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Thursday, November 24, 2011 ( 11/24/2011 11:10:00 AM ) Bill S.  “THEY SAY A HEART’S NOT QUITE A HEART UNTIL IT’S BEEN BROKEN.” Of all the eighties groups to affix the word “human” to their name (League, Sexual Response), Ohio’s Human Switchboard were arguably the most deserving of the moniker. A garage-y threesome who combined the boho sensitivities and sounds of early Velvets and Patti Smith with a more poppish flavor, the group released one great album in 1981, Who’s Landing in My Hangar?It was the only studio album this unit would release (a ROIR cassette of an in-concert performance came out in 1982), but it stands as a major moment in the early days of indie rock. After years of being out-of-print, the disc has finally gotten its long-deserved CD reissue courtesy of Bar/None Records. Composed of Reed-y vocalist/guitarist Bob Pfeifer, keyboardist/singer Myrna Marcarian, propulsive drummer Ron Metz -- and a revolving set of bassists -- Switchboard specialized in relationship songs that primarily alternate between pissed off and desperate. In the title song, Pfeifer rants against an unfaithful lover, pushed along by Marcarian’s sparkling Farfisa, while “(I Used to) Believe in You” uses the singer's striking guitar to emphasize his sense of betrayal. In two of the album’s tracks, Marcarian takes throaty vocal lead to portray the wounded distaff side of the relationship wars. In “(Say No to Saturday’s Girl,” she and the boys recall the late-night melancholy of “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” while “I Can Walk Alone” pits our beleaguered heroine against a presumably unfaithful, overly needy storytelling lover. It’s in Hangar’s magnum opus, “Refrigerator Door,” where the band’s keen-eyed and unsentimental take on missed connections gets its fullest delineation. Called “the ‘Stairway to Heaven’ of punk” by band admirer Kurt Cobain, the track features a duet with Pfeifer and Marcarian singing at cross-purposes in both English and Slovenian over a slowly building rock backdrop. When Marcarian gets the last word, plaintively waiting for the ring-ring-ring of the telephone, we know she’s doomed to disappointment. All is not complete doom and gloom on this disc, though. Another album high point is Pfeifer’s sax-fueled “Book on Looks,” a full-bodied bragfest with the singer rhapsodizing about how hot his girlfriend is -- even as he chastises his friends for their “locker room talk.” It’s a surprisingly playful moment in a predominately pessimistic take on modern romance. Sparely produced by sometime bassist Paul Harmann, Hangar favors an Exiles on Main Street readiness to bury its vocals within Pfeifer and Marcarian’s compelling guitar and keyboard work. I’ve been listening to this platter since its initial release as a Faulty Products long-player, and there are still moments when I don’t know what the hell its singers are saying. Still, the band’s sound is so solid and compelling that even when you don’t get the specifics, you get the point. In addition to the album’s original ten tracks, Bar/None’s reissue also features eleven more tracks that will get the group’s admirers wishing that the trio’d been able to hold it together long enough for a second polished studio disc. The band’s sound expands over the four years repped on these tracks: from sixties-ish dance rock (“Shake It Boys”) to country (“Always Lonely for You”) to a song that wouldn’t sound out of place on a John Hughes movie (“A Lot of Things”). But in a way thoughts about What Might’ve Been are apt for this band -- since you know their songs' protagonists are spending much of their days and nights pondering that same unanswerable question. (First published on Blogcritics). Labels: art-pop # |Monday, May 30, 2011 ( 5/30/2011 03:17:00 PM ) Bill S.  “IF I UNDERSTOOD, THEN I COULD UNDERSTAND.” With a moniker like Hot Club de Paris, the uninitiated listener might understandably expect something on the nature of Django Reinhardt to come slinking out of the speakers. But this trio of Liverpudlian alt poppers are going for a different sound altogether: art-pop with tinges of XTC and Blur, a guitarist who recalls a less sinuous Tom Verlaine in places, boisterous back-up vocals that immediately announce their pronounced British boyishness, crisp lyrics -- good times for lovers of smarty-pants pop, in other words.The band’s newest release, Free the Pterodactyl 3 (Moshi Moshi Records), is their North American debut, though this prolix threesome have priors in their native land. The material in this disc is in fact culled from two earlier import-only EPs, reshuffled for us Yanks into one engagingly ragged package. Opening with a burst of Big Country clang, the CD release offers a good overview of the group’s energetic sound: slices of young urban life placed alongside more lyrically dense numbers. “Rise and Fall of the High School Suicide Cluster Band,” for