Melisma Fall 2005 | Issue 3

Melisma Fall 2005

PRESENTS ~~ “Intercultural Pastiche”

A Student Publication of Tufts University - Volume II Issue I

Contents

A Melisma Manifesto I. We recognize that the idea of Truth has been lost long ago, and therefore rational empirical judgments will not be assigned. No numbers, stars, or empirical ratings of any kind shall be given to a body of work; the written word will speak for itself and its subjectivity will be acknowledged as a part of the the reader’s experience.

II. Though Truth may be long gone, we recognize Originality, though it may come in new forms. Though they may be few and rare, new ideas are being formed and thus merit exploration and appreciation as Original, if having been derived in a manner of pastiche or reference.

III. There will be no preference of one genre over the other; in the culture of late capitalism in the United States nothing is truly underground. What is called independent as well as mainstream will be considered equally, their contexts included but not preferred.

IV. The objective of this publication shall be to inform the students of Tufts University and other readers of the most relevant, interesting, and original aspects of music and its culture - in all of the subjectivity inherent in criticism and investigation.

V. As Music is Art and Art is Music, creative efforts that are outside the realm of traditional criticism will be encouraged if the creative work is applicable to the objective of the publication. Creative works of this kind may take any form.

VI. Given its history and presence at the university, a cappella music will not be considered within this publication, unless as referenced as artisan craft, as in its present form fails to meet criteria of music and culture referred to in the publication objective.

VII. Self-referential pastiche and self-parody will be encouraged, as no criticism or investigation will ever find Truth, and the acknowledgment of the failure of this aspect of Art is crucial to move forward.

On the Cover: Dangerdoom, Blanks. lead singer Matt Boch, M.I.A., Bajofondo Tango Club Designed by Gordon Cieplak

November 2005

Made By Editors in Chief: Andrew Chira Gordon Cieplak Submissions Editors: Amanda Brower Colin Green Nate Haduch Business Manager: Marty Sattell Layout Committee: Andrew Chira Gordon Cieplak Nate Haduch Rachel Olanoff Danielle Stein Contributors: Andrew Chira Gordon Cieplak Caroline Foley Erica Ghotra Ari Goldberg Nate Haduch Alykhan Mohamed Alexis Ong Rachel Olanoff Zach Robbins Marty Sattell Valerie Schenkman Brendan Shea

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Features

Volume II, Issue 1

The New Tango Nuevo

Gordon Cieplak

3

Blanks. Are Loaded!

Gordon Cieplak

6

Reviews M.I.A. Live @ the Paradise

Alexis Ong

10

Iron & Wine and Calexico: In The Reins

Erica Ghotra

11

Rachel Stevens: Come and Get It

Nate Haduch

12

Ryan Adams: Cold Roses

Marty Sattell

13

Dangerdoom: The Mouse and the Mask

Alexis Ong

14

Broken Social Scene: Broken Social Scene

Nate Haduch

15

Chaos and Creation in the Palace of Auburn Hills

Ari Goldberg

16

Sigur Ros: Takk...

Marty Sattell

18

Franz Ferdinand: Live at the Orpheum

Alykhan Mohamed

19

Acid Mother’s Temple and the Cosmic Inferno

Brendan Shea

20

Nada Surf: The Weight Is A Gift

Caroline Foley

21

Thunderbirds Are Now! @ Hotung

Andrew Chira

22

Op/Ed Ye Olde Scene

Brendan Shea and Rachel Olanoff

23

Childhood Memories

Jack Robertz

24

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The New Tango Nuevo Tango Is Reinvented Again

By Gordon Cieplak

From the Editor The idea of artistic pastiche has been been around long before the time when post-modern could be used to describe everything from film to food.

Pastiche is the use of different forms and references in a new context to create something new. The question of that creation’s originality (and authenticity) has been the subject of much debate in the past decades. I feel, however, that in the musical world today, as this issue of Melisma has brought to my attention, that new music is using pastiche to create something both original and authentic. Sure, the usual staple of the new classic “indie rock” is still in here, but the projects of groups like M.I.A., Dangerdoom, and the whole electrotango movement are showing the rich possibilities of crossing borders between defined genres, moving into exciting new realms of sound. Hell, in Boston we have the Blanks. using styles ranging from noise to house to blues to seduce

impressionable college girls all around the northeast.We often forget the genres which have become so thoroughly depleted today were once the rich innovations and combinations, cultural pastiches if you will, of the time. Jazz took African sounds and rhythms and put it to instruments from a marching band. Rock and roll took jazz and blues and added pretty white boys.

Hip-hop took funk and added gold fronts. Etcetera.

If this is all history then what’s so special about MF Doom or electrotango (besides being fucking awesome?) With electronic technology communication is at the speed of light, and the global village is literally at your fingertips. With modern digital technology small musical revolutions can literally happen overnight with something as simple as a digital mixtape (see M.I.A.’s Piracy Funds Terrorism.) While ClearChannel is

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shilling nostalgia for bygone teenage years (sorry, Green Day) true musical innovation is happening all around us around the world. MF mixes rap, a genre not unnoticed for its macho materialist attitude, with fucking cartoons, rhyming in brilliant selfparody. Sri Lankan M.I.A. rhymes revolutionary politics with an American DJ that makes social activism universal and danceable.

As students of a university that prides itself on its multiculturalism (if not its interculturalism), and as young men and women at least trying to become culturally aware citizens, we have an obligation to engage in a critical discourse with these developments - both in politics and music. In other words, turn that shit up; long live the new flesh.

Gordon Cieplak

Comments? Questions? Adulation or hatemail? Please send all letters to the editor to: MelismaMagazine@ gmail.com

Melisma Magazine is a n o n - p r o f i t s t u d e n t p u b l i c a t i o n a t Tu f t s U n i v e r s i t y. T h e o p i n i o n s e x p r e s s e d i n a r t i c l e s , f e a t u r e s or photos are solely t h o s e o f t h e i n d i v i d u a l a u t h o r ( s ) a n d d o n o t n e c e s s a r i l y r e f l e c t t h e v i e w s o f t h e e d i t o r s o r t h e s t a ff.

Tufts University is no t r e s p o n s i b l e f o r t h e c o n t e n t o f M e l i s m a M a g a z i n e . I f y o u w o u l d l i k e t o s u b m i t a l e t t e r t o M e l i sma Magazine, please send i t t o M e l i s m a M a g a z i n e @ g m a i l . c o m . P l e a s e l i m i t y o u r l e t t e r t o 4 0 0 w o r d s o r l e s s .

Features

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In the 1950’s, multinational the sensual and organic tango with “There is sex in both: in the tango talent Astor Piazzolla revolutionized anything electronic is controversial. it’s evident in the pure seduction; traditional tango music by One album review read, “This in electronic it’s the product of incorporating elements of jazz, wouldn’t be bad if not for the designer drugs that bring a smoother classical, and even rock - much incessant electronic beats!” But like sensual feeling.” Electrotango is to the derision of tango purists Piazzolla decades ago, this mixture sexo puro. The addition of electronic everywhere. This was the scandalous brings fresh energy to an aging beats add something familiar (for ‘New Tango.’ Now, at the turn of the classic style. the American ear), and the classic millennium, the music so inextricably While most movements with tango instrumentation provides a tied to the culture and image of prefixes such as electro- or retro- or seductive variation that truly grabs Argentina is undergoing further garage- mostly sound like attempts the ear. In a way it’s surprising that change, and let me tell you that it is to relive an old moment of glory, it took until the turn of the century good.

This new music does not take from rock or classical like Piazzolla, but instead mixes sounds and styles from the world of electronic music. Hence, it’s common name: electrotango.

(Also known as tango fusion or neotango.)

The original tango itself was a truly multi-cultural product, formed in the barrios of Buenos Aires by different influences of immigrants to Argentina in the early 20th Century. The name itself is said to have originated from tambor - an African word for drum.

Like jazz, rock, and hip-hop, tango was born in the hood only to be usurped later by the white man. It came from the the lower class barrios of Buenos Aires, where it was the street music of the time. It eventually Bajofondo Tango Club performs at the 2005 Festival del Tango in Buenos Aires - photo courtesy of www.festivaldeltango.com.ar. became quite popular in Paris, at which point the white bourgeouis electrotango is unique in that it for this movement to really begin. of Buenos Aires began to approve. succeeds in creating an effective The combination sounds so graceful Only then did the Tango become the synthesis of two very different and natural that one wonders why ubiquitous symbol of Argentine high musical styles. While tango is tango bands didn’t use DJ’s and society and culture that it is today. renowned for its melancholy synthesizers since their advent.

By the time Piazzolla came around sultriness, electronic music now in the 1950’s, Tango was so well occupies a range from upbeat dance -- The Project and The Club -established that his take on it literally pop (Annie) to abstract mindstarted fights in concert halls and got fucking (Aphex-Twin). But in these Perhaps the earliest concrete him threatened at gunpoint. disparate styles there is a common rendition of electrotango came from a In a staunchly Catholic land that ground, as Fernando Sánchez of the group not based in Buenos Aires, but values its traditions, the mixture of Latin American Rolling Stone notes.

Paris. Formed in 1999,

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Features

The New Tango Nuevo

Features

...Continued Gotan Project (gotan = anagram of tango) brought electrotango to fame with the European release of La Revancha del Tango in 2001.

