals, shared by Crook Kid, Minnie, Rusty and Bebe, are like a rowdy bar conversation, listening to a girlfriend tell a really good story: They coo, cajole, crack up and crack each other up. They stomp along to the Rolling Stones on “Well Alright,” and try their Southern roots on for size on “Tabbacco Rd.” —Sara Sherr Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi
Rome
Capitol
The good, the okay and the generally agreeable Danger Mouse must surely dread the specter of a defunded NPR. After all, any attack on bourgie musical eclecticism would seriously damage his ability to conduct self-consciously neo-retro musical projects, such as this collaboration with Italian TV/film composer Daniele Luppi (Sex in the City, Hell Ride). For now, he’s safe to explore his fondness for ’70s-era film soundtrack orchestrations, particularly of the spaghetti western variety, unhindered. For now. All kidding aside, there will always be a market for these musical conventions, whether it be lachrymose Lee Hazlewood-esque balladry (“The Rose With the Broken Neck,” emoted by Jack White), Starbucks-ready downtempo pop (“Season’s Trees”) or charmingly dated instrumentals. Expect plenty of wistful moaning, tremolo-infused guitar leads and pleasantly unobtrusive melodies designed, like any movie score, to serve a background role in the listener’s real-life dramas. —Justin Hampton Des Ark
Don’t Rock the Boat, Sink the Fucker Lovitt
Still seasick More than a record title, it’s a philosophical mantra. Don’t simply make your argument, hammer it in; don’t write songs that are just challenging, write songs that might be alienating. This un
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compromising ethos hinders the first Des Ark album since 2005’s Loose Lips Sink Ships, but its boldness is admirable. Melancholic opener “My Saddle Is Waitin’ (C’mon Jump on It)” rides pleasantly but aimlessly to guitar harmonics and feedback ambience until almost the five-minute mark. “I’d love to keep on loving you, my dear,” Aimee Argote breathlessly sings, “but you’re already dead.” Suddenly there’s an eruption: piano, drums, angelic vocal harmonies and ridiculous splendor—a fine payoff. We hear this again in “FTW Y’all!!!” a disco/guitar anthem for codependency that emerges from a minute and a half of swell. Other moments aren’t as successful—with disjointed guitar and dense lyrics about abuse, “Girls Get Ruff” collapses under its own weight. But even this is a winning point; Don’t Rock the Boat can be captivating in its instability. —John Vettese
straightforward poetry, while the band plays with an inspiring flair. “Revolution,” “Don’t Shut ’Em Down,” “Saints and Sinners” and the title track are searing indictments of the greed and shortsightedness that have driven the country to the edge of economic ruin. Tracks like “Present State
of Grace” and “A Prayer for Me in Silence” showcase the band’s acoustic side and provide a glimmer of light in the darkness by saluting Detroit’s indomitable spirit of resistance. They may not be rockers, but they’re just as powerful in their own quiet way. —j. poet
EMA
Past Life Martyred Saints Souterrain
She’s unbelievable “EMA is the new basement bedroom garage,” says Erika Anderson on her website (cameoutta nowhere.com) regarding her new solo project, EMA. But she clarifies that the term is more a reference to her current digs rather than “some sort of super-genre.” The new guise of the former member of the Gowns features guitars that buzz and drone, a voice that could be described as fragile and a sound quality ranging from lo- to mid-fi (sometimes within the same track).But there is a depth and weight to this album that demands attention. “California” mines a cavernous gospel-blues vibe for a song that ends with a cast of characters, including the narrator, toting guns. “Milkman” features a thrilling use of distortion on pretty much every instrument. And the closing track, “Red Star,” builds to a devastating, intense reading of the line, “If you won’t love me, someone will,” solidifying Past Life Martyred Saints’ status as a compelling piece of work. —Michael Pelusi Flogging Molly
Speed of Darkness Borstal Beat
A heartfelt call for revolution Flogging Molly have never been secretive about their populist identity, but on Speed of Darkness they take their revolutionary ire to a whole new level. The band recently relocated to Detroit and that city’s bleak economic outlook informs the album. FM have never sounded this angry—or focused—before. Dave King’s lyrics tell the story of America’s rapidly growing underclass with a powerful
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Racer Riot Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. leave their hearts on the dancefloor
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he song “Nothing but Our Love” swells with sweet, understated romance—not quite what you’d Dale Earnhardt expect from a band with a name as silly as Dale EarnJr. Jr. hardt Jr. Jr. The Detroit duo’s full-length debut, It’s a Corporate It’s a Corporate World World, is tremendous, perfectly marrying the digital whimsy of electronica with lovely, restrained emotionalism. “Simple Girl,” Quite the first song bandmates Josh Epstein and Daniel Zott ever Scientific worked on together, is a perfect synthesis of all the band’s more appealing qualities—melodic spunk, bright arrangements and tender intelligence. The dreamy “Skeletons” hums along with a syncopated little beat, accented with a teensy, charming guitar warble. “An Ugly Person on a Movie Screen” has some particularly clever lyrical moments—including a promise of “20 different ways to make him sigh”—backed by a nifty head-nodding beat and well-placed, nostalgic na-na-na-na’s. For all the album’s skill with subtlety, there is also a heavy debt to dance music, including an emphatic rhythmic sensibility, an affection for electronic elements and a talent for crescendo. The most notable example is the faux-disco fun of “Vocal Chords,” but there’s also the excellent, anthemic “We Almost Lost Detroit,” a song that mythologizes the city’s crumbling industrial past. It’s a Corporate World is an album so casually arresting that it’s easy to underestimate the achievement. On “Nothing but Our Love,” Zott offers quiet assurance: “Don’t try, don’t try so hard. My love is easy.” And then later adds, “Your love is easy, and I get more than I deserve.” My feelings exactly. —Lee Stabert
French Horn Rebellion
The Infinite Music of French Horn Rebellion Once Upon a Time
Mistruths in advertising The Infinite Music of French Horn Rebellion is not infinite (though it is admittedly overlong), it’s not particularly rebellious, and it features disappointingly few French horns. Apparently, the Williamsburg-via-Wisconsin Perlick-Molinari brothers actually wish to rebel against the French horn (on which score this is, again, only a partial success), and more specifically against Robert P-M’s classical music career, but it’s not entirely clear what they’d like instead. The foundation here is workaday, but well-executed electro-dance—a little bit sparkly neo-disco, a little bit glitchy blogfodder tech-pop—infused with a cheery, Fountains of Wayne/OK Go-style power-pop sensibility, with the occasional spacey
chamber-psych diversion (where the horns come in, usually) tacked on, presumably, misguidedly, to bolster a sense of artful, album-like weight. You could cite the usual run of “nostalgic” ’80s forebears, but really it feels like these guys are just imitating their contemporaries (Passion Pit, MGMT), and though their ambitiousness is appealing and the classical chops serve them well, true greatness in this vein (e.g., Cut Copy’s In Ghost Colors) requires heart as well as craft. —K. Ross Hoffman
Handsome Furs
Sound Kapital Sub Pop
The family that plays ’80s Euro synthpop together… On Handsome Furs’ debut, 2007’s Plague Park, Dan Boeckner and Alexei Perry opted for chilled minimalism, a clear counterpoint to Boeckner’s
noisy day jobs with Wolf Parade and Atlas Strategic. On 2009’s Face Control, the husband/wife duo roughed up the sound with more guitar, retaining an icy synth pulse and dour lyrical perspective. For Sound Kapital, the Furs tapped influences absorbed on their European/Asian tours (often in sketchy political areas with support bands that risked arrest for culture crimes), and revisited ’80s Eastern European electropop/industrial ringleaders, while Boeckner relied on keyboards to write, forcing him from his six-string comfort zone. Consequently, Sound Kapital shimmers and shudders with the hell-bent throb of Ian McCullouch fronting Tubeway Army at an OMD tribute, from the relentlessly poppy “When I Get Back” to the visceral synth-punched “Damage” to the perfect ’80s club homage of “Memories of the Future.” Like the era’s best synthesists, Handsome Furs set a bleak outlook to driving electronic rhythms, creating sounds that are magisterial, thoughtprovoking and danceable as hell. —Brian Baker
Transition Defense Things change and stay the same, beautifully, for Ben Gibbard and Death Cab for Cutie
