Vampire Weekend are the band you may feel like punching at times, what with their gravel-handed approach to, well, everything. But they remain just agile enough to sidestep your misguided blows - that deserves credit. This double-A single, which takes two tracks from their upcoming third album Modern Vampires of the City, isn't too far removed from the band's regular territory, but even that seems to reach a pretty far distance. "Diane Young" is the faster of the two. I'm not sure if Vampire Weekend have been goofier than they are during these three minutes, but they've certainly come close. Thankfully they pull it off, with it being too loony to make it sour: Ezra Koenig's modulated Buddy Holly-ism's and a dangerously catchy inclusion of synth horns are the most characterful elements of this appeal, alongside the stuttered, rudderless instrumental section. The other side, "Step" is the steadier song. Producing a lyric video for this song may not have been a good idea, as Ezra's words aren't the most poetic or coherent, yet like Stephen Malkmus he has a way of making that factor not matter. It's still a pretty, carefree ballad with a strong melody, and I imagine it will translate well in a live setting. I don't this group are about to drop off any time soon.
The latest Solange single, "Losing You" sees the younger Knowles sister continuing to carve out a style and direction all of her own. Written with and produced by Dev Hynes (Blood Orange) the track bounces joyously off funk guitar and afrobeat-flavoured syncopated rhythms, that match the South Africa-shot footage found in its accompanying music video. Its lack of complication ultimately helps it along, although this shouldn't be confused with its lack of ambition. As it washes into tropical synthwork, under Solange's ready-for-the-radio R&B vocals, "Losing You" proves its worth amongst the countless other great songs of its ilk heard in recent memory.
The latest single from Glasgow-based electro pop newcomers Chvrches may bear similarities with more than just a name of a certain other song, but when all the best qualities of the genre's expansions over the last ten years are present, the end result is an undeniably catchy and rewarding pop hit. "The Mother We Share" has icy, disembodied vocal "oo"'s, handclaps, lyrics like "the way is long but you can make it easy on me", and most importantly a great big synthesized chorus, but what Chvrches create is bigger than the sum of its parts. It's universal, euphoric, and just too loveable to dismiss; that more than makes up for its lack of originality by crafting from the sounds around as brilliantly as possible.
I understand that giving the new Deerhoof album, Breakup Song, the "recommended" tag is very much a personal decision. Not many people would be so praiseworthy of it, which isn't to say it's not very likeable, rather it can be tough what to make of it. Although in this sense it would appear to be a challenging album, it's actually a very immediate and straightforward slice of art-pop lasting nigh-on exactly 30 minutes. The 11 songs on here are over in a flash, but it's not like they need to get started, as they burst into your eardrums right from pressing play. First track "Breakup Songs" sets this example, with shards of electric guitar and drums resembling harsh electronic noises. This is the chorus; the sweet-as-ever vocal of Satomi Matsuzaki tells you of this. Each track makes an average of two or three radical changes on average, in as many minutes. And these changes rarely miss the mark either.
The joy of Breakup Song is not knowing in what way it's going to go next. After you've realised the formula the album takes, and it's done over such a short length of time that it remains effective, it's simply a matter of following it's windy trajectory wherever it jitters. "Zero Seconds Pause" opens like a huge, flourescent rave, but then decides to roll over Greg Saunier's tumbling drum patterns. "The Trouble With Candyhands" fades in with Latin horns, which seemed wonderfully inspired as a lead single, but is just another happy left turn by the time it shows up on Breakup Song eight tracks in. "Flower" bounces off a fat bass synth riff, which contrasts hugely with the following song "To Fly Or Not To Fly", that instead has an oriental-inspired rally from some imagined neon Kurosawa battle scene. And I've just described less than half of the tracks.
The message of Deerhoof has always been fun, but Breakup Song increases it's potency to unrelenting levels by speeding their music up and turning up the volume. And it's been created by musicians that have proven to be not only capable but innovative. There's not a moment where Saunier's drums won't souund impressively complex, or a synth part won't be gleefully smothered in distortion. And despite the amount of change the album experiences Deerhoof always moves tightly with it. It's only been eighteen months since Deerhoof Vs. Evil but Breakup Song is meticulously crafted and feels endlessly rehearsed for it to sound so effortless. And it's title doesn't lie either, it feels like one long song with hundreds of minute changes composing several huge ones, moving together, but never inthe same direction twice. What a song it is.