instance, tells the tale of a would-be band of alt-rockers, while “Fuck You, the Truth!” is a spoken word track in the mode of Blur’s “Parklife” that would appear either to be about police brutality or the debilitating nature of outdoor concerts -- or maybe something else entirely. If at times these guys come across overly self-conscious in their wordiness (e.g., the aptly titled “Three Albums in And Still No Ballad”), their snappy catchiness carries you through to the end, especially on cuts like “Biggie Smalls and the Ghetto Slams” and “Noses Blazing,” which starts out almost sounding rockabilly until the guitar line goes slightly Voidoid. Brothers Matthew (guitar, vocals) and Alasdair (drums) Smith, alongside bassist Paul Rafferty, clearly have taken the D.I.Y. sensitivities of the mid-seventies/early eighties to heart. This may not win ‘em any massive airplay in the benighted U.S. but it should connect with lovers of angular and eccentric tunesmithery. More Songs about Buildings and Chocolate and Food and Girls, in other words -- and if you get that blended reference, then you’re probably part of the listening audience for this appealing little disc. (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: art-pop # |Tuesday, May 10, 2011 ( 5/10/2011 07:11:00 AM ) Bill S.  “SING FOR ME; I’M SOLD/I’LL HANG ON EVERY NOTE.” It takes a certain amount of presumptuousness to name your band something like The Grownup Noise, but Bostonians Paul Hansen (guitar, keybs, vocals) and Paul Sankowski (bass, vocals) prove up to the presumption on their self-released This Time with Feeling. Channeling a lo-fi alty pop-rock vibe that makes you think of what the Go-Betweens might’ve sounded like if a collegiate Gerry Rafferty had been fronting ‘em, the group presents a set of thoughtful rockers tempered with cello and the occasional sliver of accordion. Proof positive -- as if any was needed -- that contemplative doesn’t have to mean sonically snoozy.“My heart keeps beating like a jukebox stuck on the Who,” Hansen sings in the disc’s poppiest track, “Just So You Know,” and if Feeling never attains the manic Moon-iness of that great band at its most raucous, it does display an affinity for sixties era hookiness. Whether singing an addictive celebration of beautifully losing (‘Anthem for Second Place”), considering the cultural function of flowers (“A flower is a strategy/Only good for I’m sorry please.”) or pulling in sweet-voiced cellist Katie Franich for a slow duet, the Noise-makers remain smartly tuneful. Many of the tracks deploy the same basic strategy: open with a slow thoughtful cello driven instrumental passage, followed by more emphatic rocking -- and it works every time. “It’s a shame to admit but we all wish that we’d die young,” the band sings in a group sing-a-long that amusingly name-checks Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club, and if this geezer doesn’t quite buy that particular sentiment, I do recognize the rejuvenating effect of hard-strummed electric guitar and sinuous keyboards. Grownup Noise? This aging bizness ain’t so bad, after all. (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: art-pop # |Friday, March 04, 2011 ( 3/04/2011 07:22:00 AM ) Bill S.  “THANK GOD WE LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES.” Back in the eighties, when this writer was living in the Illinois heartland, I was part of a group of new music lovers who used to regularly drive a van up north to Chicago or Schaumburg to see then up-and-comers like the B-52’s or Devo. It was a two-hour plus drive, and when our blurry-eyed selves got out of the clubs, we typically had to stop on the way home in the Bolingbrook Denny’s for some caffeine and sustenance. Listening to Jed Davis’ The Cutting Room Floor (Eschatone Records), I found myself recollecting those late night early repasts: not just because one of the tracks on this disc specifically recalls the joys of “Denny’s 3:00 A.M.,” but because the whole disc captures so much of the sounds of that era.A pop-punk collection of late-night reveries, Floor brought this listener back to the days when New York Rocker was an essential read in any college town record store. As a musician, keyboardist Davis has worked with surviving members of the Ramones on a tribute track to Joey R. and been a part of the garage-y Hanslick (“You Are Boring the Shit Out of Me”) Rebellion, but Floor works a more varied alt-pop palette. Playing in his studio with a group of unidentified fellow musicians, the singer/songwriter glides from high-register hollering a la Dee Dee Ramone to smooth pop jazz (“Interesting Times”) like you might’ve gotten from Blondie at their peak. Though the album opens on a patience-trying note (an over-produced despairing shanty!), it gathers steam with the hard rocking “Before I Was Born,” which quickly belies its slowed down nod to Bill Withers’ “Somebody to Lean On” by speeding up into a tuneful adolescent complaint about