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t this point, Death Cab for Cutie are real pros—they
make music that sounds rich and smart, indulging just Death Cab enough in the type of angst that adults can get behind. Their for Cutie latest, Codes and Keys, is no exception. “Some Boys” is a perfect exCodes and Keys ample—it’s a head-nodder, balanced by frontman Ben Gibbard’s trademark feelings, as he continually intones, “Some boys don’t know how Atlantic
to love.” Penultimate track “St. Peter’s Cathedral” builds from spare, fuzzed-out piano to a swirl of sound, channeling the majesty and drama of its subject matter. It’s a strong example of the dissonant and distorted elements the band increasingly incorporates, a welcome counterpoint to Gibbard’s never-not-sweet vocals. Meanwhile album closer “Stay Young Go Dancing” augments an all-acoustic opening verse with lush harmonies and orchestral flourishes. Those understated strings are also put to good use on the title track, another in a string of recent Death Cab songs that seem obsessed with transition—doors, keys, moving on. Perhaps this shouldn’t be a surprise from the recently married Gibbard. In the end, some of these songs sound like Death Cab songs (crisp, emotive and bathed in pitch-perfect production) and a few sound like really good Death Cab songs—those magical tracks that work just as well on a sunny windows-down day and on the morning after a catastrophic breakup. It’s always been one of Gibbard and Co.’s greatest skills, encompassing the duality of euphoria and heartache into taut, pop song-length packages. —Lee Stabert
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Implodes
Black Earth Kranky
Tick-tick-ticked off With an album called Black Earth and a name like Implodes, you’d expect this Chicago crew to sound a lot more menacing. Truth is, most of this full-length debut is downright pretty. Chord progressions and melodies churn just below the squall as the drone-y psych troupe dabbles with harsh textures, and something akin to hooks often bubble to the surface. Implodes can still sound menacing, though. That’s a pretty big knife that lady’s wielding on the cover, after all. The vocals on second track “Marker” never rise much above a moan (nor anywhere else on the album), but the heft and density of the wall of sound built to fortify them makes for an imposing structure. The melodies are delicate and the basslines can groove, but on tracks like “Meadowlands,” Implodes show an affinity for the dirge as well. And true to their name, it all sounds like it could cave in at any moment. —Matt Sullivan JEFF the Brotherhood
We Are the Champions Infinity Cat
Let nerd persecution end Jake and Jamin Orrall clearly remember Weezer before Rivers Cuomo grew an ironic ’stache and started jerking off on Hugh Hefner’s front lawn. That is to say, the Brotherhood remembers the Blue Album’s goods that came by way of an alienated, KISS-obsessed nerd. We Are the Champions, the follow-up to 2009’s lauded Heavy Days, finds the Nashville duo unraveling “Come Undone (The Sweater Song)” into a pile of thick fuzz and unruly grooviness. Opening line, “I’ve been thinking about your mom/ You can tell me if it’s really wrong/ It’s been going on for way too long” indicates JEFF’s social awkwardness. Whether throwing down aggro skate-punk (“Mellow Out,” “Stay Out Late”), Black Sabbath psych-metal (“Ripper”) or Ramones paranoia (“Shredder”), the Orralls stab and tweak their tunes with a variety of textures—from laser-beam arpeggio to trippy sitar—that’ll hook your lobes on the first go-around. —Jeanne Fury Junior Boys
It’s All True Domino
Pinky swears If only because the first two Junior Boys LPs set an impossibly high bar—especially the peerless, debonair So This Is Goodbye—the still-excellent Begone Dull Care couldn’t help feeling like a slight comedown; the songcraft stumbling even as the productions grew increas-
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Mr. Clean is the Man David Kilgour and Co. perfect shimmering, laid-back Kiwi indie pop
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n David Kilgour’s seventh solo album,
it’s not the songs that draw you in so much as the sound. The over-cranked 12-string that opens the instrumental title track sucks you in like a shimmering whirlwind, pulling you into the center of a storm you’re powerless to escape, should you be fool enough to try. Left by Soft Kilgour’s seventh solo album is only the second co-creditMerge ed to his backing ensemble, the Heavy Eights, but he’s been playing with them in various configurations for years. That familiarity is reflected in Left by Soft’s easy, almost effortless feel. Recorded in a rural cabin by bassist Thomas Bell, it could have been knocked out over beers or between hands of poker were it not for the understated craft involved. At times, songs like “Autumn Sun” and the six-minute “Diamond Mine” seem to drift, not unpleasantly, without purpose; there’s such a thing as being too easygoing. But it’s a pleasure just to float along with Kilgour and band, treasuring their company as they do what they do best. Further listening reveals deeper layers, thought through or simply intuited, like the way the self-referential “Pop Song” seems to begin mid-chorus and then circles back around, lazily chasing its own tail, or the purposeful frisson between the warm bath of an opening track and the stinging crunch of the following “Way Down Here.” After decades as a New Zealand fixture—including membership in the sporadically active, always legendary the Clean—Kilgour doesn’t need to flaunt his mastery, but it oozes out all the same. —Sam Adams David Kilgour and the Heavy Eights
photo by Steve Brummell
ingly nuanced and streamlined. Album number four is at once a corrective and a reorientation: Excepting the tender, lovelorn “Playdate”—daringly (or perhaps teasingly) slotted second—it’s their catchiest, most outgoing outing yet. (I’m almost tempted to say “sunniest,” though these are relative terms; Jeremy Greenspan’s hushed, wistful croon remains indelibly nocturnal.) Though it finds the duo successfully branching out without disrupting their core sonic identity (and it’s neat to hear Care’s numbed, tech-y lockgrooves—revisited here on the terse “Kick the Can”—blossom into something more chromatic and engaging), True also veers ticklishly toward an outright evocation of plastic ’80s pop-soul (q.v., Grovesnor, if not quite Chromeo), troublingly for a band that’s always felt effortlessly modern. Infectiously epic closer “Banana Ripple” even busts out the synthetic disco-samba horn stabs, practically the antithesis of the JBs’ trademark restraint. Then again, it’s easily the best thing here. —K. Ross Hoffman
Let’s Wrestle
Nursing Home Merge
Sleeper pick All hail Let’s Wrestle, a band that doesn’t feel the need to change their dresseddown rock stuff from one album to the next for fear of being pigeonholed. Evolving is overrated; this London trio dug themselves a glorious hole on 2009’s In the Court of the Wrestling Let’s, and have decided to stay there, thank heavens. Nursing Home reprises the flustered energy and jumpy rhythms, and introduces a nice blanket of crud thrown on the production, courtesy of Steve Albini. For all the band’s slacker tendencies, their tunes possess great punk rock immediacy (the bass continually sticks out due to awesomeness). Fingers fervently scratch off half-assed Jam riffs like lotto tickets, while the vocals lag as if floating in a half-case of Guinness. From Greek men fighting in a pharmacy to a dutiful son easing his mother’s grief by walking her overweight dogs, the lyrics—cheeky, Descendents-like antipoetry—cleverly mix the inane and the mundane. Let’s Wrestle have WWE-worthy moves. —Jeanne Fury Love with Arthur Lee
Black Beauty High Moon
Why can’t this be Love? According to Erich Segal and Bernie Taupin, respectively, love means never having to say you’re sorry, and sorry seems to be the hardest word. As such, if you’re looking for the incendiary Love of Forever Changes, you might be sorry for searching them out on Black Beauty, a rarities collection credited to Love with Arthur Lee. The credit is important; Black Beauty’s first nine tracks are only tangentially related to Love by virtue of Lee’s involvement. The 1963-64 songs are Lee’s earliest known recordings—also included is Lee’s composition for R&B singer Rosa Lee
photo by Steven Oberlechner
Brooks, 1964’s “My Diary,” purportedly featuring Jimi Hendrix. Black Beauty heats up with the next 11 tracks, a full album’s worth of 1973 recordings shelved when Lee’s label went toes-up. Here Lee strips back to a rock/soul vibe that reflects his friendship with and adoration of Hendrix, particularly on the “Bold as Love”-tinged “Midnight Sun” and the loose-limbed “You’re Just a Product of the Time.” The recordings are rough, but definitely listenable, and essential for diehard Lee/Love fanatics; the early stuff is merely interesting for the Lee connection. —Brian Baker
Chris Mills
Heavy Years: 2000 2010 Ernest Jenning Co.