R. Stevie Moore's been experiencing an increase in popularity lately, in part thanks to the success of his supporters such as Ariel Pink, to whom Moore has played the part of unofficial mentor, and collaborator on this year's expansive Ku Klux Glam project. Moore has also recently been the subject of an atempted "best-of" collection, Lo Fi Hi Fives, curated by Tim Burgess. Now French director Arnaud Maguet is the latest to add a chapter to Moore's legacy; he's called it I Am a Genius (And There’s Nothing I Can Do About It): A Movie About Some Situations With R Stevie Moore. Here are the results:
For certain people, the "dream-pop" label can carry with it a number of negative ideas. Ideas of sunbaked American students spending hours in dorms with MacBooks and the latest music editing software, writing songs about the girl they're too wet behind the ears to ask out at the cocktail bar. Moreso than that this new generation of indie songwriters are accused of being lazy and unoriginal, favouring the trend of soaking their guitars and vocals in reverb to hide the lack of substance to their work. Add to that the derivative nature that comes from the copy-and-pasted style thse bands follow and dream-pop becomes ripe for parody and ridicule.
The upshot of this genre's popularity is that when someone like Wild Nothing (aka the now Brooklyn-based Jack Tatum) comes along, a songwriter with integrity and charisma, he isn't slept on. Nocturne is the second Wild Nothing album, folowing 2010's sleeper success Gemini, and on surface level there maybe isn't enough change here to convert the typical dream-pop cynic. The most significant is the introduction of producer Nicolas Vernhes, who insures a professional touch to Tatum's otherwise homespun sound. Also of note from a sonic perspective is the influence of 80s British electronic acts such as New Order in some of the guitar/keyboard lines and occasional Stephen Morris-esque drum patterns. Much has been made of this, and it does serve as another usp for Wild Nothing, but you're not going to mistake it from a Factory Records album anytime soon. We are still firmly in the land of reverb.
The true asset to Nocturne is Tatum's capabilities as a songwriter, the moods and themes he creates through his aesthetic. Maybe it was supposed to be Gemini's darker twin - the first three track names "Shadow", "Midnight Song" and "Nocturne" seem to suggest so - but its breezy nature makes that idea a little hard to take seriously. Instead we're treated to songs about girls called Heather and Rheya, and told that "love is paradise" in the five-and-a-half minute centrepiece, the most ambitious track by a stretch. Not exactly dark night of the soul-like stuff. That's not to say these moments aren't rewarding in themselves, and that trio of openers does hold a more tortured presence under all the wistfulness. Take lead single "Shadow". Although the vocals are low in the mix (below some lovely string arrangement), they're not so indecipherable as not to catch such pessimism as "I'd go with you if you asked me to / but we wouldn't get very far, two strangers in the dark". It's a pop song in the Robert Smith template: couterbalancing the instrumental's glimmer of optimism with crushing lyrical blows, and it can't be helped to hang on to the lyrics from there, whether they're the sensual "you can have me"'s of the title track, or the aforementioned laments for "Rheya".
With Wild Nothing's gift for songwriting and extended instrumental and tonal pallette, Nocturne successfully bucks the "style over substance" argument for dream-pop out of the water. Although Jack Tatum's heart is still firmly stuck to his sleeve his lyrics, song structures and tasteful nods to his influences add up to a sincere talent, and there are enough musical ideas happening for the album to work satisfyingly well. Until now I found the closest thing to a varied dream-pop album to be DIIV's Oshin, released a few months ago also on Captured Tracks. And while that certainly isn't a bad album it takes something like Nocturne to show that with any genre there's no obligation to play by the rules when it comes to making an album. There's plenty to stake out on the fringes.
On the subject of short films, Dirty Projectors have premiered their visual accompniment to recent album Swing Lo Magellan, which was produced in association with Pitchfork x Youtube. Written and directed by bandleader David Longstreth, and starring bandmembers David Longstreth, Amber Coffman, Nat Baldwin, Haley Dekle and Mike Johnson, Hi Custodian is now available to view below. As promised the film contains elements influenced by Kanye West's similar 2010 project Runaway, not least alternate versions of songs featured on Swing Lo Magellan, so if you're still not convinced of my review of the album look no further:
If you want to hear the second track to be taken from Deerhoof's upcoming album Breakup Song, the "Keith-Richards-joins-ABBA" of "Fête D'Adieu", you'll have to go to Rolling Stone. Also head here for first single "The Trouble With Candyhands".
That name. Those vocals. The hype of the UK press. The descriptions on every track of their Soundcloud album stream. ∆. I was convinced I was going to hate this album. I made fun of it to my friends. Then I listened to it. I take it all back. It's brilliant.
It takes some getting used to. alt-J's most distinctive musical feature as mentioned already is their vocals. Joe Newman's falsetto sounds forced, contrived and immediately like a gimmick. In a sense they represent every negative criticism one could construct towards the band and An Awesome Wave, their talked-about debut album. It's tough to describe the vocals' timbre with only words; though ultimately they are tuneful, carry emotion and the majority of the lyrics can be deciphered (to these ears), and are just pleseant enough to be gotten away with. If there's anything to get past, it's the vocals (and I'm still not sure if I actually like them or not), but if you can what remains is an album of uniquely crafted, forward-thinking British indie-rock.