This critically acclaimed but subtle album combines music as diverse as Astor Piazzolla (“Vuelvo al sur”) and Frank Zappa (“Chunga’s revenge”), yet creates an immediately accessible cohesive whole. For any hip restaurant, boutique, or club from Paris to Buenos Aires, this was the soundtrack.

In an interview with the Montreal Mirror in 2003, beat programmer and one-third of Gotan Project, Phillipe Cohan Solal, muses on Gotan’s success and the nature of the tango: "Of course, now everyone says that Piazzolla was a genius, like George Gershwin for jazz. The problem with tango, also, was that they mostly did covers, standards from the ‘20s, ‘30s and ‘40s.

Now, everyone does covers of Piazzolla! That’s why, maybe, we had such a good response in Argentina. Many people there, even music journalists, said that nothing happened between Piazzolla and the Gotan Project. It’s great to have a breath of fresh air in tango.

We didn’t expect that. In Paris, there are of course these tango ayatollahs who hate us, but at the same time we’ve had support from the tango scene all over the world - including Argentina."

While Gotan Project was making its splash in Paris, another group of even greater diversity was taking the tango in their own direction.

Bajofondo Tango Club (Underground Tango Club - perhaps a nod to the wild success of Buena Vista Social

Club) takes the rioplatense music one step further. BFTC is a collection of some 16 members (seven of which are producers themselves) from various parts of Argentina and Uruguay that have converged at the birthplace of the tango, Buenos Aires, to reinvent the sound of the city once again. BFTC further mixes the elements of tango, electronica, hip-hop and dance into an absolutely irresistible fusion.

Especially with their latest offering, Supervielle, they begin to take tango as an influence to electronic music, as opposed to the converse of Gotan Project. While the obvious step

2001, Argentina’s economy crashed in the worst financial disaster in the nation’s history. Now artists and musicians must make sense of a land that is rapidly modernizing, but has 50% of it’s population living in poverty and is still living with the recent memory of a brutal dictatorship and the ‘dirty war’ of 1976-1983.

While many electrotango tracks are new takes on old classics, others deal with the burdens of the new generations. BFTC’s “Miles de pasajeros” (“Thousands of Passengers”) gets down with an unusually tasteful ( for Spanishlanguage Hip-Hop) political rap discourse. Gotan Project’s “El capitalismo foráneo” is an ardent rejection of . . . well, you get the idea. Hostilities towards the IMF are still quite alive in South America, but never did they sound so sexy and eloquent.

Unless your travel plans involve Spain or Argentina, you’re out of luck to see most electrotango in concert for the time being. But a wide selection is available for consumption here in the States, thankfully without high import taxes. And the movement has grown - other groups besides Gotan and BFTC have achieved a fair measure of success: Tanghetto, Electrocutango, and Tango Crash or all worth checking out as well.

Additionally, through the magic of the internet one can find samples and remixes on both Gotan and BFTC’s web sites. (http://www. gotanproject.com and http://www. bajofondotangoclub.com) So for some real Latin American music, turn off that trendy fucking reggaeton and check this out.

Like jazz, rock, and hip-hop, tango was born in the hood only to be usurped later by the white man

of sampling traditional tango instruments is used, BFTC also mixes the live improvisation of jazz; delicate bandoneón and violin solos will weave in and out of a chemical beat - right before you’re surprised by the sampling of a fútbol announcer screaming ‘Goooool!’

-- Post-crisis Soundtrack -Electrotango is truly the sound of a new time, a new Argentina that draws openly from its rich heritage as well as the cultural globalization of the new century. It is also the sound of a post-crisis land - in November of

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This shot is from La Boca (literally, the mouth - of the most polluted section of river in the world), Buenos Aires - the birthplace of the tango. Nowadays, it’s famous as both one of the poorest neighborhoods of Buenos Aires as well as one of the most lively tourist areas. The streets are rich in bright colors (as you can’t see) and full of music and dance.

When I stopped by there were hundreds of foreigners wandering the streets, admiring artists selling all types of tango paraphenalia.

On one building were cheesy, large caricaturesculptures of Argentina’s icons: Maradona, Evita, and Peron. I did dare to wander off the main tourist trap for a bit (highly unrecommended for foreigners with cameras), breaking away from my gawking group of study abroad gringos and did get this photo of a real tanguero, just practicing.

Gordon Cieplak is a senior majoring in ILVS with an emphasis on Latin America and the visual arts. He highly recommends that you eschew the Tufts in Madrid program in favor of the new program in Buenos Aires, the Paris of the Americas.

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. s k n a l B re A

! d e d a o L

Photo Courtesy of the Blanks.

The Blanks. sound like something that the stylish girl with the Fiery Furnaces handbag in your art class would just love. They have the borderline cacaphonic vocals of other indie-dance staples The Rapture and Hot Hot Heat, and a tendency to break the fuck out of convention in mid-song and turn it into a house-noise party.

By the time you’re reading this, they should be done being almost done with their forthcoming, as of yet untitled EP, which they have spent the past months working on with Tufts musicians

and producers Adam Arrigo and Dan Cardinal. The Blanks. [Matt Boch, Jon Carter, Long Le-Khac, and Jon Drake] formed while attending Harvard – Boch and Carter have taken a break from the academic life to focus more on music. I went to Arrigo and Cardinal’s very own Bruce Willis Studios to sit down with one half of the Blanks., Matt Boch and Jon Carter, and discuss the recording process, Prince, and transcendental meditation.

Melisma: How long have you guys been a band?

Jon: Three years...?

Matt: Three years and a month. We met at the freshman arts orientation.

Melisma: So you’re all artists?

Matt: Well, yea. I mean, [chuckling] music is art.

Adam: That’s a deep quote.

Melisma: Touche. How did you come to work with Adam?

Matt: Our bass player [Long Le-Khac] was in a band with Adam in high school - who was that?

Adam: The Neon Wildnerness. It was pretty terrible.

Matt: What was that named after?

Adam: A Verve song.

Matt: So yea, we heard Long’s record and I was initially against the idea of having Adam record us. [laughter] Not because I heard his record but because I don’t like anyone fucking with my shit.

[Chuckles] We’ve recorded ourselves albeit somewhat poorly, but I was won over to Adam’s side after I saw how skilled and talented he is.

Adam: I didn’t know Matt at all - he was initially opposed to me recording.

But then Long told Matt that at some point he’d have to accept that someone else would record his stuff. But I was pretty intimidated at first. Maybe it was the haircut.

Matt: And I still don’t have to accept it. [laughs] I’m over here all the time, mixing shit.

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covers, which is this point where we Melisma: How has the experience kind of are right now. Where if you been for the Blanks? play covers you’re seen as a college Matt: My initial aversion was the band. We’re aiming for the point fact that Prince tells me I shouldn’t let afterwards, when people really like if anyone record and I should learn to do do covers again. it myself. [laughing] Prince is my idol.

Jon: Where you can do actual Melisma: What other musical reinterpretations as opposed to wanting influences do the Blanks have? to please drunk people.

Matt: Prince is key - the first song we Adam: Well, I was pleased. [laughter] played was a Prince cover.

Melisma: So Prince was a catalyzing Melisma: How long have you guys been working on this album? It’s force behind the Blanks? been a while, hasn’t it?

Jon: Yea, for sure.

Matt: I think we also all share a love of Matt: We’ve been working since early April. the Talking Heads.

Adam: It’s been like four months?

Jon: We all also had a lot of really Matt: April, May, June, July, August, disparate musical tastes at the beginning of college . . . [John] Drake was a professional jazz drummer, Long was listening to New Order, Matt had his Providence noise stuff, and I considered myself a blues musician.

Melisma: [To Adam] What attracted you to the music of the Left ro right: Arrigo, Boch, and Carter.

Blanks?

September, October. [laughter] Adam: I don’t know, I wasn’t into Adam: Seven? the whole post-punk thing really. But Jon: It’s been more than half a year? they’re such an amazing live band.

Adam: Jesus Christ.

Melisma: Where’d you first see Jon: But we’ve been almost done for them? most of those seven months.

Adam: I guess it was probably a Melisma: Yea I’ve been hearing that Harvard Valentine’s Day show . . . they a lot from Adam. played a lot of cool covers - Exploding Matt: We’re really close!

Hearts, Franz Ferdinand Jon: Even right now, we’re almost Jon: No that was The Rapture. done.

Adam: Oh, yea the Rapture - and Adam: When you have a home studio Gorillaz and stuff. the tendency is to keep dwelling and Matt: Oh yea, we also did ‘What is obsessing.

Love’ Matt: I was talking to [Jon] Carter the Jon: That was awesome, we all played other day about how it would be fun to keyboard. [laughter] do our next EP all in one day. Just like Matt: There’s like a point at which in and out of the studio in one day. you can play covers - when you’re just Jon: Yea, I had those kind of fantasies starting out. Because people won’t about this EP. The more time you react to your normal stuff. And then spend with it, the more every tiny deal there’s a point where you can’t play

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seems like the most crucial thing ever.

Adam: Everything else just kind of disappears to you.

Melisma: So you guys are both obviously very committed to this, you’re both taking the year off from school. Do you plan on continuing with the Blanks to tour and create more music?

Matt: That’s the ideal.