Down on the upside Chris Mills calls his publishing company Powerless Pop, which might be the most appropriate moniker for the genre whose practitioners sing about getting the girl, but never do. Spanning a decade and four albums, Heavy Years covers Mills’ transition from a fellow traveller of Chicago’s altcountry scene to an orch-pop Brooklynite, and with it a more subtle drift from wry surrender to going on the attack. “Suicide Note,” from 2002’s The Silver Line, embraces the end with sardonic remove, pitting Mills’ sad-sack drawl against Kelly Hogan’s soaring harmonies. From 2008’s Living in the Aftermath, “Atom Smashers” busts out of the gate at a full clip and never looks back, even when its freeassociative lyrics lag behind. When Mills admits defeat on “Such a Beautiful Thing,” it’s because his feelings surpass his ability to express them. Fans will note the presence of two new songs; for everyone else, it’s time to catch up. —Sam Adams Thurston Moore
Demolished Thoughts Matador
Unlikely monster of folk Did Sonic Youth’s unplugged performance on Gossip Girl a few years back give Thurston Moore an idea? His latest solo album contains no electric guitars, no feedback and no noise. Instead, Moore hired a celebrity producer (Beck Hansen’s still a celebrity, right?) and recorded nine tracks of mellow acoustic folk rock, perfect for both rainy-day contemplation and sunny-day walks in the park. On songs like “Benediction” and “Illuminine,” Moore’s guitar and voice intertwine beautifully with Samara Lubelski’s violin and Mary Lattimore’s harp. Anyone familiar with the melodyfriendly side of Sonic Youth won’t be too surprised by this album. (“Circulation” could’ve fit on 2006’s Rather Ripped.) The only problem is that the songs start to sound the same after a while. Moore’s last solo disc, Trees Outside the Academy (2007), balanced folksy leanings with bursts of energy (thanks to players like J. Mascis and Steve Shelley), something Demolished Thoughts could use once in a while. —Michael Pelusi
My Morning Jacket
Circuital ATO
Somewhere in the future, listening Hands down the best thing Jim James has done since he started the Crème-Bru-Log, the My Morning Jacket leader’s tribute to the crispy, custard-y Adonis of desserts. We kid! This is definitely the best album of My Morning Jacket’s decade-plus career—a tight, soulful rock record, focused yet free-roaming, drawing on all the things that made the band exciting in the past, but boiled down into their most energetic and accessible effort yet. Recorded in a church gymnasium in their hometown of Louisville last summer, Circuital finds MMJ reaching a new level of cohesion, making this the first fully realized full-band album of their career, a country rock journey through cosmic soul. “Holding On to Black Metal” is in the running for the first backyard-barbecue anthem of the summer, “Outta My System” is sure to be a favorite among their po-mo hippie cult and “Slow Slow Tune” may be the most accurately named song of all time. —Sean L. Maloney Netherfriends
Angry East Coast EP self-released
The meanies in Delaware Since 2007, Chicagoan Shawn Rosenblatt has channeled his restlessness into Netherfriends. The psych-pop outfit—centered on Rosenblatt with a revolving support cast—covers a wide range of geography both sonically and physically. Last year, the then-recent college graduate set out on a vagabond-style 50-state tour, during which the already-prolific songwriter set out to write and record a new song in each state he visited. Four of those are collected on the Angry East Coast EP. The topic Rosenblatt seems most eager to address here is the 50-state project itself. The titles are presumably the places in which the songs were written. On “Washington, DC” he sings, “I can relate to everyone I meet in each state I play,” while Rosenblatt had lady troubles on the brain in Rehoboth Beach, DE—“She is trying to make me a better person/ I will travel the country, sleep on many couches.” While he’s gone he knows “she will finish with school and meet a lot of bros.” While the lyrics might be a little superficial, it’s the sonic layers wrapping them up that add depth. Hard-to-peg washes of sound fill the gaps, while Rosenblatt steers clear of verse/chorus/verse templates. Hopefully the other 46 recording sessions went just as well. —Matt Sullivan Sebadoh
Bakesale Domino
Indie. Rock. If you were to assemble a golden-age-of-indie-rock start-up kit (you know, for the kids), you’d probably want to include
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scratched-up copies of, say, Pavement’s Slanted and Enchanted, Guided by Voices’ Bee Thousand, Superchunk’s Foolish, a “This Is Not a Fugazi Tshirt” T-shirt, an old Touch & Go catalogue and maybe a past-due water bill. And at the top of the heap—a copy of Sebadoh’s Bakesale. In the annals of indie rock, this record is a gateway masterpiece. As ear-catchingly accessible to the un-primed listener as it is a disjointed mess of missed downbeats, abstruse lyrics, cockeyed hooks and unfinished ideas, its asymmetrical idiosyncrasies are as inherent to the band’s DNA as they are to its genre’s. With Lou Barlow and Jason Loewenstein peaking at their prowess as writers, Bakesale also boasts—pound for pound— the strongest set of songs (“Rebound,” “Magnet’s Coil,” “Careful,” “Drama Mine”) in the Sebadoh canon. Long overdue, this unabridged reissue features a 25-track supplement of unearthed odds and ends to balance out the obligatory remastering treatment, giving you a warts-and-all window into a record that already stood tall on the strength of its blemishes. —Adam Gold
Ty Goes to the Studio Bay Area garage rocker Ty Segall cleans up nice
Sondre Lerche
Sondre Lerche Mona
Cryptic pop tunes for latenight radio Lerche’s work is marked by his smooth, lilting tenor, strong melodies, laid-back arrangements, oblique lyrics and a fine balance of acoustic and electric impulses. Think David Bowie fronting Steely Dan, and you’ve got a good idea of his sound on this album. On “Living Dangerously,” he says he wants to forsake the contentment of married life for something more chaotic and precarious, but his vocal sounds more mellow than dangerous. The funky rock of “When the River” calls out for the turmoil of a mad affair, but Lerche’s relaxed delivery doesn’t convince you that he’s ready to take the plunge into darkness. The man is a romantic, and these tunes all deal with love and its discontents, tales of jilted and misunderstood lovers trying to make sense out of their inability to connect with each other. But even on the darkest tunes, his placid vocals make him sound more comfortable than edgy. —j. poet Sorry Bamba
Volume One: 1970-1979 Thrill Jockey
Winner and still champion The fascinating decentralization of African music dissemination proceeds with Thrill Jockey’s second Malian release of the year, one that’s worlds from the rustic desert folk-blues of Sidi Touré. Hitherto little-known in the West, the orphaned Sorry Bamba defied his noble birth caste to become one of the recently independent
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n the old days, Ty Segall was a Bay Area solo act, just
a guy playing ballsy garage rock on drums and guitar at the same time. Impressive, but an act of necessity more Goodbye Bread than novelty; he eventually recruited a full band and churned out music at a spectacular pace. Segall has done quite a few things Drag City for Goner Records, including 2010’s breakout Melted. Surprising then that this, his Drag City debut, is pretty much a slow-cooked and straight-ahead solo project, the result of Segall and producer Eric Bauer holing up in a basement studio for six months and making just a little less noise. For somebody who earned his rep as a sweaty, swaggering imperfectionist, this is what you call a gamble. But it pays off; Goodbye Bread is good. “My Head Explodes” is a psyched-out scorcher. “I Can’t Feel It” and “You Make the Sun Fry” are catchy-as-fuck rock songs, with just enough delay and reverb to keep things deep and dirt-cheap-sounding. “Goodbye Bread,” “The Floor” and “Comfortable Home” are showcases for that pretty, nine-volt voice and those lightning fingers. But it’s not all business: The quick, sing-songy “California Commercial” takes issue with the faux-reality shows that have come to define his home turf. I guess you’d be pissed, too, if you grew up as a skate punk in Laguna Beach, only to have MTV forever brand the place as a gritless playpen for rich brats. That said, Segall’s old band the Epsilons got their digs in brilliantly five years ago. Check YouTube. Funny shit. —Patrick Rapa Ty Segall
Mali’s most prominent bandleaders, competing successfully in multiple National Biennial celebrations during the period showcased here. As befits a state-endorsed post-colonial cultural effort, these selections (compiled by Extra Golden’s Alex Minoff and Ian Eagleson with input from an enthusiastic 73-year-old Bamba) find a
deft balance between heritage and modernization, with a mixture of populist originals and folk songs (representing three distinct ethnic groups); traditional percussion combined with spry electric guitars, horns and the occasional psych-dappled synthesizer (plus Bamba’s piercing flute and vigorous vocals); and swirling, lavishly hypnotic grooves
photo by Angel Ceballos
that, while not as dense or forceful as Fela’s afrobeat, display some palpable Western soul and funk influences—and, on “Astan Kelly,” the unmistakable rhythms of Cuban salsa. —K. Ross Hoffman
Mia Doi Todd
Cosmic Ocean Ships City Zen
Sailing far away On her early records, Mia Doi Todd was nothing but calm, a clear-voiced college folkie alone with her guitar. As she added to her repertoire—Nels Cline’s electric guitars and Mitchell Froom’s frippery on one album, remixes on another, a mini-orchestra on a third—she never lost her cool. So, it’s no surprise that Cosmic Ocean Ships, Todd’s ninth release, offers serenity even as she reaches for more exotic instruments and more worldly sounds. That approach works on “Under the Sun” and “Summer Lover,” a pair of languid tunes that bask in the brand of bliss you’ll find only in a warm climate or a warm heart, but it also creates fertile conditions for the album’s weak spots. At worst, she sounds too much like a lady of the canyon; echoes of Joni Mitchell’s fussiest phrasing mark Todd as the product of mid-’70s L.A. just when she most wants to be a citizen of the world. —M.J. Fine TV on the Radio
Nine Types of Light Interscope
Bon mot bonanza There’s never been anything easy or casual about this band. Like all of its predecessors, the fifth release by Tunde Adebimpe and Dave Sitek’s brainchild-turned-WilliamsburgRadiohead un-knots like a puzzle. That’s partly because Adebimpe, Sitek, Kyp Malone, Jaleel Bunton and Gerard Smith (who sadly died of cancer on April 20) are so casual about claiming so much sonic territory. But once you acclimate, there’s something diverting around every corner of Nine Types of Light, much of it purely sonic: the bleed of real horns into fake ones at the end of “Second Song,” for instance. But it’s the words that jump out of this album; Adebimpe and co-singer Malone’s dry deliveries sneak in great lines all over, nowhere better than the sly, frank “Will Do”: “It might be impractical to seek out a new romance/ We won’t know the actual if we never take the chance/ I’d like to collapse with you and ease you against this song/ I think we’re compatible, I see that you think I’m wrong.” —Michaelangelo Matos
homemade instruments, but did so as a third option behind illustration and animation (he’s done videos for J Mascis and Guster, among others). For a guy whose music is a hobby, he’s made plenty; VanGaalen’s latest, Diaper Island, makes nine releases over the past seven years—counting EPs and his 2009 Black Mold album—and his new disc may stand as his most linear effort to date. Recorded in VanGaalen’s new home studio (which he’s appropriately christened Yoko Eno), Diaper Island has the contemporary energy and soft edge of Jim James and James Mercer, while applying the claustrophobic expanse of Brian Eno’s earliest twisted pop explorations to the proceedings. Plus, it’s hard to resist any album with a space-rock-from-the-bottom-of-a-well anthem called “Blonde Hash,” and an indie-rock-music-box twiddler titled “Shave My Pussy.” —Brian Baker
Follow Me Down: Vanguard’s Lost Psychedelic Era (1966-1970) Vanguard
Everywhere you go… In a market saturated with reissues, it seems like every week a new compilation comes along purporting to uncover the lost gems of an unjustly forgotten movement. But the songs on Follow Me Down sound, with few exceptions, as if they were forgotten for a reason, not so much lost as left behind. Keep your eyes off the liner notes and you’d be hard-pressed to distinguish one third-rate band from the next; imagine an entire album by the generic beat combo miming in the background of any ’60s teensploitation movie.
musicdvds The Beat Is the Law: Fanfare for the Common People Sheffield Vision
Now with more juicy bits This documentary arrives just in time for Pulp’s summer reunion tour (sorry: festival shows in Europe and Australia only, so far). However, don’t expect a straightforward recounting of the band’s story. Director Eve Wood covers the years 1983-1995 (Pulp’s career ran from 1978 to 2002), and lends running time to lesserknown Sheffield acts such as ’80s avant-funk outfit Chakk and ’90s Britpop would-bes the Longpigs. Referring to the city early on as “The Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire,” the film begins by adroitly weaving in the pressing issues facing the city. Sheffield was an industrial town and union stronghold facing government hostility courtesy of Margaret Thatcher, culminating in the city’s 1984 miner strike. So, musicians and artists, facing little hope of success in any field, joined the dole and displayed oft-cunning industriousness. In a particularly genius move, Chakk convinced their major label to bankroll their own recording facility in Sheffield, which became the prestigious FON Studios. As the film moves into the rave and Britpop eras, there’s additional illuminating information, but the sociopolitical angle is unfortunately
Chad VanGaalen
Diaper Island Sub Pop
Hey, where’s Alex and Eddie? Oh, wait... Indie doesn’t even begin to describe Chad VanGaalen. The Calgary native started with basement tapes of instrumental music composed with
Various Artists
Cocker at Glastonbury, 1995
diminished. Still, Pulp fans will find a treasure trove of rare footage and witty reminiscences from Jarvis Cocker and other key band members. And Cocker’s metamorphosis from badly coiffed ’80s miserabilist to the strutting, devastatingly witty icon of 1995, with an entire Glastonbury crowd eating out of his hand, remains awe-inspiring. —Michael Pelusi View the trailer at thebeatisthelaw.com.