The loudest and most dynamic track An Awesome Wave has to offer is clearly "Fitzpleasure", with its huge, dirty bass riff leading charge a polyrhythmic battailion of "la la la"'s. If you only need one track to secretly indulge in let it be this one; though admit it, how could you not fall for one of the quirkiest, most energetic singles of the year? Second place goes to "Breezeblocks", whose narrative (captured in its reverse-motion music video) documents the violent struggle of a tearing relationship. Newman's knack for a comelling vocal melody ("Please don't go, please don't go / I love you so, I love you so") may appear to be the standout feature, but as with the majority of An Awesome Wave the credit has to go to the drum patterns of Thom Green, which burst with a trip-hop flavour from which the rest of alt-J's style is indebted to. It's no coincedence that one of the labels the band suggested to define their sound was "trip-folk".
Listening to deeper album cuts yields more gems. "Dissolve Me" may whiff of a bedwetter's paradise (the song literally describes a "bedtime routine"), but is genuinely affecting, with a skipping keyboard melody and another rousing mantra: "she makkes the sound the sea makes, knee-deep in it all". The Eastern instrumentation of "Taro" is another move that many bands miscalculate, but alt-J use it sparsely, putting rhythm again at the forefront. Even the interludes are interesting enough to feel important, although the third, "Piano" feels like one too many. If An Awesome Wave comes close to falling off anywhere, it's the relative blandness of "Matilda" and "Ms"; the latter feeling especially awkward and empty ("The dark seeks dark"). However even these tracks stay in character. You may have heard "Matilda" on the radio during the last few months, and it's easy to see it as an accessible step towards the rest of the album's unusual delights.
Aside from a few badly-chosen sample choices and the obvious vocals there's very little to disagree with An Awesome Wave. It's the debut album for the summer you'd want, with a handful of wonderful standout tracks to go into any playlist. alt-J are another band who present new, fully-developed ideas from the drop of their debut, and are willing to challenge not only mainstream but also underground tastes. It's a risk that not only allows them to stand out from the crowd but pays off from a musical standpoint too. The highs of the album far outweigh the lows, and for that it's an experience that doesn't deserve to be missed, or misjudged.
The first Wild Nothing track to emerge from the upcoming Nocturne was the beautiful "Shadow" (see my June playlist). Now we have "Paradise" to whet appetites before Nocturne's imminent release date (27th August via Bella Union in the UK, a day later via Captured Tracks in the US):
Track all the info up to the release of Nocturne on the Upcoming Releases page.
One of the best qualities of the last Antlers album, Burst Apart, was that no matter how astray it led the listener from its original, subdued indie rock sound, its whole story was cohesive, and indeed strenghened by the variety the Antlers wanted to show (most immediate examples from the top of my head to prove this are the jagged "Parentheses" and "Evey Night My Teeth Are Falling Out"). There is inescapably less variety on the band's new four-track, 22 minute EP Undersea, however the balance between variety and cohesiveness remains the key to its quality.
The EP opens with "Drift Drive", a straightforward introduction. Listen closely and you'll hearr harp arpeggios behind the soft brass and electric guitar. The drums keep as slow a tempo as possible, an idea which recurs throughout Undersea. The whole feeling is one of submergence, meaning the quiet, somewhat mumbling vocals of Peter Silberman are in this instance forgiveable. The other immediate track is "Crest", a sultry movement involving elecrtonic drums and a creeping, claustrophopic wall of sound. The eight-and-a-half minute "Endless Ladder" gives the EP much of its bulk; unraveling its descending guitar lines into thicker amounts of reverb, giving the impression of movement towards the bottom of the ocean. It's also the only track here without a trace of brass. "Zelda", Undesea's final track closes the themes of conscious and unconscious states which began in "Drift Drive", and sounds dreamlike in its execution with the dynamic between the EP's familiar instruments, one of the elements it has to tie its material together.
It's a short trip, but a fulfilling one nonetheless. Undersea has the feel of a complete package or a continuous piece of music in four movements, which makes it more successful as an EP than most. Either way it ses the Antlers seeing through an idea with quality songwriting, production and instrumentation, and satisfies its length to induce the desire to listen repeatedly. For other bands the EP format isn't taken quite as seriously; with Undersea the Antlers have shown that at least for this band, it proves to be just an essential part of the group's output as their full-length albums.
See what other great albums have caught my attention this year on the 2012 Recommended Albums page. Was my review of Undersea any good?