Jon: We both plan to make music for the foreseeable future, and hopefully it will be with the Blanks.

Melisma: Any tour plans?

Upcoming shows?

Matt: We were talking about that with our record label head, Dave Buivid.

Melisma: So you’re now an Endless band?

Matt: We’re an RPL/ Endless band.

Adam: I basically forced Dave to sign the Blanks. I said this is the next band you’re signing, that’s the bottom line.

Melisma: Who is RPL? Matt: RPL is an art collective of which the Blanks are a part.

Jon: The Reasonable People’s League.

Matt: It’s a sort of loose group of musicians, media artists, theatre artists, actors, etc.

Adam: Internet surfers.

Matt: Internet surfers, writers, blog writers. What else do we have?

Adam: Mimes.

Matt: So the Blanks are one of the two musical acts that are part of RPL. So we uh, well I more or less demanded that our label come out on a subimprint . . . mostly because Prince told me that would be a good idea. [laughter] And because that way we have a lot of creative control over what we’re doing.

Adam: We should mention Dan Cardinal.

Jon: Yea.

Top, Center: The Blanks. are thoughtful in their responses.

Bottom: Adam Arrigo, a sobering musical influence.

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Matt: Dan Cardinal has been a good outside ear . . . it’s interesting, because I don’t think that either of the people producing this record would listen to the Blanks if they didn’t know us.

Jon: I think it’s a really good thing. Because it’s not a type music that they’re necessarily inclined towards, so that gives them a broader perspective for the whole recording process.

Adam: That’s not completely true. I would definitely listen to the Blanks still.

Jon: Adam hates our band. [laughter] Adam: Well, now I do but before I still would’ve listened.

[Matt’s cell phone rings] Matt: Hello? Hey what’s up Pacho. Not bad. Monday morning?

Sorry, one second. [leaves room] Adam: But, yea, it’s weird, because now I record the bands for Dave’s label - I never really thought about the fact that Blanks are like the first big project that I’ve had. When I took on the project it was more like I was a musician who produced bands on the side. Now it’s more the opposite - I’m a producer who makes his own music.

[Matt walks back in] Matt: I’m going to Kansas. [laughter] Jon: Seeya!

Matt: Not now, Monday.

Jon: What’s in Kansas?

Matt: Our roommate Pacho is shooting a film about intelligent design and evolution.

Jon: Holy shit.

Matt: And he needs someone to be second unit. So I’ll be there.

Anyway. So what were we talking about?

Jon: Transcendental meditation.

Melisma: Yea, and David Lynch. So how do you feel about him?

Matt: I mean, during the process of recording things were going very slow. And then we saw the David Lynch DVD. And Carter and I started meditating.

Jon: Regularly.

Matt: And on the record, the audio files have actually gotten better. [laughter] Jon: The unified force has harnessed ProTools. It’s a whole new type of plug-in that you can’t get on any processor.

Adam: We hang out in our dreams too. We all just go to the same space.

Jon: Yea. The unified force.

Adam: And the unified field.

Matt: So what other questions should you have asked us that you didn’t? I know, lets talk about what the songs are all about. Ask us what the theme of this EP is.

Adam: I need to get more wine.

Melisma: So there is a theme in this album?

Jon: It centers around the song ‘Homunculus,’ I think [that] is where it came from.

Matt: I made a piece of video art called ‘Homunculus Monitor’ two years ago, and the idea of the Homunculus became a very important

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metaphor in my art and lyrics. I have a hard time writing lyrics just in the abstract, with no sort of theme or idea.

And I think that most personal themes are pretty cliched and hard to write lyrics that sound convincing and new about problems that we’ve all had.

Jon: Relationships . . .

Matt: So, I try - we try in general to latch on to themes that are a little outside the norm.

Melisma: So . . . be more specific. [laughter] Matt: So the story of this record is Jon: Well.

Matt: Do we want to tell him?

Jon: I think it came from ‘Lodger’ too.

Matt: Yea I guess it did . . . but I mean, the song ‘Homunculus’, when I thought about it initially, was about - [interrupted by knocking. Adam walks back in.] - uh, the process of - there’s no LongTrail IPA? Oh well. So the story was originally of ‘Homunculus’ about this character who had been around forever and was just sort of jumping from one person’s head to the next person’s head. So a homunculus is like the little guy in your head, or alternately what your brain would draw as a picture of you if it only had nerve density as it’s palette.

Jon: So like, huge eyes, lips, fingers, really small knees.

Matt: So that image sort of took over all the rest of our songs for this record. That’s the basic theme for us that links together all of these songs . . . the whole story is really long and sordid, but we hope to create some sort of visual representation of it, whether it be in images that match each one of the songs, or ideally videos - that show the homunculus’ capture, his history, his lodging, his being forced to be trapped inside of a giant killing machine, his reconciliation with said killing machine.

Jon: Yea, to hear the whole story you just really have to get the record.

Adam: Yea, you’ll be able to buy it at www.endlessrecordings.com. Or the Blanks’ website whenever they make one.

Matt: We have one! Loveromp.com.

Melisma: Yea, I’ve seen that one.

Where did Loveromp come from?

Jon: Well we realized freshman year that the phrase loveromp was an open domain ...

Matt: What was our idea of what we wanted to do with loveromp.com? We had some other idea, but then the Blanks needed a website because . . . what happened? There was an article being put out about us? But we found out there’s about a million other bands called the Blanks around the same time.

Adam: Some 80’s band.

Jon: Some Texas bar band.

Matt: So we decided to go with the domain that I presently owned. We think it’s pretty catchy.

[Adam’s housemate and Melisma staff writer Jack Robertz walks in] Jack: Hey what’s up?

Matt: Do you want to make some comments on the Blanks record?

Jack: Eh, we’ll see . . . [laughter] Melisma: How do you feel about the Blanks’ new record?

Jack: Um, I like it man. Well, I mean I haven’t heard it. [more laughter] I think I like it.

Adam: Are you kidding me?

parenthesis. [to Dan] This is an interview with Melisma.

Jack: How do you feel about the fact that this record was so labored on? That after a while nothing seems spontaneous. There are like forty layers in every song.

Jon: All the rhythm tracks are live takes.

Jack: Did you ever want to strip it down and make some fucking rock and roll? Have one guitar, one drum track and just fucking rock out?

Matt: No. If I wanted to do that I’d just start a new band. I would a start a band that didn’t have a great drum programmer, or a drummer that’s one of the busiest that I’ve ever heard. The Blanks are a band that I think lives or dies on their complexity in the end. I think the complexity within each thing, the relentlessness within everything . . . we’re the sort of band that sings through the whole song, so you can just listen to any single part in the song and still be entertained. I think our songs wouldn’t be that strong on just acoustic guitar and vocals.

Adam: I think the Blanks’ sound, on the album at least - none of the songs sound the same to me. Which is the downfall of a lot these newer bands in that genre - like Bloc Party and Hot Hot Heat.

Matt: I imagine that our next record will sound a lot different than this one because we’re a restless group of people.

Melisma: Well I look forward to hearing it and seeing what else you guys come up with.

Jon: Yea me too.

Adam: I look forward to this album coming out!

We try in general to latch on to themes that are a little outside the norm.

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Jack: The thing is I’ve heard it so many times - there’s no novelty. I think you guys worked harder than anybody I’ve ever fucking known to work on album. I commend you for that.

[Dan Cardinal walks in] Dan: Hey! Adam: Enters Dan Cardinal, in

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Reviews

M.I.A.

Iron & Wine and Calexico In The Reins

Live at the Paradise 9/23/2005

by Erica Ghotra

by Alexis Ong I had originally planned my M.I.A. is shared by many; it was kind of cherrypopping to occur over summer incredible, for one thing, to see lots of when she performed at Avalon with rotund old white people rocking out to LCD Soundsystem. Unfortunately, due ‘Hombre’ just as hard as the impressive to painfully foreseeable circumstances army of krunked out Sri Lankans that and our collective failure to make the turned out for the show. obviously correct decisions, we arrived It’s difficult to describe M.I.A. to just after her set and only caught LCD someone who hasn’t heard her music. (who were, incidentally, fucking great). It’s not really dancehall, it’s not exactly Basically what I am trying to say is that being able to see M.I.A. again, sans above obstacles, essentially resulted in me dropping a load on beer and getting annihilated.

I was ready to literally soil my pants with M.I.A.: So hot. anticipation. Earlier in the night I had rap, pop, ragga, baile funk or anything already concluded it was possible that of the sort – her kittenish, sing-song Gordon wouldn’t even notice if I did. almost Shaznay Lewis (props to anyone My expectations of the show were who knows what I’m talking about) ridiculously high namely due to the rapping is far from being her only fact that I’d been listening to Arular trademark distinction, it’s the whole non-stop when it was first leaked an package deal. Cavorting onstage with ass-long time ago; since then it has her unnamed backup singer, it seemed tripled as my happy-go-lucky, highly like M.I.A. was a whole movement addictive, drinking/substance abuse/ that went beyond one person. As Edan everything soundtrack. Apparently might say, her delivery was complete my fondness for short Sri Lankan and utter rapperfection. And yes, the rapper-producers with a penchant thought did, in fact, briefly cross my for revolutionary politics and Diplo

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Reviews

mind that they were on a shitload of uppers or something. Crack? Whatever it was, they were both galang-a-langing around the stage like a couple of guerilla land mines (a tasteless Tamil Tiger joke is always appropriate when you’re not writing for the sole purpose of financially supporting yourself yet).