Le Tigre
Who Took the Bomp? Le Tigre on Tour Oscilloscope
Still a hot topic Le Tigre is such a visual band, with their Motownesque dance moves, Technicolor outfits and engaging multimedia, that a DVD might be the best way to capture the electro-punk trio, currently on hiatus while Kathleen Hanna goes solo and JD Samson leads Men. Who Took the Bomp? is a solid beginner’s primer while still giving fans good performance footage and entertaining behind-the-scenes banter, insight and hijinks. Directed by Kerthy Fix (Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields), the DVD follows the band on their 2004 “This Island” tour, where they humorously struggle with their queer, feminist ideals: photos with Slipknot at Australia’s Big Day Out Festival, navigating condescending radio DJs and a homophobic fan (who mistakes butch lesbian Samson for a gay man), agonizing over a Jane magazine ad campaign, and watching the Donnas with Hatebreed and discussing ways to “rage.” Best part: the workout sequence in onstage costumes. More, please. —Sara Sherr
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THE
reviews
“Did You Have to Rub It In?” by Brian Epstein protégés the Hi-Five is the best of a rum lot, a snotty kiss-off set to a descending Farfisa riff, and it’s worth pondering just what Far Cry vocalist Jere Whiting might have ingested before laying down the strangled vocal of “Hellhound.” But unless you’ve gobbled every nugget and bagged every pebble, there’s no reason to start here. —Sam Adams
Eddie Vedder
Ukulele Songs
Monkeywrench
Tiptoeing through There’s an unshakable— perhaps not unsuitable—taint of novelty about any one-off ukulele record, and the discrepancy between Eddie Vedder’s notorious earnestness and the instrument’s frivolous associations make this one seem especially punchline-worthy. But it doesn’t sound that way, even if that tension is subtly evident throughout. Vedder has his sweetness, the uke has its quiet integrity, and the two find a way to make it work, the singer tempering his tremulous baritone to meet the instrument’s cheery brightness halfway. He’s not half playful enough for this to truly feel like a lark, but he’s smart enough to keep the stakes small, devoting over a third of the disc to perennial standards—“Dream a Little Dream,” “More Than You Know,” the Everly Brothers’ classic “Sleepless Nights” and perhaps the ultimate uke tune, “Tonight You Belong to Me”—inviting his buddies Glenn and Chan to duet on the latter two. And while Vedder’s originals falter when they venture into rockier terrain, and (of course) can’t compete with the genuine golden oldies, he does just fine when he sticks to the ukulele’s proper métier: sweet, simple love songs. —K. Ross Hoffman World’s End Girlfriend
Seven Idiots
Erased Tapes
The suite life of Bach and Skolnik Fronted by the almost schizophrenically talented Katsuhiko Maeda, World’s End Girlfriend defy easy categorization. On WEG’s 10th studio album, Seven Idiots, Maeda creates a soundtrack that suggests Trans-Siberian Orchestra on steroids and champagne, a prog/classical/pop mash-up that is muscular and giddy and frenetic and undeniably fun. Maeda pinballs between genres and sounds with attention deficit speed, but the shifts never seem capricious; “Ulysses Gazer” gives the impression of a radio dial being spun across a spectrum where Muse, Danny Elfman, Queen, Thomas Dolby, Radiohead, Testament, Raymond Scott and Mozart are all playing the same song on different stations in radically different styles, but with the same visceral intensity.
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Paradise Lost Lofty ambitions aside, this YACHT does not rock
I
t all looks so good on paper. Take an ambitious,
musically adventurous composer with a taste for esoterica, add a bright, accomplished writer with a Cory DocShangri-La torow-esque fascination for the intersection of sci-fi themes and modern progress, channel it through the unique creative dfa sensibilities of Portland, OR; Marfa, TX; and Los Angeles, and doubtless, something good will come of it. One would think that, until one sat on the group’s DFA debut, See Mystery Lights, and slowly realized how gimmicky and uninvolved that album was in retrospect. Still, enough people saw something in it that YACHT decided to go one better with a good old-fashioned concept LP, Shangri-La. Unfortunately, they’ve fared no better. Now, anyone who witnessed the blossoming of Tahrir Square understands utopia as a powerful and arresting social force. But Jona Bechtolt really can’t convey that in his musical creations, which are consistently drab and bland. The first track, “Utopia,” sounds like a half-hearted Vampire Weekend that lost faith in Graceland, and the added emphasis on live instrumentation improves nothing. Meanwhile, Claire L. Evans seems hamstrung by the pat observations these lukewarm retro’80s synth pop concoctions warrant. Using vaguely drawn sci-fi conceits, she determines the future as a creation we as presumably cooperative humans, freed of religious constraints, can make to order—an encouraging if naïve observation. But the finished product is hardly as visionary as it would like to be, even though it ends on a warm and catchy resolution, “Shangri-La.” Still, an art-rock band can dream. —Justin Hampton YACHT
Ignore the emo-sounding band name; with Seven Idiots, Maeda makes cartoon music for intellectuals, metal for eggheads, classical for headbangers, prog for 21st century schizoid adven-
turists, jazz for geneticists, party vibes for blade runners. World’s End Girlfriend are everything on your iPod and more. —Brian Baker
photo by sarah meadows
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.org 41
greenmind
Terror Firma
Nashville metal outfit Across Tundras coax heavy sounds, organic veggies from the fertile Tennessee soil / by Sean L. Maloney
T
en minutes north of Nashville, deep in the rolling hills that you’ve
heard so many songs about, wedged in between decrepit double-wides and the mammoth estate of mega-star Garth Brooks, you’ll find sleepy little Ramble Hill Farm. Well, it’s not entirely sleepy—besides supplying Music City with organic, adventurous edibles, Ramble Hill Farm is the headquarters for frontier-metal outfit Across Tundras, whose fifth studio album, Sage, is out now on Neurot Records. Sure, it might seem a little weird to get your rose hip jelly from a band that sounds like Marty Robbins and Ennio Morricone jamming with Mountain, but amid of Nashville’s burgeoning D.I.Y. food and music cultures, it’s par for the course. A staple of the West Nashville Farmers Market, Ramble Hill specializes in organic and heirloom produce—the sort of vegetables worth getting up way too early on a Saturday morning to procure. With a focus on responsible land use and seriously tasty food, Ramble Hill has carved out a niche within a very competitive and increasingly crowded food community by connecting the city’s agricultural history with its cosmopolitan present. Cowbell talked with singer/guitarist/farmer Tanner Olsen just days before spring planting began to talk about chemical-free weed control, eating outside of your comfort zone and Garth Brooks’ lawn. So, what’s the connection between farming and playing in a metal band? It seems like an odd combination.
The DIY aesthetic in music is totally what’s happening in food around here right now. I would assume it’s happening everywhere, but Nashville is really awesome for that. And I think it’s really awesome to be able to bridge the gap—musicians aren’t all onedimensional, you know? But it’s cool to be able to connect the two worlds like that, spread the word about eating good and taking good care of the land, and being in tune with all of that stuff. I feel like it strengthens me as a person and makes me be a better musician, just being aware of all that. 42
You’ve said you don’t use any chemicals. How do you deal with weeds and critters?
What I try to do for weed control is put a ton of greens around it and harvest the baby greens in between all this other stuff. So, rather than weeding, we’re harvesting. And then you don’t have to cut into [regular production]... All the people want the little tiny stuff, but when you do that, it wipes out [your crop] so fast that you kinda want to go easy on it. This is more romaine, strawberries down there [points down]. All those little sprouts are radishes. Not having one specific crop in an area, no animal can zero in on that crop. We have pretty good luck with bugs and pests, animals and stuff.
greenmind
Tanner Olsen on the farm.
We started planting stuff in January and would just cover it up and hope for nice days. And if we got three nice days in a row, we’d get stuff to germinate. It’ll sit dormant for a little while, but… all this stuff, we started some of it indoors and some of it [in the garden bed]. Again, all this is baby lettuce coming up around the other stuff in hopes of keeping the weeds down and having nice little greens to harvest. What’s cool is that probably in two months from now all this is going to be like, BAM! We’re hardly going to be able to walk through here, but this is where it starts. What do you use for compost?