Tour-only single from these guys that serves as a nice, brief curiosity if nothing else. Presumably there might be a b-side to it soon. Be sure to check out that Swing Lo Magellan! Stream / download below:
Though Deerhoof have never been my favourite band, they are my kind of band, and I do indulge in them from time to time. Breakup Song (awww) follows quickly after last year's Deerhoof vs. Evil, and sees a UK release date of 3rd Septermber on ATP Records. Tracklist:
1. Breakup Songs
2. There's That Grin
3. Bad Kids to the Front
4. Zero Seconds Pause
5. Mothball the Fleet
6. Flower
7. To Fly or Not to Fly
8. The Trouble With Candyhands
9. We Do Parties
10. Mario’s Flaming Whiskers III
11. Fête d'Adieu
Track all of the info up to the release of Breakup Song on the Upcominng Releases page.
"I Know What Love Isn't" is the title track to Jens' new album, out 3rd September. Below watch his solo rendition of the track, with an introduction containing the quote "And that didn't really work for me, because I'm Jens Lekman":
Unpredictability is one of the biggest strengths any entertainer can have, but in Ariel Pink's case you'd have thought he'd exhausted every sound and style from the sixties to the eighties, as his breakthrough album Before Today seemed to suggest. "Only In My Dreams" is not only proof that he and the Haunted Graffiti have plenty more surprises in store, but that they dare to go one further. The track resembles a sunny, shimmery fold-pop ballad which owes a lot to Ariel's California residency (and Frank Zappa's We're Only In It For The Money). It shouldn't work but it does, as is often the case with this group, though the familiarity of Ariel's vocals and washy production take something to bring up to the rest of his current material. His knowledge and musical vision ensure another certified classic, that extends far beyond the
trappings of patische.
It's probably no surprise that if a new Dirty Projectors album comes out, I and many other people are going to enjoy it. But I didn't expect to like this one quite this much. I've listened to it much that I've barely had time to do much else. Today I listened to it, rushed the Slaughterhouse writeup that was hanging over me (probably unfairly, it is of course an excellent record in itself), took a break, listened to it again, another break, and now I'm writing it up whilst listening to it again. It's very distracting, but in the most complimentary way. And I'm convinced it's a masterpiece; it hasn't been anything but rewarding from the moment I first put it on a few days ago.
Swing Lo Magellan follows Dirty Projectors' 2009 breakthrough Bitte Orca; an album I've always admired (as a guitar player especially) but found difficult to connect any more deeply with. There's no question bandleader David Longstreth has made efforts to simplify his approach to album and songcraft, and the omission of the previous record's sporadic afrobeat guitar phrases and sudden polyrhythmic shifts will undoubtebly irk some. But Longstreth's "album of songs" is still the work of a pop maverick, he's just better at it. "Stillness Is The Move" is replaced with "Gun Has No Trigger"; both lead singles have demonstrated the furthest point of Longstreth's latest direction for each of their albums. The structure of "Gun Has No Trigger" is largely linear, with backing singer's Amber Coffman and Haley Dekle (replacing Angel Deradoorian) as the main instrument, the volume of their singing intensifying as each verse reaches its pinnacle.
Unique and refreshing the single is, the rest of the album is not without its share of variety and innovation. The girls' harmonies are still a key component of Dirty Projectors' sound, and despite the lack of a guitar in Dave's hands on the cover the instrument is far from absent. Opening track "Offspring Are Blank" introduces its first chorus with a loud blast of electric guitar, and its second with an acoustic replication. "Unto Caesar" also explores the possibilities of both instruments, and also cuts up studio outtakes in interesting and entertaining ways. Handclapping is a prominent new addition on many of the tracks, but it never feels gimmicky or repetitive, just another percusive element that falls in both aesthetically and with the renowned advernturous percussion.
But if Swing Lo Magellan truly is "an album of songs, an album of songwriting" as Longstreth claims it is, the quality of these songs needs to be checked out. Fortunately that's an easy task. Like Bitte Orca a formula of accessible avant-garde and spiky R&B rules the day, but as with the instrumentation the mix is even stronger. There's the eco-political "Just From Chevron", and the closer "Irresponsible Tune" addresses the influences of music itself. The Amber Coffman-sung "The Socialites" is the true pop gem on the album, and one of the best examples of the many love songs scattered throughout. There are more of course; variety is one of Swing Lo Magellan's real strengths, as are song arrangements and lyrical depth. The overall feel of the album isn't too far away from classic songwriting benchmarks like Revolver, which is referenced in "See What She Seeing", and it's refreshing to see such pinnacles being aspired to, especially with the amount of success the talented Dirty Projectors approach that standard.
Swing Lo Magellan is out on Monday on Domino Records (my copy's already in the mail), but until then you can listen to it on the Guardian.
And that's not all from Dirty Projectors this year. A short film featuring music from Swing Lo Magellan is "coming soon"! Hi Custodian is directed by David Longstreth. Trailer below:
Swing Lo Magellan, the highly anticipated new album by Dirty Projectors can be heard at the New York Times. If you like it you can get a copy next week when it's released through Domino Records.