Also was admittedly disappointed that she didn’t indulge in any of the crazed dancing as featured on her official website.

All that aside, my sole complaint would have to be how goddamn short it was. Granted she only has one legit album, so I’m not sure if I can even reserve the right to be pissed about how brief the show was. On a side note, I think if M.I.A. tweaked around with her publicist, she could definitely style herself as the David Blaine of the mixtape world and cultivate a following of thousands. No shit. Maya Arulpragasam is, hands down, the most electrifying emcee in the business today. Don’t even bring the Lady Sov comparisons.

Alexis Ong is a senior majoring political science and adderall all nighters.

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In early September Iron and Wine and Calexico came together for a long anticipated collaboration. That is two bands, not three, mind you.

That melancholy, bearded Sam Beam of Iron and Wine whose post-Garden State soundtrack appearance garnered some minor celebrity is at it again, this time with more hands to accompany more instruments. Tucson-based Calexico, whose sound can only be poorly characterized by combining elements of jazz, country, folk, and mariachi provide the helping hand. Sam Beam initially sought Calexico to record his first album, but schedules conflicted. Meanwhile both bands remained busy; Calexico now has five albums under their belt and collaborations with Neko Case and Nancy Sinatra. In the seven track In the Reins EP the formerly lo-fi Beam kicks it up a notch with a seasoned Calexico, throwing some southwest flair in to keep you from falling asleep to his whispy vocals.

The disc starts off slowly with the title track “He Lays in the Reins” featuring a distinctive southwestern sound. It is a subtle waltz with a surprising influx of Spanish vocals from Salvador Duran. In the background you can make out faint clopping sounds as though you could hear the gray stallion mentioned in the song. Things pick up by the third track “History of Lovers,” with an upbeat tempo and blaring trumpets that are so vociferous it makes you second guess

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Sam Beam’s involvement. This song is about a twisted love triangle gone wrong. “Red Dust,” highlights Calexico’s talents. The sparse lyrics heighten the intense instrumentation of the piece that builds beautifully.

You don’t have to know what a

reverse delayed wurlitzer is to enjoy this one.

Traditional Iron and Wine fans should enjoy “16, Maybe Less,” about a lost love. The hushed vocals are the main focus of this nostalgic love piece but it continues to maintain its momentum with Calexico in the rear. Lyrics like “I met my wife at a party where I drank too much,” also differentiate it from any traditional romantic verse. Perhaps the best track on the album is “Burn that Broken Bed.” Here Calexico’s genre bending talents shine. The repeating line

“When are you coming back?” would sound whiny without a jazz horn arrangement carrying the song. The song is energizing and funky with an edge that Iron and Wine’s latest Woman King EP came close to last January. You will not be able to stand still when you hear this song as you ponder its musical complexity and grandeur.

The final song “Dead Man’s Will,” is a perfect closer that includes a chorus of voices emphasizing the collaboration of the entire piece. It is a sad farewell reading off a dying man’s will that makes you sad that the disc is ending.

Vibraphones are employed to give the piece a solemn feel.

This album is still mostly about Sam Beam, but a Sam Beam in cowboy boots. It’s not the beautiful lullaby of Our Endless Numbered Days that you fall asleep to nightly. The song diversity makes the album difficult to classify. It is the western twangs of Calexico blended with the southern sounds of Iron and Wine blended to create an album any cold Northeasterner can enjoy. Bottom line: the 28 minutes should be enough to entice you to see the joint show December 7th at Avalon. Each band will play individual sets and then come together at the end.

Erica Ghotra is a junior majoring in anthropology with an emphasis on on collaborative efforts across slightly different fields.

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Reviews

Rachel Stevens

Ryan Adams and the Cardinals Cold Roses

Come and Get It

by Nate Haduch industry is now making an entire My suitemates are going to hate sentences about Devendra because me for the amount of times I’m frankly I have no idea what’s up with album of ridiculously hooky Pop music of similar quality. Most of the going to play this album in the next him. time, the executives and producers few weeks. I’ll probably use the This is the kind of album that I poop out after a song or two. I know guise of “Oh, I had to write a review cherish for being unique, an album I’d pretty much die if I wrote Since for it,” but really that isn’t the case. that seems to be working from U Been Gone. It’s sad but No one is forcing me to understandable. write a review of this album, So here we are with an and I’m pretty sure that no album that I’d almost equate one wants this review to be with Annie’s Anniemal, written at all. I might be but in a different sense. stretching the limitations This is lighter, goofier, of what we’re able to write simpler, and more naive about in future issues - if in general. It sometimes, a “no S Club 7 members maybe more often than can be spoken about in I’m admitting, gets by on Melisma” clause gets added the indiscernible qualities to the rulebook, I would feel that make it likeable. And responsible, but I wouldn’t when I say that, sometimes exactly feel unfulfilled.

I mean there’s really good I don’t know if Melisma production in this album. knew what they were getting And sometimes I really mean themselves into when they that I’m not sure why it’s didn’t assign me albums so good. I think I’ll spend to review. So this is the the rest of the review, and second time this issue that perhaps my life thereafter, I find myself talking about trying to figure it out. Or Pop music that I wouldn’t maybe I’ll give up and never have respected at all a few listen to it again. Now that’s years ago. In fact, I wouldn’t just silly. respect me as a writer But honestly, there right now, and I probably Rachel Stevens: All that Paris Hilton are some fine Pop hooks wouldn’t even read the rest wishes she were. crafted within the bytes of of this review. I might feel within its genre, Pop, but trumps this album…durr...etched into the guilty acquiring an album like this what its genre stands for.

This vinyl.

If you don’t let yourself be even now, if I had to pay money for time when I talk about Pop music, nauseated at first listen, if you don’t it...I mean...

I’m talking about a much different think about how your eleven year old That said, I’m not saying that this animal than singles.

Sure, there are cousin Emily would probably listen album isn’t worth a listen, because singles on this album, including the to this, and you aren’t afraid to have I chose to write about it over new wonderful “I Said Never Again (But an S Club 7 member’s disc in your releases from the Clientele, My Here We Are),” but there are other collection, I suggest this album. If Morning Jacket, Deerhoof, and songs too.

I know, it’s ridiculous. you want to feel like a worse person Devendra Banhart. I’ve listened to While this is still a case of a goodin general, I suggest substance their new releases – they’re good, looking artist of questionable talent abuse. In conclusion, give Pop a but this is entirely more fun. And being made by an industry, the chance.

I couldn’t write more than three

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Reviews

Melisma

by Martin Sattell Country gets a bad rap in blue-state societies, but it’s not all about singing about how a man can love his tractor like his lady. The black sheep of the country family, the appropriately named “alternative country,” is a predominantly glanced over and underrated sub-genre.

Influenced by the archaic Flying Burrito Brothers, latter day bands such as Uncle Tupelo and Whiskeytown picked up on their prerogative and blossomed the genre into a different kind of frolic among the Bible Belt’s favorite musical nuances and trends.

It is the former lead singer of Whiskeytown that we concern ourselves with today: Ryan Adams. He’s altcountry’s poster boy, and rightfully so.

After the dissolution of the Tweedy/ Farrar coalition of Uncle Tupelo and Whiskeytown’s unforeseen demise, Adams was left as the sole heir to altcountry in a media market where power pop records were selling like proverbial hot cakes. This good ol’ boy got off to a rocky start, however, releasing a series of questionable albums that explored his musical prowess by trying to be a bona fide rock star. Yet, with Cold Roses (2005), Adams gets back to his alt-

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country roots.

It’s his first record with his new back up band, The Cardinals.

Many of Adams’s dedicated fans will see a similarity between this two-disc set and his solo debut, Heartbreaker (2000). But this time around, there is less of an emphasis on the acoustic, and more attention is given to sweet and whiny guitar licks. The album also marks his retreat from the cocksure self-righteousness of his solo career, not only by donning an addendum to his prolific name in the liner notes, but also by sharing the singing/songwriting responsibilities with Cardinal Rachael Yamagata, who collaborated on some of the songs such as “Mockingbird” and “Cold Roses.”

Many songs are upbeat, with a steady drumbeat and whirling guitars that seem to bounce along. The lyrics often evoke country themes, especially in songs like “Let It Ride,” where Adams longs for his hometown of Jacksonville, Florida. Other times, he’s less up front and just lets his steely guitar and honky-tonk yelping do all of the suggestion that’s necessary. His vocals truly

are on target for the entire album, ranging from his moping in “How Do You Keep Love Alive?” to his lively cry for lovin’ in the bonus track “Tonight.”

But, the foremost attractive aspect of this record is its sentimentality. The lyrics are extremely emotional. One could call the album alt-country-emo. All I know is that when I’m cold and lonely at night, pining over my lost love back in the Midwest, there’s nothing more nurturing than popping my headphones on and absorbing lyrics from “Now That You’re Gone” (“I ain’t afraid of hurt/ I’ve had so much it feels like normal to me now”) or from “How Do You Keep Love Alive” (What does it mean to be so sad/When someone you love is supposed to make you happy?). Damn that’s melancholy.