We don’t have any specific recipe. My take on all this stuff up here is that I don’t add anything to the soil unless that plant looks like it needs it, and then if it needs it, start with a little bit. With this garlic, we just did a little mushroom compost that we get
“
The DIY aesthetic in music is totally what’s happening in food around here right now.” —Tanner Olsen
from a local greenhouse—they do a really nice organic mushroom compost. And then there are random spots all around the farm here where we threw down all of our trimmings of greens from last year, and I’ll just go kick aside some stuff. The land out here—compared to where I come from in South Dakota—the land here is real easy to farm, and the soil is real nice compared to everywhere else I’ve lived. I haven’t really had to do much. I feel like the less you have to do with it, the more natural it will taste. We don’t fertilize stuff. We don’t put poop on this—there’s no manure up here. We’ll just let it grow naturally and take a little bit lon43
greenmind ger, rather than throw a bunch of cow shit on it. It makes the veggies taste bad, you know? I think [these fossils are] part of the reason why [the soil is good]— this is all ancient sea bed down here. All this soil, that’s like super old—400 million years old—minerals and coral that have been crushed up and ground into the soil, and that’s the richest kind of soil there is. And that’s why we’ve had such good luck without having to do a whole lot beyond maintain it. One thing that we’re going to start doing up here is—when we take these rocks out and make a big old pile, get a big old hammer and just start crushing them down—is re-adding the minerals and the crushed rock back in. I’ve read online that there’s a few people that have been doing that in organic farming and have had really good results. All of the minerals that you put back in there really improves the taste of the veggies. We’re really excited to be doing stuff like that. You guys bring some really different stuff to the market. How do you choose your crops?
trees. And more blackberries and blueberries, ’cause that’s nice when you can just pick it and you know that it’s going to come back. I mean, barring a complete disaster, we’re going to have tons and tons of blackberries this year. I’ve heard about some people eating hop shoots as a delicacy—eating the shoots of the baby hops when they come out. That fits with what I was talking about, about rearranging your idea of how you should or shouldn’t eat something. I think it’s pretty cool. Over there, there’s a patch of bamboo [points toward hill]. That’s Garth Brooks’ land. This is all Garth Brooks’ land right around here—apparently he has a big house back there, but he only comes out once a year to mow. We saw him last year—he’s out here mowing in a sweatshirt, we’re not kidding, with his big $50,000 tractor. He needs to mow it more than once a year, because he creates bug problems for us. If I have to complain on Garth Brooks to the city of Goodlettsvile, I’m gonna do it. [Laughs] He let the stuff go crazy, and we try to keep our stuff pretty maintained. He needs to do more. [Laughs] Anyway, there’s a little patch of bamboo up there, and you can get the shoots, and they’re really good.
These are all cosmic-purple carrots; we’re getting all these germinated. We try to do cool different kinds of things, like not standard food fare, because I think everybody gets used to their food looking one way, or only eating one part of the plant when all of it’s edible. We really try to use of all of it. See these little guys down here? Try that—it tastes like broccoli, but it’s the floret of a turnip green. That’s what broccoli is, but the broccoli we get in stores is just one select type of brassica that grows the head that we know as the traditional broccoli head; but this is basically broccoli right here. See how sweet it is? These over here are blackberries. They’re the monster ones… and these are good moneymakers. It’s good to have stuff you know is going to come every year. We want to put more stuff on the Sage is available farm that will take care of itself, like now on Neurot the shiitakes and even getting into fruit Records. 44
More at acrosstundras.blogspot.com.
Top: Bassist “Big Jim” Shively and Olsen cover a raised bed; above, band practice.
greenmind
Bike Gang S
The perma-touring Netherfriends put two wheels to the road / by Matt Sullivan hawn Rosenblatt started the psych-pop outfit Nether-
friends in Chicago in 2007, and started touring regularly with a solid lineup in 2008. That lineup eventually became a revolving cast of supporting players, as Rosenblatt opted to live on the road permanently, never staying in one spot for longer than a couple of months. He calls it “hyper living.” It’s indicative of Rosenblatt’s approach to Netherfriends. Whether writing songs or touring, each facet of the band is defined by a larger project. Last year he set out on a vagabond-style 50-state tour where he not only played all 50 states in less than one year, but wrote and recorded a new song in each. “It is weird to tour with no real purpose,” Rosenblatt explained over the phone. “That’s why I did the 50 states thing—that way I could do something creative where I could trick my mind into thinking it’s more than just, ‘I’m in a band on tour all the time.’” The first of those 50 songs have been released as the swirling and trippy Angry East Coast EP (reviewed on pg. 37). A big part of what strikes Rosenblatt as making that part of the country angrier than the rest is the drivers. “I hate people that drive in the East Coast—they’re all really obnoxious,” he says. “I think I’m just sick laundry constantly. Though that gas-guzzling van is essentially his of driving.” home, Rosenblatt decided to forgo all those relative comforts, not The solution: Travel from Philadelphia to New Jersey to New because of any sort of idealism, but for sheer practicality. York to Connecticut to Massachusetts and back on bicycles. “I And he’s not too keen on bicyclists, either. hate New England, really,” he explains. “I mean, I don’t hate it. I “There’s this whole level of pretension when it comes to bike strongly dislike playing in New England, even though I keep doing culture,” he says, recalling a former roommate in Chicago that it. Same thing with New York. I grew up on the East Coast, and he claimed ruined the bike scene for him. “He was that kid that the people there have a really fast-moving, move-out-of-my-way would take his U-lock out and hit cars with it, and race through mentality.” red lights and almost get hit.” None of the songs on Angry East Coast address drivers specifiBut he’s just getting started: “It’s funny, ’cause I ride a fixedcally, but Rosenblatt cites not joining their ranks as a potential gear bike, but I hate fixed-gear riders. I hate the whole culture, the financial boon, even though the plan would take them 10 whole smugness about riding a bicycle. I just want to days to play five shows. “I’m driving a huge gas-guzzler ride from point A to point B. In the city, that’s the easiright now, so it’s gonna be really nice. I have a friend, est way to do it. I have a huge van. I don’t want to have he kinda tours full time, too, and does the same thing. to drive everywhere and have to find parking. A bicycle He doesn’t have a home and he’s touring, and he drives is the easiest way to get around for me—it’s the fastest. around this small Geo,” Rosenblatt says. “He was just I hate walking everywhere in the city.” patronizing me: ‘What are you doing driving this gas“That’s the only reason I like bikes—I don’t really guzzler by yourself ?’” care for anything else.” The plan was to travel light, bringing only a sampler More at netherfriends.blogspot.com and netherfriends. and loop pedal and maybe a couple extra shirts. The rest Angry East Coast is available now bandcamp.com they planned to borrow from other bands, while Rosen- from Cellar Hits blatt figured he’d pedal shirtless to avoid having to do 45
movies
Patriot Games
Does the new documentary on comic giant Bill Hicks tell too tall a tale? / by Sam Adams
Let’s say we know that rock is the devil’s music—at least he fuckin’ jams! If it’s a choice between eternal hell and good tunes, and eternal heaven and New Kids on the fuckin’ Block, I’m gonna be surfin’ on the lake of fire, rockin’ out. Bill Hicks never wanted to go to heaven, at least not the kind populated
by the right-thinking, well-behaved people he spent 15 years demolishing from the stage. (In another routine, the habitual smoker mused that heaven might be a place where you can light up unmolested. “Hell is nonsmoking,” he’d say in the voice of a tobacco-puffing St. Peter.) But since his death in 1994, at age 32, Hicks has been gradually turned into a secular saint. The latest bid for beatification comes courtesy of Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas’ American: The Bill Hicks Story, a 100-minute documentary whose DVD/Blu-ray release includes nearly six hours of extra footage. American is only the latest in a steady stream of posthumous Hicks releases, which have by now dwarfed the four albums released during his lifetime. Think of him as the Tupac of standup. If not in the league of Richard Pryor or George Carlin, Hicks was a fitfully brilliant comedian, especially in his later years, once his runaway popularity in the U.K. allowed him to pursue his attacks on American politics without fear of being unable to finish a thought. The shock and exhilaration of hearing Hicks (on Live at the Oxford Playhouse) refer to George H.W. Bush as a “mass murderer” is dulled only slightly when he follows it up with a riff about “pay[ing] an extra nickel on a litre of petrol”—a nod to his largely British audience.
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By the way, if anyone here is in advertising or marketing… kill yourself. Wary of staging their portrait as a series of talking heads, Harlock and Thomas juice up American with a flurry of visual tricks, using animation to enliven the accounts of Hicks’ early days. Either because there’s scant footage of his formative routines or because they don’t support the film’s account of Hicks’ greatness, it takes American a long time to work around to the routines on which his legend rests. His friends and family discuss the fact that Hicks started working the
Stills courtesy Variance Films
movies
comedy clubs around Houston while still in high school, but we don’t see him stumbling towards genius. In sticking with those who knew Hicks first-hand, American achieves an otherwise inaccessible glimpse of what Hicks was like offstage. Born into a strict Southern Baptist family, Hicks steered clear of demon rum, but he started in on psychedelic mushrooms at a young age. By the time he worked his way around to alcohol, he was an adult, full of previously unseen rage that would pour out in torrents onstage and off. He sometimes lost control of both his anger and his drinking, reduced to lying on the stage shouting at unseen ghosts, but at least in this telling, that’s just part of the legend.
People come up to me: “Bill, quit talking about Kennedy, man. It was a long time ago.” And I’m like, “All right, then don’t bring up Jesus to me.” As long as we’re talking shelf life. Given the wealth of material its makers have to draw from, American has plenty of white-hot moments, although Hicks’ material works better at length than in excerpt. As isolated bits, his attacks on popular culture and authority figures can seem like the views of a particularly articulate adolescent: Popular music sucks! Bosses are dicks! Distorted video footage of one disastrous gig (circulated as the Funny Firm American: The bootleg) finds Hicks railing Bill Hicks Story, will be available against the “peon masses” on DVD and Bluwho drag down society’s ray June 7 from Warner Bros. prophets—an observation as self-serving as it is accurate. Harlock and Thomas overlook or simply ignore Hicks’ flaws, like the anti-gay imagery he used to attack the likes of George Michael and Rick Astley, in favor of posthumous canonization. If Hicks were still around, it seems like exactly the kind of sanctimonious, prepackaged idol worship he’d take the utmost glee in razing to the ground.