All in all, after ambitiously promising three new albums of original material this year, Adams and his birdies are off to a good start. The eclecticism of Cold Roses has something likeable for all alt-country fans. For all the sadness purveyed in this album, Adams balances every slowpaced song with an upbeat one. Slow and pensive boleros are meant for those of us who’re undergoing profound emotional turmoil, and faster-paced melodies aimed at those of us in Beantown recently estranged from our pine-barren homes in the back country. Your aim is true, Mr. Adams; give us more!

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Reviews

Broken Social Scene

DangerDoom

The Mouse and the Mask

Self-Titled

By Alexis Ong

My thoughts on Dangerdoom can be summed up in two sentences: Robbins thinks the excess Adult Swimmage on the album is ridiculous, and I think Robbins should be permanently silenced. Then again, I’m unwaveringly predisposed toward Mr. Dumile. He could crap out any number of whack rhymes and I would commission a Bible out of them., so maybe I’m not the best person to write this review.

Given the orgasmic stockpiles of profit that this particular collaboration must have generated, this… fantabulous rap extravaganza, if you will, (think of the merch!) The Mouse and the Mask is clearly Doom’s most radio-friendly bubblegum album – the one with the most replay potential.

Same goes for Danger Mouse. Yeah, so Robbins has a point: the Shake calls and Meatwad raps can get slightly tedious. But you can’t deny it sounds good. Lots of trumpets, violins, cute piano spasms on “Benzi Box,” and of course, Doom, ever the cunning linguist – “I told ‘em, don’t break my balls/

Yo

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wherever mouse go trouble follows/ the bounty on this pro was mils and double dollars/vil spill muddle flows that befuddle scholars/thick buffalo girl with the bubble hollas/she rock leather and gold, a fat blouse/and need a brother with soul to let her cat out,” – and Ghostface’s cryptic rhymes about taking off a mask and his Tony Starks pedigree…perhaps anticipating the Doom-Ghostface project “coming soon”?

I first heard “Mince Meat” when it was leaked back in June (maybe July?).

My immediate reaction was unparalleled euphoria at the thought of an Adult Swim-themed album, which was instantly followed by the Danger! somber realization that after The Mouse and the Mask (the only instance I would allow an album like this to exist), I would probably maim whoever put together another ATHF-rap deal.

Not because I don’t think they could pull it off as well as these guys, but because the world would most likely explode if the two were in existence.

Think the dangers of time travel. But hang on. I’m about to unleash my grand analysis on the secret to the success of Dangerdoom: I have no problem saying it: it is, essentially, the Holy Trinity for smokers. I mean, come on. Adult Swim is the product of programming genius, but needless to say, even

Reviews

the greatest television programming can be enhanced, right? My senses have been trained silly to succumb to the sight or sound of Adult Swim – I hear Brak at the end of “The Mask” and am involuntarily assailed by fond flashbacks of numerous times I was watching Space Ghost and accidentally burned a hole in the couch, and/or tried to make tea, realized how much I hate tea, and made a load of weed Swiss Miss instead. For that reason, and that reason alone, this unbeatable Doom, Danger and Adult Swim triumvirate pretty much guaranteed its own success from the beginning. I have no problem secretly indulging in the repeated novelty of hearing Stormee and Marco bickering over Danger beats, because it reminds me of that fucking tripped-out night when we made twelve pounds of guacamole and hashed our way through all of Season 1. End of story.

So, there you go. The rhymes are solid, the beats are solid but surprisingly light considering Danger Mouse’s latest projects (the new Gorillaz, anyone?), and the samples are well picked. Adult Swim aside, there is nothing particularly outstanding about The Mouse and the Mask, except maybe for its tremendous hold on the smoking population. If anything, it certainly whetted my appetite for the next instance of pure unadulterated Doom.

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By Nate Haduch Hi, I’m Nate. I lived on a deserted island for the month of September, and I only got to bring one album with me.

And before everybody started talking about the new Wolf Parade album, I was perfectly content to live there for a while longer.

Looking back, that’s really how it felt. When I came to school, I didn’t acquire any new music for the first five weeks, besides someone sending me this album as a present. I guess I listened to other music too, but for the first month of having this album, I listened to it at least once a day – something I hadn’t done since I got OK Computer in 5th grade. There were more firsts: I didn’t know the song names, I didn’t know who was playing on each track, I didn’t have a map of the music in my head, and I didn’t have parts of the album that I liked any more than the rest. Keep in mind, this is after more than fifty listens. I simply didn’t care about any of the semantics.

I guess the album simply didn’t want me to look into it any further. I’ve ignored all press on the album, I haven’t questioned how much I enjoy it, and I haven’t figured out why I’ve listened to it so much. I guess it’s time to roll up my sleeves and do that for a second, because I am writing a review after all.

A little background: Broken Social Scene is an indie rock collective based out of Canada that has members of several Canadian post-rock outfits.

They don’t name anything really well, and I’m going to blame this on them being Canadian. As I am now looking

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at their song titles, they’ve chosen “Ibi Dreams of Pavement (A Better Day)” and “Handjobs for the Holidays” as representations of two very good tracks. Broken Social Scene sounds like a whiny emo name, and those song titles sound as if they’re straight of a Ween track list. Their name should actually relate to them having about a dozen members, sounding like a

restrained bombast, having no two songs sound the same and having Leslie Feist sing on several of their best songs. Something strong and massive, but varied and sensitive, like “Behemoth Fiber Cotton Blend,” might be a more accurate name. I’ll leave this one to them.

The album takes many listens before it sinks in. I didn’t even realize that I had listened to it until about listen number 6, which is similar to most people’s experience with any BSS disc.

Eventually, something starts to pop out, you hear Leslie Feist’s lovely voice, and then it’s all over. Maybe. If you’re me. Due to the depth of the lineup, there’s more variety of soundscapes formed on this album than in almost any modern rock band. They rock out, they shoegaze, they croon dreamily once or twice, and sometimes they just chill.

I just now noticed exactly how many combinations of instruments there are. There are horns, many forms of percussion, multiple basses, accordion, autoharp, banjo, a handful of guitars, keyboards and electronics, and often you can’t discern between any of it. BSS composes every song so well as to not make you realize that they’re a collective made up of more than a dozen musicians at times. It’s a rock orchestra of times; one with a really good sense of interwoven instrument lines. It’s both Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine in this sense: it is a calculated body of sound, and it’s about as dense as any harmonic music gets. I say harmonic to save room for grindcore.

BSS has composed a great album of varied and artistic pop songs. No single tracks stand out with repeated listens, though Shoreline 7/4 and Windsurfing Nation are immediate places to start for new listeners. Given enough listens, you will be as confused as I am about how you feel about this epic work. It’s worthy.

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Reviews

Chaos and Creation in the Palace of Auburn Hills Or Unbridled McCartney Idolatry

by Ari Goldberg October 15, Auburn Hills, MI - In 1967, a 25 year old mop-topped rocker sang, “Will you still need me/ will you still feed me/ when I’m 64?” Now, at 63, this same someone’s “knocking at the door” to that very age, which is not typically very kind to a pop musician’s popularity. However, after a 48 year career and on the heels of his 53rd album, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, Sir Paul McCartney took the stage at Detroit’s Palace of Auburn Hills to a raucous crowd of 16,000 who couldn’t care less what age he was.

My family and I barely made the bus in seconds flat for a show supposed to begin at 8 but we were sonically assaulted by a DJ remixing McCartney’s “Live and Let Die” to a backdrop of digitally morphing paintings, apparently done by Macca himself, until 8:45. Towards the end, I was hoping the DJ would just go ahead and make good on his perpetually looping remixed lyric and let me die. My only comfort was the bitter irony that we were all sitting under a giant Verizon billboard asking “Can you hear me now?”Finally, at 8:45 the DJ took an undeserved bow and abstract McCartney paintings gave way to a delightful mini-documentary

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on Paul’s life. At the first shot of Paul, John, George, and Ringo on the screen, the audience exploded

in applause. The atmosphere was electric with anticipation as the documentary closed and Paul opened the show with “Magical Mystery Tour.” Then it hit me. I was out of college, money spent, and about to see the Quarryman, the Beatle, the Wing, the knight – Paul McCartney! The energy never left the audience from there, as a confident McCartney and a superb backing band enthusiastically covered his entire career over in two and a half hours and 37 songs. To the audience’s pleasure, he relied heavily on the Beatles catalogue and the bigger hits from his Wings

days. Paul played to the audience all night long, acknowledging signs in the crowd, making jokes, and interspersing songs with genial anecdotes, such as how J.S. Bach inspired the guitar riff for “Blackbird”, and how he recently fell through a trap door on stage while on tour in Europe. Virtually everything Paul did and said was met with applause and cheers. He probably could have sat there and read “Green Eggs and Ham” and been well received, but the man has earned it.The set was nicely mixed with some surprises such as the early Beatles cover of the Meredith Wilson standard, “Til’ There Was You”, and the seldom heard 1963 B-side to “She Loves You”, “I’ll Get You.” A true showman, Macca saved his best for last ending the set with “Hey Jude” and “Live and Let Die”. And after a hard day’s night of traveling, there is nothing more uplifting than singing “na-na-na, nana-na-na” with 16,000 other fools on the Auburn Hill. He returned with an encore of “Yesterday”, “Get Back”, and the biggest surprise of the night, a blistering rendition of “Helter Skelter” with the entire crowd of pre-teens to senior citizens rocking out. And let me tell you, if you’ve never screamed “you may

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be a lover, but you ain’t no dancer” alongside someone’s grandma, you just haven’t lived. With the crowd still roaring, McCartney graced us with a second encore of “Please Please Me”, “Let it Be”, “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise), and appropriately, “In the End”.The same laid-back confidence exhibited in McCartney’s stage presence is reflected in McCartney’s new album. Now, confidence has never been lacking from Macca’s albums, but over the last two decades, as his inclination for whimsy and sentimentality came to define his newer efforts, his grip on the pop charts dropped, along with the credibility of his recent albums. However, beginning with 2001’s Driving Rain, Macca began to strip away the studio polish and the more overwrought aspects of his recent work. With Chaos, although not a landmark album in its own right, finds Paul sounding like the Paul we all know and love again.With producer Nigel Godrich (Radiohead’s OK Computer and Beck’s Mutations) at the helm, the album’s tone is more of the confessional singer/songwriter.