Now Screen This Sam Adams with the best of what’s in movie theaters this month
Blank City Although it may not send you scurrying to seek out lost masterworks by Amos Poe and Nick Zedd, Celine Danhier’s documentary is an engrossing document of the Manhattan film underground in the pre-Sundance era. In an environment where technique was greeted with the utmost skepticism—John Lurie recalls camouflaging his saxophone proficiency so as not to jeopardize gigs—artists turned to film and filmmakers formed bands, a fertile cross-breeding that spawned the careers of Jim Jarmusch and Steve Buscemi, among many others. Contemporary excerpts offer ample visual testament to the bombed-out state of 1970s New York, an era that not coincidentally represented the island’s last artistic golden age. It may not have been a safe place to live, but the art’s never been so alive.
Submarine Threaded through with what its supremely selfaware teenage narrator called “the Super8 film of memory,” the directorial debut from The IT Crowd’s Richard Ayoade is a coming-of-age story that both exploits and transcends the genre’s limits. As his parents’ marriage founders, teenage Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts) forges his first relationship with a sar-
donic classmate (Yasmin Paige), who burns his leg hair with matches and decries kissing as “gay.” Much like adolescence itself, the film pitches from absurdity to anguish and back again, but Ayoade never loses his grip on the wheel. Comparisons to Wes Anderson aren’t inapt, but the mix of metacommentary and raw emotion is closer to François Truffaut’s 400 Blows, one of many predecessors to which Ayoade tips his hat.
The Trip Tristram Shandy co-stars Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon reteam for a passive-aggressive cooking tour of England’s north in Michael Winterbottom’s slight but endlessly enjoyable travelogue. Playing bent caricatures of themselves, the pair skip from one elegant restaurant to the next, ostensibly fulfilling a magazine assignment, but really providing an excuse for a series of barbed two-handers where the two not-quite friends grapple for the upper hand. Coogan mercilessly demolishes his colleague’s Michael Caine impression in a delirious back-and-forth, while the happily married Brydon lands sly digs at Coogan’s perpetual bachelorhood. Though die-hards will want to see out the six-part miniseries from which the theatrical feature is condensed, there’s ample nourishment here for all but the most ravenous Cooganites.
More at americanthemovie.com
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movies
Whoa Is Me
“I
Truth is stranger than science fiction in vintage Keanu trainwreck Johnny Mnemonic / by Sean L. Maloney
want to get online... I need a computer!”
We’ve all been there, right? Sneaking out of Beijing amid some serious corporate-Yakuza bloodletting and sneaking into Newark with clandestine information bursting out of our brain-implants with a laser-thumbed thug chasing after us, right? No? Damn, the future ain’t what it used to be—Johnny Mnemonic lied to us!!! All Johnny’s promises of a dystopian techno-apocalypse, cyber-dolphins and world-saving fax modems, and what do we get from the actual Internet in the actual future? Funny cat videos and Rebecca Black. Way to disappoint, Internet.
Johnny Mnemonic the cinematic experience, on the other hand, does not disappoint. Well, it probably does if you’re looking for, you know, a good movie, but why would you want to do that? JM stands as the best of the worst: a film so hamfisted and earnest, so dated and disjointed, that it’s tough to describe as anything but the Best Shitty Movie of the ’90s, beating out Tank Girl, Freejack… even Mom and Dad Save the World. We’re talking Johnny Mnemonic will about Keanu Reeves’ most wooden performance be available on to date—it’s got all the nuance of a Donald Trump Blu-ray June 14 from Image presidential run—plus a veritable who’s who of the Entertainment worst actors on earth: Dina Meyer, Ice-T, Dolph Lundgren, Udo Kier, Henry Rollins. It almost makes you wonder why they didn’t call Don “The Dragon” Wilson. Reeves trying to “act” with anthropomorphized-neck-muscle Rollins, rattling off Clinton-era technobabble, is one of the most hands-down hilarious things ever committed to film—Johnny’s brain holds 80 gigs, for cryin’ out loud! We’ve got keychains with more memory capacity! He saves the world using nothing but the Power Glove and a really uncomfortable looking cyber-hat! He makes a long-distance call—on the INTERNET! Throw in a conspicuously pop-industrial soundtrack— Fear Factory, God Lives Underwater, and not one but TWO tracks from Stabbing Westward—and you’ve got yourself the most perfectly awful slab of ’90s nostalgia the future has ever seen. Keanu Reeves as Johnny Mnemonic.
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! S I H T R E V O DISCew Albums You Need… Four N
LINDI ORTEGA LITTLE RED BOOTS
Lindi Ortega is a Toronto-based singer/songwriter in the mold of classic artists Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton and Emmy Lou Harris and contemporary acts Neko Case and Jenny Lewis. Torched songs lled with heartache and passion mixed with Lindi’s Mexican / Irish heritage make for an incredible record and unique artist personality. With a voice that “undulates with absolute splendor,” she recorded Little Red Boots with Juno Award winning producer Ron Lopata. CBC Radio explains her style as “a dash of country, a pinch of folk, a sprinkle of rock, and a smidgeon of jazz”— a genre Ortega explains as “a roadside motel love affair between old school outlaws and country darlings.” Lindi is currently on the road singing backup vocals for Brandon Flowers on his world tour and will be showcasing on her own in LA, Nashville and NYC early this spring. New album Little Red Boots Available June 7!
THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART BELONG
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart have come a long way since their beginnings as drum-machine equipped neophytes, and Belong shows just how far they have come. Belong reveals the beauty and pop perfection that once hid beneath fuzz and reverb. Belong is produced by Flood (Depeche Mode, U2) and Alan Moulder (Smashing Pumpkins, Jesus and Mary Chain, Ride). Upon release of their self-titled debut album in 2009, these New Yorkers gained the attention of cultural tastemakers like The New York Times, Pitchfork, Stereogum, NME, and in 2011 Spin chose Belong as one of the upcoming “winter albums that matter most”, and Rolling Stone has dubbed the band as “one to watch.” Belong’s strength is the quality of the songwriting and each songs ability to sound distinct from one another while still holding together as a unied record from start to nish. With Belong, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart have created a piece of sonic bliss that ts - for the moment, and for the long-run. Available Now.
THE ELECTED BURY ME IN MY RINGS
Produced and recorded by frontman Blake Sennett (Rilo Kiley guitarist/co-songwriter) with help from Jason Cupp and longtime Elected contributor Mike Bloom, the album, Bury Me In My Rings is complete with twelve shimmering pop songs reminiscent of mid-century West Coast rock. Bury Me In My Rings is a thoughtful and deliberate pop album layered with soulful harmonies and a sunny disposition, and is easily The Elected’s most impressive work to date. Simply put, people just don’t make pop albums like this anymore. Bury Me In My Rings is The Elected’s third full-length release. www.theelectedband.com. Available Now.
MOHOMBI MOVEMEANT
International sensation Mohombi makes his North American debut with the release of MoveMeant. Featuring the chart-topping singles “Bumpy Ride” & “Dirty Situation” ft. Akon, the album is a fresh, irresistible party soundtrack produced by Red One. Available Now.