Many of Paul’s recent LPs have been considered corny, but within the light of this more intimate setting, Paul’s songs convey more meaning, and feel more genuine than they have in years. Such is the case with socially conscious

“Jenny Wren” which finds Paul’s voice hitting impressively high notes, the restrained, resonant rocker which stylistically could

listener right from the start, as was a major problem with some recent McCartney efforts. However, a Macca album just wouldn’t be right without some playfulness (after all, it’s McCartney, not Lennon) which finds a delightful place right alongside the more serious parts.

These upbeat standouts include the rollicking piano rocker “Fine Line” starting off the album nicely, and the cheerfully whimsical “English Tea”.As a whole, the album finds a comfortable, yet still ambitious McCartney making strong, consistent music supplying virtually everything from the overdubbed harmonies to the moog synthesizer (but no cowbell).

There are fewer pop hooks here than on a typical McCartney album, (which may very well be a good thing) but while there may be no shining highpoints, there are no lows. Everything here is worthwhile and interesting enough to be hold up with repeated listenings, and there is absolutely no filler.

If Chaos and Creation in the Backyard proves anything, it is that Paul McCartney remains a relevant rock musician who has not yet come close to exhausting his artistic potential.

“Can you hear me now?” the billboard asked. Paul, we’ve never stopped listening.

“He probably could have sat there and read ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ and been well received”

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fit right in the middle of Let it Be, and the catchy “Follow Me”, which gradually builds into a charged sing along ballad. The beauty in Chaos’s low tone is that it allows the emotion to grow and actually be sincere, rather than having the sentimentality forced upon the

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Reviews

Sigur Ros

Could You Have It So Much Better with Franz Ferdinand?

Takk...

Live at the Orpheum 10/15/2005

by Marty Sattell I’m told that the name “Iceland” is a misnomer, connoting a barren, vapid wasteland of… ice, though it actually refers to a giant green pasture of a country with vibrant natural beauty abounding. Sigur Rós (who hail from our neighbor to the far northeast) does nothing to dispel the illusion of the country’s desolateness. Alas, their music is an exercise in ethereal melodies with a subdued yet moving sound.

Indeed, the band’s last two releases – Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do (2004) and ( ) (2002) were forays in bleakness. Both of the albums had little to no emphasis on lyrics; both albums were sung by lead singer Jon Thor Birgisson in a fictitious Icelandic offshoot inspiringly named “Hopelandic.” Audiences are supposed to prescribe their own meaning to each song on these albums. The lyrics in ( ) actually consist of one line repeated over and over which somewhat sounds like “you sat along the fire/you saw the light.” But it’s Icelandic, so it’s doubtful this is true. On the whole, both of these albums were meager with very little instrumentation, with very little beyond piano/synth, the glockenspiel, and music boxes.

But, their latest long player, Takk…

(2005), marks their retreat to the mainstream. Like Agaetis Byrjun (2000), their breakthrough album, which employed actual Icelandic lyrics, Takk… is a more accurate and eclectic example of the band’s artistic capabilities.

Here, the instrumentation has been considerably augmented. They still rock the glock on songs like “Saeglopúr,” which begins with a one minute, fifty-one second glockenspiel/

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Reviews

grand piano/vocal overture, but finishes with six more minutes of ethereal Icelandic rock. What is more, the album marks the first time Birgisson uses a pick on his trusty axe (what a novel idea!). So in “Gong,” and the waning minutes of “Glósóli,” where he strums away, the intense level at which the Nordic quartet can play is revealed.

Sigur Rós also do an admirable

job at variance on this attempt. They preempt driving yet still desolate noise rock bordering on shoegaze, with subdued and mellow preludes.

“Glósoli” is the perfect example.

The lead up to the last two minutes is slow, conservative and light. In a flash, as the song explodes into a powerful and moving wall of sound and the listener feels as though he’s on a plane careening to the ground. But, the staggering beauty and gossamer qualities of Sigur Rós’s last few albums endure on songs like “Svo Hljótt” that rely heavily on a confident string section.

The somewhat tiresome length of

the songs on this album can and will dissuade some from giving this album a fair chance, but is easily overcome upon the second or third listen. At this point, the fluidity and intricacies of the album become apparent to the point where the listener hears another pleasurable layer to the band’s complicated sound.

Some may say that this album is a cop out, and that Sigur Rós has sold out. Indeed, their new deal with Geffen Records (to whom they signed from indie label Fat Cat) is a bit suspicious, as is all of the press that the album is getting. I must admit I was a bit dismayed to see advertisements for Takk… and a Geffen Records group on facebook, but I have faith in these guys.

Sigur Rós was a fringe band, having a unique cult following of moderately depressed and arrogantbecause-they-knew-an-Icelandicband indie kids, and hip Europeans.

With the release of this album, however, the group takes a step towards universality. It’s something different, and that’s good. One of my pet peeves is when a band finds its niche and makes cut after cut of the same likeable tune. If Sigur Rós were to have made another cinematically sentimental album like ( ) we’d all probably be attacking their lack of innovation. Alas, they’re evolving, and that’s a-ok.

Marty Sattell is a Freshman interested in English, he also is in love with Yo La Tengo among other things. If you ask him, he’ll tell you he sometimes writes music reviews for the Daily... but they don’t even really like music. I heard the Daily’s favorite band is Creed.

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by Alykhan Mohamed After solid sets by openers Cut Copy and Sons and Daughters, the audience at the Orpheum waited restlessly for the stagehands to finish setting up the tiered white pedestal and the drum set standing on it. This is Franz Ferdinand’s first tour after the release of their second album, You Could Have It So Much Better With Franz Ferdinand, and we were anxious to find out whether the band was capable of equaling their incredibly successful self-titled debut album. Could Franz Ferdinand replicate the unbridled energy of songs like “This Fire” and “Matinee,” full of brash melodies layered over throbbing bass and drum grooves, while still coming up with fresh original material?

Finally the house lights dimmed and front man Alex Kapranos strode on stage, illuminated by a lone spotlight, and gently sang the opening lines of “Jaqueline.” As the steady bass line rose to a crescendo and the drums came in for the chorus the entire audience rose to its feet, infused with the band’s playful energy. Any fears of Franz Ferdinand selling out or taming their sound were quickly abated. Many of the fans danced and sang along with almost as much energy as the band, and the entire audience remained standing for the whole show. Unlike many bands who play live concerts as if they were alone in a studio, Franz gave the crowd a performance to remember with an extended jammed out version of “40’” which included the sight of Alex Kapranos leaping onto the drum set. The well paced set never dragged, and smoothly incorporated songs from both albums, moving between bouncy energetic crescendo’s like “Do You Want to” and “Take Me Out” and slower ballads like “Eleanor Put Your Boots On” and a hauntingly beautiful rendition

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of “Auf Achse.”

A friend of mine once said, “Franz needs to stay exactly the same, but do it differently,” and they’ve managed just that. Franz Ferdinand’s ability to blend music of wildly different styles into a cohesive whole keeps them above The Killers, Kaiser Chiefs and other bands who blur the line between dance and rock music. Kapranos still has the

ability to sound eerily cheerful and his lyrics are as inane and lighthearted as ever, but Franz’s sound on You Could Have It So Much Better is both richer and more complex while wandering across several different genres. Nick McCarthy lays down a funky guitar riff worthy of Parliament over Paul Thomson’s distinctive straightforward drumbeat in “This Boy.” Next, McCarthy’s dramatic vocals compare a lost love to the fall of the Soviet Union in the tragic but cheeky ballad “Walk Away.” The band lets the last melancholy chord ring out before launching onto the explosive bluesy

riffs and wailing vocals of “Evil and a Heathen.” Franz also manages to retain its incorrigible playfulness and quirky personality in every aspect of You Could Have it So Much Better. The album’s first single, “Do You Want To,” was inspired by snippets of conversations Kapranos overheard at an opening party for an art exhibition - bassist Bob Hardy and Drummer Paul Thompson went to Art School in Glasgow - and the music video features the band making a painting by dragging paint-covered girls over a huge canvas. The artwork includes flat mechanical abstract designs reminiscent of Kandinsky, and the cover features a portrait resembling the cover of A Clockwork Orange.