/movies
Barney’s Conversion
essay by
Stan Michna
P
ersonally, I think St. Urbain’s Horse-
man is a better book, and The Apprenticeship Of Duddy Kravitz the best film adaptation of any of his works. But to favour one Mordecai Richler book over another is a matter of taste, a confluence of idiosyncrasies for which there is no accounting. Judging the films, however, while also dependent on personal taste, is confounded by a whole slew of variables, from screenwriter, director and actors to art direction, cinematography and budget. The great equalizer, though—what dilutes the importance of taste—is that what’s on screen is no longer the individual reader’s or author’s imagination, but that of the filmmaker(s). Every viewer watches what the filmmaker decides we should watch. Not what, but how we see, on the other hand, is entirely up to the viewer. Barney’s Version, Richler’s big, sprawling final novel, follows Barney Panofsky’s (played ably by Paul Giamatti) attempts to account for his life’s choices as dementia and Alzheimer’s begin moving in for the kill. In the book, Barney’s version of his life is more payback and delusion than insight and wisdom. In the movie, his life is recounted in a series of flashbacks whose start- and end-points emphasize his three failed marriages, from which Barney derives . . . what? A kind of ¿Que sera, sera? shit-happens acceptance? Melancholia? Old man grumpiness? If there is a signal failure in this film— though successful in other ways—it lies in its gradual, before final, descent at film’s end into cheap sentimentality. (Unearned sentiment is the last refuge of the scoundrel filmmaker.) Whatever other poisonous, cynical, comedic inkwells Mordecai Richler dipped his pen in, bathos wasn’t among them. A case in point is the flashback to Barney’s first wife, the bohemian, free-loving 52
needle
out of the house, Miriam wants to return to work as a DJ for her handsome neighbour; Barney has a onenighter, then confesses; the marriage ends, but a deteriorating flake, Clara (a fabulous Rachelle Lefevre Barney still loves her… clickety-clicketyin a way-too-brief appearance). A furious clack, yadda, yadda, yadda—the film almost Barney visits Clara in the maternity ward turns into a 1930s, three-hankie Barbara after learning the stillborn child she delivStanwyck picture. (Yes, of course it ends ered was another man’s. (Fertile ground in a cemetery.) for weepy melodrama if ever there was Which is a shame, really, since the senone.) “Oh, Barney,” she says. “You really timental denouement overshadows what wear your heart on your sleeve.” Then: are otherwise outstanding performances. “Now put it away. It’s disgusting.” Pure, (To be fair, it’s always been difficult for sardonic Richler. films to do true justice to Richler’s novSimilarly, when the relationship with els. It’s virtually impossible to translate his wealthy second wife is recalled (unon screen the bracingly devious machinanamed both in the book and movie, so little tions that swirl around in the minds of his is Barney’s regard for her), the portrait is central characters.) In addition to Lefevre devastatingly, even cruelly hilarious— and Driver, Dustin Hoffman as Barney’s another Richler trait. (Why is Minnie father, the retired cop Izzy, is terrific. Driver, whose self-absorbed Jewish CaSo, too, are the in-jokes and cameos: nadian Princess is channelling a manicTed Kotcheff as a train conductor; Denys depressive tornado, not a star?) Arcand as a waiter, and Atom Egoyan as a Barney’s relationship with his soul- director of a program that itself is the ultimate third wife, Miriam (Rosamund Pike) mate Richlerian in-joke. (Barney produces starts promisingly enough (Barney wants a TV show that’s in its 30th season, called to run off with her after seeing her at his “O’Malley Of The North,” starring Paul own wedding reception to wife Gross as a Mountie.) Number 2) in the outrageous In addition to a soundtrack comedy department. But the that includes Leonard Cohen (of course), John Lee Hooker, T-Rex, schmaltz quickly thickens as true love deepens: the music, the Miles Davis and Nina Simone, you’d montages, the kiddies growing think Barney’s Version couldn’t up, the ever-frisky sex life. (You help but score. Instead, it hits the can almost visualize Richler goalpost. glaring in disbelief from under Barney’s Version A pretty good game otherwise. his furrowed brow.) will be released 28th by Questions or comments? As the story wends its treacly June Entertainment Email stan@sunriserecords.com way to the present—with kids One. LEFT: Paul Giamatti with Rosamund Pike. ABOVE: Giamatti and Dustin Hoffman
June 7th
WWE 2011 - The Very Best of WCW Monday Nitro 3 Disc Set
June 21st
THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS Blu-ray Also Available
June 14th
June 14th
HAVEN Season One Blu-ray Also Available
June 21st
ELVIRA’S MOVIE MACABRE Movie Collections
June 28th
June 21st
June 21st
MEGA PYTHON vs. GATOROID Blu-ray Also Available
BEAT THE WORLD Blu-ray Also Available
KISS ME DEADLY Criterion Edition Blu-ray Also Available
BLACK MOON Criterion Edition Blu-ray Also Available
Summer,s here. Make every moment entertaining.
Quantities limited. Release dates subject to change. June 28th
BARNEY’S VERSION Blu-ray Also Available
June 28th
Artwork Subject To Change
WWE 2011 The Greatest Cage Matches of All Time
The Criterion Collection © 2011. All WWE programming, talent names, images, likenesses, slogans, wrestling moves, trademarks, logos and copyrights are the exclusive property of World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. and its subsidiaries. All other trademarks, logos and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. © 2011 World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved. © 2011 Entertainment One Films Canada Inc. All Rights Reserved. Distributed exclusively in Canada by Entertainment One. www.eonefilms.com
AS PROGRESSIVE AND MELODICALLY POPTASTIC AS EVER
AVAILABLE NOW!
/movies/new_releases JUNE 7
18 Bronzemen AC/DC: Let There Be Rock All Lies on Me American: The Bill Hicks Story America’s Sickest Home Videos America’s Sickest Home Videos 2 Angelina Ballerina: Pop Star Girls Animal Crackers Answer: 412 Days of Rock ‘n’ Roll Arctic Blast Backyardigans: Escape From Fairytale Village Banned in America Bellydance Superstars: Killer Drillz With Zoe Jakes Big C: Season One Blue Crush 2 BMF: Street Certified Breaking Bad: Complete 3rd Season Burn Notice: Season Four Butterfly & Sword Carancho Children of God Children of the Corn: Revelation Chronicle of the Third Reich Cocoanuts Company Men Despair Discreet Diving Bell and the Butterfly Duck Soup Dudley Do-Right Elephant Dreams Elephant White Exorcismus FDNY Dream Bike: In Honor of Gerard Baptiste Flight Frank Sinatra: Around the World From Beginning to End Tangerine Dream: From the Tangent Gerry Mulligan: Jazz in America Get Yourself a College Girl Great Divide Green Lantern: Emerald Knights Harlem Blues Harmony: Oneness Here We Come Hawthorne: Season Two Hellraiser: Hellworld Hellraiser: Deader Hold On Horse Feathers Housemaid How It’s Made: Auto I Only Want You to Love Me If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle In Her Skin Irena Sendler: In the Name of Their Mothers Journey of the Bonesetter’s Daughter Just Go With It Legends of Flight Les Invites De Mon Pere Lethal Landscapes: Canvases of the Combat Artist Leverage: The 3rd Season Little Cars Vol. 6: Fast Lane Fury Love’s Kitchen Macho Menos Madagascar Madeline and Her Friends Maid Sama! Collection 1 Malibu Shark Attack Manolete: Blood and Passion Max Roach: Live at Blues Alley McMillan & Wife: Season Three McMillan & Wife: Season Two Midnight Chronicles Miss Marple: Coffret 5 Monkey Business Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit – Complete Collection Mother’s Day Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely
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Daughter Mjueres Y Muerte National Geographic Classics: Cats and Dogs Nature: Outback Pelicans Nature: Survivors of the Firestorm New Morals for Old New Tricks: Season Four New York Street Games Nice Guy Johnny Night Flight Osso Bucco Pahappahooey Island Collection Passing Phantom Empire Physics of Motion Physics of Warfare Physics Super Pack Pimp Prehistoric Prizefighter & The Lady Prophecy 4: Uprising Prophecy 5: Forsaken Pros and Ex-Cons Queen of the Lot Rage in Harlem Rawhide: Season Four Vol. 1 Remote Control War Road to Avonlea: The Complete Fourth Volume Roary the Racing Car Rubber Salt of This Sea Sanctum Science of Death Primal Scream: Screamadelica – Classic Sean Connery 007 Collection Vol. 2 Secret at Arrow Lake Secret Life of the American Teenager Vol. 6 Shadows and Lies Slices of Life Smoke Signals Snoop Sisters: The Complete Series So Goes My Love Squall Stargate Universe: Final Season Stunt Man Supreme Champion Teaching Mrs. Tingle Third Finger Left Hand Tortured True Grit (2010)Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle Season 1 UFC 128: Shogun vs. Jones Ultimate Fight Ultimate Roy Rogers Collection Vision Quest Part C: The Ascension Vision Quest: Gia’s Story Vision Quest: The Kundalini Fire Voodoo Cowboys Welcome to Sarajevo When We Leave White Collar: The Complete First and Second Seasons Whitesnake: Live at Donington Le Tigre: Who Took the Bomp? Le Tigre on Tour Wild Hunt World’s Grossest Video Infantree: Would Work Wyvern Mysteries Year to Remember: 1930s Zig Zag JUNE 14
36 Adrift Algerian War 1954-1962 Amputee With an Axe Animal Diversity Battle History of the USMC: Korea Battle of Los Angeles Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son Black in Latin America Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet Bob Dylan: Gotta Do My Time Bob the Builder: The Big Dino Dig – The Movie
june 14 Hall Pass