Only two years after breaking into the spotlight, Franz Ferdinand’s second album is richer and more mature than their debut. The band manages to keep the catchy hooks and rhythms while experimenting with different harmonies and styles of songwriting. The success of the first album was due to its catchiness, but the brilliance of this one is in the band’s ability to stagger the mood and pace of their songs and diversify their sound but still produce a cohesive album. You Could Have it So Much Better With Franz Ferdinand may not have as many anthems, like “Take Me Out” and “Matinee,” but it is a much better album than the bands debut.

Alykhan Mohamed is Nightcrawler.

No seriously, even if he may not appear blue it’s because he’s too busy teleporting and the like. Sometimes he even plays Ultimate Frisbee, and that shit is just not fair. Rumor has it that he’s dating Jubilee.

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Reviews

Acid Mothers Temple & the Cosmic Inferno

Nada Surf

The Weight Is A Gift

Live at the Middle East

by Caroline Foley

by Brendan Shea “Thus, on this the tenth anniversary of the founding of Acid Mothers Temple, I announce the birth of the hellchild, Acid Mothers Temple & the Cosmic Inferno.” (Kawabata Makoto) Attending an Acid Mothers Temple performance is a lot like being mercilessly beaten by a huge sonic dildo. You are confronted with the agent of intense pleasure and furtively allow it to have its way with you. The giant phallus smacks you around, slapping you this way and that, always approaching but never reaching the line of gratification. Two hours later, you leave with a very sore ear/bum and haven’t reached climax (unless pain gets you off, of course). It’s like sitting through the entirety of Sleep’s Dopesmoker in a really uncomfortable chair, like one of those high wooden stools with no back.

Few can do it and maintain the requisite grin of a masochist.

S&M analogies aside, the latest incarnation of this particular Japanese psychedelic collective delivered musical anti-nirvana at the Middle East Downstairs. Acid Mothers Temple & the Cosmic Inferno is comprised of Mitsuru Tabata on bass guitar, Futoshi Okano and Koji Shimura on drums, Hiroshi Higashi on synthesizer, and the illustrious Mokoto Kawabata on lead guitar.

NYC art-rock shoegazers The Occasion took the stage first, marginally providing some lubrication for the balls-deep freakout to come.

The quintet solemnly laid down some bland pop hooks, then disguised them with tape loops, pedal distortion and Rhodes-sounding wows and wahs.

Think Black Heart Procession meets Black Dice. The Occasion played for roughly 45 minutes, and I’d say I was picking up what they were throwing down for about half that time (side note: my friend at Northampton said they played for THREE HOURS at the following Monday’s show…Jesus).

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The Occasion’s drummer Charles Burst took over for Acid Moms drummer Okano, who was out sick.

Tabata and Kawabata left their post at the merch table, where they were selling some pretty weird stuff, to begin setting up. For the most part, the selfdescribed “soul collective” looked the part—aging hippies, tattered peasant shirts, crazy hair/beards, etc. Higashi

began the band’s ascension with some cosmic twiddling of his mini-synth, as Kawabata gently joined on electric sitar—creating a vibe like a musical bodhi tree on Neptune. I was lulled into a sense of security that proved UTTERLY FALSE as, next thing I know, Kawabata is shredding the most righteous electric guitar solo on one fucking hand while finger picking the sitar with the other. Enter Tabata, who absolutely works over his bass like a zen Dickie Peterson, and both drummers (each with a full drum set).

Tabata and Higashi’s attempts to sing/ shout over the sheer rockgasm were futile. The jam was monolithic. Ten to fifteen minutes went by, I couldn’t really tell, I was having a ball and cackling with awe. At one point, my friend had to leave because it was just getting to be too much. Even with earplugs, I might add.

Some juveniles down front began moshing and shoving at one point. The band paused at this point to remind everyone that peace is their motto,

Reviews

before assaulting our tender eardrums once more with ROCK AND ROLL. Oh my God, they were so loud. For the first time since Prurient, I had to protect my ears so they wouldn’t blow out of my fucking skull. Higashi continued to play the part of the flamboyant madman, occasionally pausing his synth-writhing to make bizarre antenna gestures with his fingers. Kawabata continued to do his best impression of Manuel Göttsching on speed (though, for the record, Acid Mothers Temple is ironically anti-drug). I thought I saw the Heavenly Buddha manifest itself during the final jam, but it actually turned out to be Higashi’s bellybutton length gray hair flailing in space. My friend later remarked that Higashi’s hair was as much an instrument as his minisynth; I think this astute observation pretty much encapsulates the dynamism of Acid Mothers Temple. All musicians onstage were brilliant performers and musicians—I mean, one did not have to look closely to see real genius playing itself out like a grand mal seizure.

I’ve found the Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso UFO recordings to be incoherently cosmic, to the point of being unlistenable. Ghost, while superbly technical and traditionalist, have no right to the throne of Japanese psychedelia. But the birth of Kawabata’s hellchild “the Cosmic Inferno” has proven to be a stellar and supremely worthy throwback to the original reign of the Eastern Rock and Roll Freakout. I saw Flower Travellin’ Band or Les Rallizes Denudes reincarnated live on stage, or at least the closest thing.

Brendan Shea loves Hamlet like the deserts need the rain. He’s also from Westford which is in Western Massachusetts, so he probably loves farm animals too.

Melisma

Thanks to seven years at an allgirl Catholic prep school, my indie tendencies were repressed for far too long. So, due to this inundation of preppiness and serious CD-purchasing financial restraints, I have remained a Nada Surf virgin until this newest release, The Weight is a Gift. And, despite the positive buzz surrounding them before hearing this release, I was slightly disappointed after listening to it.

In fact, until writing this review, I had never managed to finish listening to the album because I was so unimpressed.

On Nada Surf’s website, it says, “The Weight is a Gift chips away the grit and pretense clogging up much of today’s rock agenda, leaving only pop in its purest form. The stuff goose bumps are made of.” While I can understand some of the points that this quote addresses, I feel like there are a number of things wrong with this. Namely, this album does none of these claimed things. Rock has become pretentious (not that I’m complaining that much), and it would be nice to see some “pop in its purest form.” However, Nada Surf takes it too far. It becomes the type of unoriginal pop that you hear on popular radio stations (if you know Boston radio, think Mix 98.5), with seemingly the same chords, same arrangements, same lyrics, and same singers, especially toward the end with “From the Rooftop

Melisma

Down” and “Imaginary Friends.”

Another contention I have with this quote is the point about goose bumps.

While this album could potentially give you a headache, there are definitely no goose bumps.

This two disc album only gets worse as the CD progresses. The

deterioration of the record starts with Track 4, “What is Your Secret?” Upon listening to the song, you definitely do not want to find that answer out.

Matthew Caws’s singing is grating and the lyrics are only so-so. The next track, “Your Legs Grow”, tries to be intellectual or metaphorical or something, but instead leaves you with the dreaded acronym, WTF. Many of the later tracks of Disc 1 and all of them on Disc 2 remind you of David Grey or Coldplay’s Chris Martin. Not necessarily a bad thing, but why listen

to Nada Surf when you have the other two?

While I have spent a lot of time criticizing this album, there are some good points, particularly regarding the first couple of songs. “Concrete Bed”, is an enjoyable listen, and within the lyrics, I see some truth.

Furthermore, Nada Surf reveal their own confidence in this song by making a re-mix of it later.

“Always Love”, is also not a bad listen. However, the best song is inarguably “Do it Again”. The singing and instrumental sections are the best of the album and the lyrics are the strongest. It is in this song that you can see a glimmer of that pure-form pop that the website mentions.

While this album is not exactly awful, it loses points mostly in lack of originality and interest.

There is nothing that sets The Weight is a Gift apart from other albums. If they did not have so positive a reputation, I might have easily set them aside. Despite a disappointing album, I will look forward to seeing if in their next attempt they will accomplish their goal of getting “pop in its purest form.”

Caroline Foley is a Freshman who shows her love of music through her participation in WMFO, Applejam, as well as this wonderful publication.

And according to Facebook.com She loves the Oldies, and Classic Movies, she’s currently single, interested in Men, and VERY LIBERAL.

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Reviews

Where are all the Lightningbirds?

A Gonzo/Jingo Journalistic Account

Ye Olde Scene: A Taxonomical Review if you will...

by The Ambassador Where did all these kids come from?

Do dudes actually enjoy wearing tight jeans? I thought that kind of thing went out of fashion in favor of comfort and not looking like a little bitch? I remember when I worked at the GAP the summer after my sophomore year, and my manager told me that the GAP thought tight clothes would be back in within 3-4 years. I guess I probably should’ve asked him for some other prognostications, because he was dead on. That’s kind of scary come to think of it, that the GAP predicted the trend, could it be that they even pushed the trend back to tighter clothes? That’d be kind of messed up don’t you think? Especially to all you kids reading this now who think this is some sort of concert review, but is really just a thinly veiled attempt at a critical analysis of your "style". Yea I think your fashion is just as calculated as it was calculated by the GAP to bring tighter clothes for dudes back into fashion back in 2000.

Wait… I worked at the GAP? I wonder what all the Harvard kids thought as they got to Tufts campus.

I mean they were here to see their friends perform, that’s cool and all, but you gotta wonder what those kids think of other schools. I mean they go to one of the few schools where the college they went to will follow them around everywhere they go, for better or worse. I mean if the Blanks ever made it big, you know in every single press release it’d say "hailing

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from Harvard University" and then mention something about how they’re making "smart" music because they’re obviously "smart" kids. I mean they went to Harvard. Damn I’m thirsty, hold on, I’m going to get an Orangina.

Orange juice that’s like soda, what a smart idea… I wonder if a Harvard kid

Somebody’s having a good time

thought of it.

The Constants? Their lightshow was kind of cool, but Zach and I did a much better job during the Blanks of causing would be epileptics to have seizures.

But I guess if you’re just going to play spacey guitar rock you mine as well also have your own light show to back it up. But I gotta say the strobe lights at the end? Underwhelming at best.

The weird ass reverby vocals? I guess they were alright if you like listening to music underwater, which I do, I mean I don’t want to come off as someone who hates people who listen to music

Op/Ed

underwater, but sometimes it’s cool to listen to music on land too.

Oh man, I’m glad Zach didn’t put on the Thunderbirds Are Now! as intro music to the Thunderbirds Are Now! That would’ve pissed them off so much… although it would have been hilarious, it would’ve definitely pissed them off. Sidenote: Zach definitely won the MC Battle between him and Gordon. Zach had more quality rhymes.

Gotta take longevity over a flash in the pan one hit wonder.

That guy is totally trying to climb up the door and failing miserably, he probably should of gave up earlier and just kept to playing the keyboards.

Thunderbirds are kind of cool, but I bet Lightningbirds are even cooler. Thunder is Lightning’s gay cousin. Not that there’s anything wrong with it.

That kid in the front really is going crazy, I don’t even think the lead singer likes how much that kid is into it right now. If it were me it’d just kind of weird me out. Oh well, I think overall he’s handling it well enough. The new songs they’re playing sound pretty good. I wonder what else I gotta do later on tonight. Thunderbirds Are Now!’s merch has two old guys with mustaches with their tongues touching, that’s pretty cool. I like their energy, but now my ears are ringing… I’m definitely going deaf.

Melisma

by Brendan Shea and Rachel Olanoff I believe it is important to establish, like all good taxonomists, my position of inscrutable judgment power in the concert realm. I readily admit that I attended a Rasputina show by myself, where to the casual onlooker I was probably that guy (read: the one not draped in black macramé). It was a moment of

depraved concert-going element here is clearly what we in the business call Pater Alcoholicus. Example: Some 50-year old asshole barges in front of me at an already sucky show, his Champion t-shirt soaked through with sweat, and he just falls backwards in a mock-Christ pose, screaming “Woo!” The adolescents adjacent to me skitter away in fright as an almost tangible stench of Cup O’ Noodles and Bud follow the oaf’s descent. He grabs my balls on his way down. I walk away, broken.

More palatable then the arena-rock scene is surely the “experimental techno” circuit (pun DEFINITELY intended). Here, past the sad Bboy who just can’t keep up and to the right of the three other people

for the abrasive feedback and glitchy, mind-boggling beats, these fastidious gentlemen are clearly in it for the Korg. The warmth I have seen, shared in a look of love between man and machine, has almost been enough to melt my cold, cold heart. Note: the operative word in that last sentence

I like synthesizers THIS MUCH. is “almost.” End note. If I may encapsulate the aura of this specimen with a song:

I swear this is the actual guy who groped me. weakness. Since then, however, I have worked extremely hard to refine the art of scene judgment, my craft (if you will)—it is my divinely inspired mission to single out and unmercifully scrutinize all manner of poor audiencemanship.

It’s a science term. There will be a quiz. IN HELL. Moving right along, we come first to the insufferable cattle-call of an audience that attends mainstreamfringing “indie rock,” “garage revival” or “dance punk” (see: shitty) shows. The kind held at convention centers and arenas. Now, the most

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I call this number For a data date I don’t know what to do I need a rendezvous.

Computer love.

Computer love.

Have a seat, you dumb baby. at the concert, are those lovable gremlins we like to call Engineericus Electricae. Venturing up to the front of the venue with little to no regard

Brendan Shea and Rachel Olanoff are juniors majoring in Eco-tourism Management and Childhood Nutritional Development, respectively. When not writing critical analyses for Melisma, they enjoy stereotyping their peers.

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Op/Ed

Childhood Memories

End Note

Jack Robertz Tackles Fishing

DEAR SIR/MADAM

By Jack Robertz

MY NAME IS MR .WAHIDA JOHN ,AM A NIGERIAN,MAYBE I SHOULD START FROM THE VERY BEGINING SO THAT U CAN UNDERSTAND WHAT AM SAYING..I AM THE P.A ( PERSONAL ASSISTANCE )TO THE LATE MRS. STELLA OBASANJO THE FIRST LADY OF NIGERIA WHO PAST ON,ON THE EARLY HOURSOF SUNDAY THE 23RD OF OCT.2005 IN A SPAINISH HOSPITAL[MOULDING CLINIC] WHILE UNDER GOING A SURGRY .( MAY HER GENTLY AND LOVING SOUL REST IN PERFECT PEACE ) THE FIRST LADY WHEN SHE WAS ALIVE, WAS MY BOSS AND AS ANY GOOD BOSS SHE WAS CARING AND FOCUSED, SHE WAS ALSO MY VERY CLOSE FRIEND. BEFORE WE TRAVELLED ( TO SPAIN ) FOR HER SURGRY, THE FIRST LADY TOOK OUT THE SUM OF 2.5 MILLION USD FROM HER CHILD CARE WELFARE PROGRAM WHICH WAS SUPPOSED TO BE PAID INTO ONE OF HER FORIENG ACCOUNT ,WE TRAVELLED WITH THIS MONEY AND DEPOSITED IT IN A SECURITY COMPANY IN SPAIN ,NOBODY KNOWS ABOUT THIS EXPECT I AND THE FIRST LADY .

PRESENTLY ALL THAT IS NEEDED IS UR CONTACT ADDRESS , PHONE # AND AN ACCOUNT WHERE THE MONEY WILL BE TRANSFARE D TO SO THAT I CAN INSTRUCT THE SECURITY COMPANY TO GO AHEAD WITH THE TRANSFARE ,BUT PLIZ I MUST GAIN UR CONFIDENCE AND TRUST BEFORE WE COULD DO THIS TRANSACTION , AM RELIAYING ON UR HELP SO MUCH PLIZ,I WILL BE COMING TO UR COUNTRY AS SOON AS THE TRANSFARE HAS BEEN COMPLETED FOR US TO DISCUSS THE PERCENTAGE OF SHARING AND TRANSFARE OF FUNDS. NOTE THAT EVERY EXPENDITURE INCURED DURING THE TRANSACTION WILL BE DEDUCTED ACCORNINGLY ,U CAN CONTACT ME THROUGH MY PRIVATE EMAIL ADD. wahidajohn46@yahoo.com , THANKS AS I AWAIT UR URGENT REPLY. MR.WAHIDA JOHN Mr. Wahida John, are you the same Wahida John from my life? Do you remember when we, as children, unwrapped ourselves and placed our ears to that plastic covering as it slid down my leg and onto the floor. It was sickly, but we could hear the hum of a sea-lined town from inside, and you said that at that moment our love was more than just the love of people. We were the forest, drawn like the desert, thick-bellied and limp. Our feet grazed the ground and our toes stung from dew lined cuts. Each step was a beautiful process; we used to take them together. We were always passing on, under stars molded by hand. You called us the “new machines” because our parts worked in ways they never would again. And you had this way of looking at me that made me want want to fly to a far off place where the crook of my jaw could have been aesthetic (I often dreamt of Africa). Nigeria is in Africa isn’t it? I’m glad that you thought of me, but money has never been important. Stella is a nice name, even in death. Death, it seems, is always two-faced: sharp and quietly real. I have a family now (I know me, Vincent, with a family!). My wife’s name is Maria, my sons are Quintin and Stan. They’ve seen pictures of you, black and white, torn at the tips and scratched from touch. But I keep the photos out of the way, as they are not part of the world anymore. Now, to me you are the transience of silk, the stonework in a Roman piazza where one woman sets up a fruit stand while it’s still dark; you are the moment before the moon eclipses the sun. Birds still sing and angels breed. Give me a call if you are ever in Florida.

With admiration, Vincent McDoom.

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Melisma

I was wondering if fishermen changed the lights on their boats during the disco era, and I decided to call to you: “Babe, we need to talk.”

You: “It’s not serious again is it?”

Me: “No, well, potentially, it’s about Disco.”

She took out a handkerchief from across New York City, and wiped her forehead.

We met at my place and sauntered into a locale more sinister than Waldo at the mental institute; ALL DAY DINER NUMBERS A THROUGH Z, and they were playing Bette Midler vinyls like it was the fourth of July.

I pointed my coffee finger at the waitress with the Toon-Town curls, but she brushed by me like teeth.

You said you were confused; said you didn’t understand what all this was about netting, gills, and the pleasure of eating sandwiches aboard; about hot sun, red chests, and a captain named “Marvin.”

You said that you weren’t sure if all that salt would mix so well with all that blow.

It seems like no one really knows much.

“Saturday night salmon-fever?” I wondered, but all that walked out were a few bubbles and some chum from around the lure fastened to my lower lip.

Music is everybody’s possession.

Only publishers think that people own it.

-John Lennon