It’s been roughly a zillion years since the Farrelly Brothers were appointment comedy. That impressive streak continues here, as Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis get a much-needed week off from their sexy, thoughtful wives.. [Warner Bros. Pictures] Brew Masters Bruce Springsteen: Between the Lull and the Storm Caliber 9 Camille 2000 Celebrity Bowling Celtic Woman: Songs From the Heart Chained Chaperone Charles Bronson Collection Chatroom Children of the Night Classic Slasher Collection (Don’t Look in the Basement/Scream Bloody Murder) Cold Day in Hell Con Artist Concert Crusade in the Pacific Cult Classics Collection Date With the Angels Deadly Dolls Demon King Daimao: Complete Coll. Detention Devil Dogs of Nam Devil’s Harvest Collection Dinosaurs: Perfect Predators Doctor Who: Frontios Doctor Who: Time and the Rani Doodlebops: The Beat Goes On Dr. Bell and Mr. Doyle Duda Dummy Europe: Live at Shepherd’s … London Fabulous Betty White Fall Down Dead Final Battles First Person Singular: I.M. Pei Foo Fighters: Back and Forth Freedom Call: Live in Hellvetia Fruits Basket: Box Set Gallants Gerald McBoing Boing Collection Giant Robot Action Pack: Robot Wars/Crash and Burn Glades: The Complete First Season Gordon’s War/Off Limits Groupie Hall Pass Happiness Is… Peanuts: Snoopy’s Adventures Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone Haven: Complete First Season Haven: The Complete First Season Hero: 108 – Season 1 Vol. 1 Hollywood Bombshells Hollywood Safari/ Secret of the Andes How to Fold a Flag Image Insignificance Jackass 3.5 Jonah’s Mission Kassava Restaurant’s Jerks Kill the Irishman Kingdom of War: Part I Kingdom of War: Part I/Part II Kingdom of War: Part II Kirk Douglas Collection (To Catch a Spy/The Big Trees) Korkoro Last Exile: Complete Series Latina Novella Latino Living Is Winning Lord, All Men Can’t Be Dogs Makioka Sisters Man v. Food Season 3 Man With a Camera Manhunt Marines in the Pacific Marriage of Figaro Marvel Knights: Spider-Woman – Agent of S.W.O.R.D. Monogamy Mooz-Lum Mother of Invention National Geographic: Alaska State Troopers Season 2 Norm MacDonald: Me Doing StandUp N-Secure One From the Heart Pastor Jones: Sisters in Spirit – Double Feature Piper Penguin and His Fantastic Flying Machines Poussieres de Vie Probe Red Riding Hood Reefer Madness Collection Revolucion Revolutionary Girl Utena: The Student Council Saga Royal Wedding: His Royal Highness Prince William and Miss Catherine Middleton Securing the Solomons Sergeant Cribb: The Complete Series Shanghai Red Shot in the Dark Smile Jenny You’re Dead SpongeBob SquarePants: Heroes of Bikini Bottom Supernatural: The Complete Second Season Sweet Karma Sweet Karma Sword Tony Palmer’s Holst: In the Bleak Midwinter Transformers: Beast Wars – The Complete First Season Triple Hit Tyler Perry’s House of Payne Vol. 8 Ultimate Wildlife: Animal Adaptation Uschi Digard Collection Vanishing of the Bees When They Were Young When Zachary Beaver Came to Town/Undercover Angel Wipeout Yellow Rose: Complete Series
/music/new_releases
JUNE 7
2011 Broadway Cast How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying 31 Knots Trump Harm Above & Beyond Group Therapy Art Abscons Der Verborgene Adelitas Way Home School Valedictorian African Head Charge Off the Beaten Track The Air I Breathe Great Faith in Fools All Time Low Dirty Work Amorphis The Beginning of Times Anathema We’re Here Because We’re Here (Special Edition) Jill Andrews The Mirror The Appleseed Cast Middle States EP Arch Enemy Khaos Legions Arctic Monkeys Suck It and See Avantasia The Flying Opera – Around Axis of Perdition Tenements Badlands Badlands Badlands Voodoo Highway Barn Burner Bangers II: Scum of the Earth Battles Gloss Drop Bedouin Soundclash Light the Horizon Behemoth Abyssus Abyssum Invocat Benny Benassi Electroman Justin Bieber My Worlds Acoustic Black Lips Arabia Mountain Black Moth Super … Dandelion Gum Deluxe Reissue Black September The Forbidden Gates Beyond Blindside With Shivering Hearts We Wait Mike Bloom King of Circles Sydney Blu Live From Mansion Bole 2 Harlem Bole 23 Harlem David Bowie vs. KCRW Golden Years Brent Hinds Presents Fiend Without a Face Dennis Brown Reggae Royalty J Bunnett & H Duran Cuban Rhapsody Carolina Choc Drops Heritage Tommy Castro Presents the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Revue Cerebral Bore Maniacal Miscreation Chrome Division 3rd Round Knockout Circus of Power Vices City and Colour Little Hell Nels Cline The Veil CMG The Jane of All Trades The Coathangers Larceny & Old Lace Chick Corea The Definitive Corea-Clarke-White Forever Crashdiet Generation Wild Creation Rebel Starship Africa Curt Cress Band Curt Cress Band Cults Cults Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. It’s a Corporate World Danjal The Palace Dawes Nothing Is Wrong Depeche Mode Remixes 2: 81-11 Chris Difford Cashmere if You Can DJ Screw 3’n the Mornin’ DJ Screw All Screwed Up Dr Midnight & Mercy … I Declare: Treason Ronnie Dunn Ronnie Dunn East River String Band Sweet East River East River String Band Be Kind to a Man When He’s Down East River String Band Drunken Barrel House Blues East River String Band Some Cold Rainy Day Efendi’s Garden Efendi’s Garden Hanin Elias Fatal Box Hanin Elias Get It Back Jonathan Elias A Prayer Cycle: Path Joe Ely Satisfied at Last
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Infection 1813 Tollus Crooked Voices Golden Horn La Lechuza Armod Way Home Echo Boom Channel Pressure Saturday Night Underwater David Comes to Life What’s Going On: 40th Anniversary Edition Gigan Quasi: hallucinogenic Sonic Givers In Light The Grascals Dance Til Your Stockings Are Hot & Ravelin’ Grayson Capps The Lost Cause Minstrels Michael Grimm I’ve Got Dreams Sonne Hagal Helfahrt Sammy Hagar Street Machine Hail Mary Mallon Are You Gonna Eat That? Hairy Phlegmball The Sound of Mucous II Hammerfall Infected Haunted Heads Songs Playing Heat Seekers Heat Seekers Helix Walkin’ the Razor’s Edge Hiromi Voice Hooray for Earth True Loves Bruce Hornsby & Range Bride of Noisemakers Hospital Ships Lonely Twin Ikebe Shakedown Ikebe Shakedown Infantree Would Work (Deluxe Edition) Infestus Ex/Ist Iron Maiden From Here to Eternity Daniel Isaiah High Twilight Jack or Jive Kagura Joe Jackson Live Music Bodek Janke Global. Dance. Kulture Jessica 6 See the Light Johann Johannson The Miner’s Hymns George Jones Great Country Hits of the ‘60s Kevin K Joey and Me Karma to Burn V Khan Erode Konitz/Mehldau/Haden Live at Birdland Ladybug Transistor Clutching Stems Sondre Lerche Sondre Lerche Les Doigts de L’Homme 1910 Cheikh Lo Jamm The Loose Salute Getting Over Being Under Manifest Live in Concert Bob Marley The Lowdown B Marsalis & J Cald… Songs of Mirth and Melancholy Dean Martin Classic Dino: Best of Dean Martin Cool Then, Cool Now Dean Martin Dino: The Essential … Russudan Meiparani Lieder Mignon Kiss of Death Montrose Montrose Morbid Angel Illud Divinum Insanus Peter Murphy Ninth Music Video? Fireproof Your TV Music Video? Now That My TV Has Wings I’ll Never Be Lonely Youssou N’dour Dakar-Kingston Kenneth Nash Mama Blue Shoe Necro Facility Wintermute New Age Steppers The New Age Steppers New Gary Burton Qu… Common Ground New York Dolls Dancing Backwards in Heels (Deluxe) Nick 13 Nick 13 Nine Below Zero Cold Cool Heart Nunslaughter Demoslaughter Dustin O’Halloran Vorleben Octopus An Ocean of Rocks Octopus Rubber Angel Brian Olive Two of Everything Omega Lithium Kinetic Origin Entity Original Cast Recording The Book of Mormon Lindi Ortega Little Red Boots Endstille Toulouse Engelhardt Engineer Ensemble Fisfuez Esmerine Falconer Maria Farantouri The Farewell Drifters Q Ford & Lopatin Nik Freitas Fucked Up Marvin Gaye
Depeche Mode june 7
Remixes 2: 81-11 If you’re a remix junkie, the Mode has never not delivered. Snap this up in single- or triple-disc form and enjoy avant reimaginings of sexy times from Speak and Spell to 2009’s Sounds of the Universe. [Reprise]
Patrolled by Radar Be Happy Frankie Paul Most Wanted Pharaoh Ten Years Michele Pillar Featuring Larry Carlton Poison Control Center Stranger Ballet The Postelles The Postelles Pure X You’re in It Now Quiet Riot Quiet Riot Rainer Baumann Band Fooling Raven Woods Enfeebling the Throne Ziggi Recado Ziggi Recado Paul Reed Smith Band Paul Reed Smith Band Reign of Vengeance Disemboweling Swine Residents Lonely Teenager Rhythmagic Orchestra The Rhythmagic Orchestra The Rosebuds Loud Planes Fly Low Santah White Noise Bed Santana Guitar Legend Henning Schmiedt Klavierrau Diane Schuur The Gathering Duncan Shiek Covers ‘80s Julian Siegel Urban Theme Park Paul Simon Paul Simon Paul Simon … in Concert: Live Rhymin’ Paul Simon Still Crazy After All These … Paul Simon There Goes Rhymin’ Simon Simply Red Farewell: Live in Concert Frank Sinatra Ring-A Ding Ding! Sister Hated Sisters 3 Coruscate … Meadow Gate Paul Reed Smith Look at the Moon Soul of John Black Good Thang The Soulless Isolated Soundtrack Afterparty Massacre Soundtrack Emerging Past Soundtrack Music From and Inspired by the Big C Soundtrack Sympathy for Delicious Sprains Imitate Art Syn Zw Sase Tri Intre Doua Lumi Craig Taborn Avenging Angel Tea Leaf Green Radio Tragedy Tech N9ne All 6’s and 7’s Tedeschi Trucks Band Revelator Thousand Foot Krutch Live at the Masquerade Tombs Path of Totality Touché Amore Parting the Sea Between Brightness and Me Randy Travis Anniversary Celebration Trentemoller Late Hight Tales Frank Turner England Keep My Bones Tyr The Lay of Thrym Under Fire Under Fire Various Artists 2011 Warped Tour Compilation Various Artists Chicago Blues: A Living History Various Artists Dancing Peregrina Various Artists Jazzkraut: Teutonal Jazz Rock Various Artists Keith Richards Jukebox Various Artists Mad Styles & Crazy Visions 2
A FEARSOME COLLECTION OF TRACKS THE WICKER MAN, HOLY SMOKE, EL DORADO, PASCHENDALE, DIFFERENT WORLD, MAN ON THE EDGE*, THE REINCARNATION OF BENJAMIN BREEG, BLOOD BROTHERS, RAINMAKER, SIGN OF THE CROSS*, BRAVE NEW WORLD, FEAR OF THE DARK*, BE QUICK OR BE DEAD, TAILGUNNER, NO MORE LIES, COMING HOME, THE CLANSMAN*, FOR THE GREATER GOOD OF GOD, THESE COLOURS DON’T RUN, BRING YOUR DAUGHTER... TO THE SLAUGHTER, AFRAID TO SHOOT STRANGERS, DANCE OF DEATH, WHEN THE WILD WIND BLOWS *LIVE VERSIONS Double CD and Limited Edition Triple Picture Disc Vinyl
OUT 7TH JUNE
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