growing up middle class. Elsewhere, our boyish vocalist engages in some new wave rap (the dark-themed “Blood”), a gospel-like paean to old school arcade games like Donkey Kong, an optimistically sweet harpsichord flavored love song (“I Have A Rose”), and that guitar-driven Denny’s track, with its reminiscences of early morning flirting with the waitress. That last is reprised at the end of the album as a lo-fi goof that recalls Todd Rundgren’s fourth side antics on Something/Anything? but these mystery track games don’t spoil the song. As a lyricist Davis moves from angst-ridden to comic, the point-of-view of a guy who’s romped in the New York music scene for years now -- who knows the high of getting that one track down right and the heartbreak of realizing that this same cut isn’t being appreciated by a large enough audience. That beat-up van of record store geeks in the 1980’s would’ve recognized where Davis is coming from -- along with the joys of a Grand Slam Breakfast. (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: art-pop # |Thursday, July 29, 2010 ( 7/29/2010 07:11:00 AM ) Bill S.  “I JUST CAN’T FIND MY KEYS.” Look at the cover to Aaron Peta’s debut disc, I’m Not A Hipster, with the New York-based singer/songwriter dressed in outsized sunglasses and a gleaming silver jumpsuit, and your first response is “Not a hipster? Truer words were never written.” This guy looks too nerdy to be allowed into Kraftwerk!Look inside the booklet accompanying the CD, and you’ll see our hero striking a variety of pop/rock poses: sensitive singer/songwriter in his bathrobe, country musician, Lou Reed urbanite. It’s a modern take on Nick Lowe’s Pure Pop for Now People cover, and it’s wholly suited to Peta’s eclectic, if occasionally campy, style. Whether he’s indulging in Dylanesque spewing over a martial beat on ironic album opener “Your Songs Have No Form” or coming across like a constipated Stan Ridgeway in the synth-heavy “Super Sexy,” or just doing the sweet guitar-driven pop-rock thing on “Sandy Understand,” the results are endlessly replayable. At times, this disc sounds like a solo outing one of the alumni from a nineties band like Jellyfish or the Grays might’ve concocted (Jason Falkner, say); other times it’ll get you thinking of early Beck (check the title track). If there’s any theme that recurs throughout the disc, it’s captured in the defensive posture of its title: more than one track (“Sexy,” “You You You”) concern the singer’s most likely futile attempts at breaking through a fellow urban dweller’s self-absorption. “Everywhere you go/everything you do/It’s always always always always about you,” he sing/chants in “You.” Yeah, this guy knows his boho music scene alright. P.S. Skip the truly formless bonus instrumental, “Where We Are,” which is as irritating as the final track on the Beck’s Mellow Gold. (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: art-pop # |Tuesday, February 16, 2010 ( 2/16/2010 07:01:00 AM ) Bill S.  “SHE DOESN’T NEED COSMOPOLITAN TO TELL HER WHERE SHE FITS IN.” If every generation needs its cultish eccentric pop songbird, than Aussie warbler Kate Miller-Heidke has to be This Gen’s Model. Her new release Curiouser (Sony/BMG), co-written with guitarist Keir Nuttall, has plenty of goofy vocal swoops and smart-girl attitude to go with the well-blended keyb and guitar work: lovers of this kind of wiggy songcraft will recognize traces of Lene Lovich and Kate Bush in the sound, while some of Miller-Heidke’s lyrics (“I Like You Better When You’re Not Around,” f’rinstance) come close to broaching Kirsty MacColl in the brightly snippy put-down department.You either dig this kind of material or find yourself thoroughly irritated by its swooping affectation: me, I currently can’t stop playing it, though whether this onetime opera student will have the staying power of MacColl or devolve into a stuck-on-the-shelves flash like, say, Nina Hagen is presently an open question. What remains inarguable for now is the sheer catchiness of cuts like “Can’t Shake It,” with its ode to dance floor klutziness and “Mickey”-esque guitar line; the album’s second great piss-off track, “God’s Gift to Women” (“If you’re God’s gift to woman, than she got it wrong".”) and the folksy “Politics in Space,” which slams into the Politics of Hope with strumming acoustic work straight out of The Coca Cola Kid. “Caught in the Crowd” tackles school bullying with a ruefulness that avoids both pity or sentimentality -- it’s sung from the PoV of a girl who stepped aside when one of the school misfits is targeted -- though the touching track is nearly derailed by keyboarding that's almost a trace too poppy. With a fraction of restraint (not too much, though, less she mute her distinctive voice), this pop cult Alice could produce something musically transplendent. “I’m a baby boomer’s daughter, and I’m never gonna reach Nirvana,” she sings at one point in “Space.” Ah, but you’re pretty damn close, daughter. Labels: art-pop # |Saturday, February 06, 2010 ( 2/06/2010 10:09:00 AM ) Bill S.  “THE BAWDY MELODY OF A REQUIEM” After listening to their debut album for weeks, I can’t decide if Philly band Drink Up Buttercup’s name is meant to be celebratory or disturbing. (Maybe a little of both?) In any event, Born and Thrown on A Hook (Yep Roc) is a rollicking disc of smart-pop: a collection of energetically neurotic psychedelic/glam/art rock packed with stuttering circus-y keyboards (courtesy Farzad Houshiarnejad) that recall an intentionally funny ELP, rhythmic hop-scotching and bellowing choruses wrapped around sing-songy lyrics about less-than-beautiful losers.At times, the results remind me of Duck Stab era Residents (“Mr. Pie Eyes,” “Sosey Dosy”) if that group of Brechtian performance geeks had an actual vocalist like the deceptively angelic James Harvey or an inclination to display some genuine musical chops. “Young Ladies” musically recalls Kurt Weill and John Lennon in turn, while the folksy “Lovers Play Dead” treats young love like a Romero horror film. “Pink Sunshine” acts like it could be an album track off of some sixties era band’s attempt at aping Sgt. Pepper -- which may sound like a putdown, but isn’t meant to be to these ears. This is a band, after all, that isn’t afraid to quote the Archies in “Doggy Head” (great melodica sound in that ‘un!), evoke Leo Sayer or insert a brief instrumental out of some Lon Chaney silent in between tracks, than follow it with an organ/bass concoction from the Deep Purple Book of Heavy Rock Moves. Born is all over the map, in other words: held together by Harvey’s high vocals and a sharp eye for low-class dives in high-class towns. Barrels of fun for lovers of poppish quirk -- and I’m betting they just kill in a smoky Philly rock club. Labels: art-pop # |Sunday, September 27, 2009 ( 9/27/2009 10:25:00 AM ) Bill S.  "TURN OFF YOUR MIND AND DO YOURSELF A FAVOR." To fans and admirers of a cult band like Apples in Stereo, the arrival of a best-of set like #1 Hits Explosion (Yep Roc) is both superfluous and a reason to rejoice. It's the former because most fans'll already have this stuff from their original LP and EP releases, the latter because every new AiS release opens up the possibility that this great pop-rock band'll finally break big in the public consciousness.Too, the sixteen track set also does us the favor of rescuing two cuts from the band's one dubious release, the Her Wallpaper Reverie EP: the Magical Mystery Touristy "Strawberry Fire" and straightly poppish "Ruby." These two tracks can arguably be held up as reflecting band meister Robert Schneider's prime sonic tactics: the slightly sideways psychedelic glance and the more straightforward Brian Wilson-esque pop thrust. If #1 Hits none too surprisingly favors the latter in its selection, there are plenty of sweetly weird moments ("Fire," "Tidal Wave," former Apples drummer Hilarie Sidney's "Winter Must Be Cold") to satisfy most lovers of the fun trick noisemaker approach. To someone who has played most of his AiS CDs to the point of obsessive compulsive familiarity, there's always something a little disorienting about collections like this. Listening to a cut like "Same Old Drag" (from New Magnetic Wonder), for instance, I can't help mentally starting up the short follow-up cut, "Joanie Don't U Worry," because that's the way it went on the original album. It's one thing to have a Schneider track like "Sun Is Out" catch you off guard in a Dodge commercial ("Gee, I hope the guys're making good money off this," you think); something else when the cuts are removed from their original context and placed out of chronology. The latter prevents newcomers from getting a sense of the group's fifteen-year tone soul evolution -- which is a historical shame. Still, occasionally, the removal from the original source can help you hear a song in a new way. I wasn't an admirer of "Signal in the Sky," the band's kid-friendly ode to the Powerpuff Girls, when it first appeared on the Let's Go! EP. Hearing it on this set, however, the track's subtly swirling background sonics place it more firmly within the group's discography. Too, listening to Schneider do the white boy soul thing on "The Bird That You Can't See" reminds me that the guy's Beach Boys passion didn't just extend to Bri Wilson SMILE-ing ; it also encompasses brother Carl's love of R-&-B. And as an introduction to the band's range of addictive pop sounds, #1 Hits does its job beautifully. Like most fans, I'd quibble about some the set's exclusions (I miss "I Can't Believe," "Rainfall" and the very 70's extended "Beautiful Machine" tracks, which remind me of both the Beatles' "She's So Heavy" and an ELO album cut), but that just means that there's plenty more good stuff for the newcomer to discover once they venture past this anthology. (I'd recommend starting with the most recent album-as-album, New Magnetic Wonder.) Hardcore fans'll have to decide for themselves whether they need this set or not. Ah, who's kidding who? If you're a disc or vinyl-centered enthusiast, you'll want a copy of this puppy, too. And consider yourself happy to have it. Labels: art-pop # |Tuesday, September 01, 2009 ( 9/01/2009 06:13:00 AM ) Bill S.  "I SHOULD HELP MYSELF, BUT I'M NOT ABLE." The American Midwest has a history of earnest rock groups (think, for a quick example, of Missouri's hooky hard-rockin' natterers, The Rainmakers), and Chicago-based Oh My God follow admirably in that steadfast tradition. Their new release, put together in the aftermath of a series of touring (a near fatal van accident) and relationship travails, captures their current melodic running-on-empty sound in ten moody keyboard happy cuts. Where earlier band work primarily trafficked in a zippier sound, its new set is noticeably more subdued.Suitably titled, The Night Undoes the Work of the Day (Split Red Records) features mid-tempo rockers propelled by Travis Bernard's sparely insistent stick work and melancholy slow 'uns, both reiterating the hard-learned truth that "nothing gets any easier." The perfect soundtrack for sitting up past your usual bedtime, contemplating your life and wondering what the hell happened. In general, it's the rockers that prove more enduring, though "Bring Yourself" has a nicely Sunday insistent chorus that's pretty darn addictive. Better yet are the opener "My Own Adventure," with its air of tuneful street level paranoia; "Baby, Dream," which describes its hero daydreaming about an unrealized relationship with a girl who "plays the bass guitar like Sting: minimal;" and "I Dare You to Love Me," which challenges the object of singer/songwriter Billy O'Neill's affections with Foreigner-like urgency. The first is appealingly spiced with the group's trademark Jackson Browne-styled harmonies; the second with some echoey low-end guitar work by Jim Tullio; the last with a more aggressively churning guitar courtesy of Matt Lenny. O'Neill and his keyboarding wielding collaborator Ig also dabble in a funkier playground with "Baby There's Nothin' Wrong (You Just Gotta Go to Work)," wherein our singer tries to nudge his depressed girlfriend into getting out of bed and returning to the job market. ("I'm sick of eating cheap food all the time/And sticking to the bargain basement wine," he explains.) Further in, they up the tempo to the Fixx's "One Thing Leads to Another" to the power pop level of their earlier discs, even though the acceleration lessens the sense of mystery of the original track. As a singer, O'Neill brings a regret-soaked edginess to even the prettiest ruminative tracks -- check his work on the chorus to the Eastern-tinged "I Don't Think It's So Funny (How Time Slips Away)" -- which keeps you listening even through the maundering cuts. "I'm a gun-shy white guy, short on money," he succinctly describes himself in "Dream, Baby." Now there's a profile suited to this slice of the 21st century. Labels: art-pop # |Monday, July 20, 2009 ( 7/20/2009 08:46:00 AM ) Bill S.  "WHY YOU ALWAYS TRYIN' TO BURN ME DOWN/ WHY YOU ALWAYS TRYIN' TO BURN ME UP?" Didn't know a thing about the band Hollands until I unexpectedly received a review copy of their debut EP Faces recently. Described as a New York duo comprised of guitarist/vocalist John-Paul Norpoth and violinist Jannine Barefield in the promo, the group appearing on the five-song disc appears to be a slightly different unit since Barefield's name appears nowhere in the credits. Instead, the second name on the creds is guitarist/violinist/electric bassist Earl Maneein, known for his more recent work in the heavy metal violin band Resolution 15, so perhaps Barefield replaced Maneein in Hollands after the band's debut was in the can?Whatever the case, the Hollands repped on Faces has a winning alt-rock sound. Singer/songwriter Norpoth's has some of the alt-ish wavery flatness that I associate with bands like, oh, Dinosaur Jr. though it's more on key. I could do without the Strokes-styled vocal mushing that appears on some of the tracks, but that's my particular audio bias. In any event, the group is at its best flat out rockin', which they efficiently do on three of the disc's five cuts. Opener "Strong Arm" features some nicely muted feedback, while "Over and Out" starts with guitar noise that brings to mind some of Lou Reed's more stately solo tracks before zipping into an organ backed (courtesy: Thomas Shaw) rock groove. The one dominantly acoustic number (by Maneein, interestingly enough) demonstrates that Norpoth could go the Jeff Buckley route if he so chose; it's sweetly moody with an appealing Latinate tinge. The only duff track proves the disc's final cut: a slow and meandering piece of ponderousness entitled "High Class," which works overtime to convinced you how serious it is with all kinds of ambient computery background sounds. Okay, everybody's allowed one dud. Me, I'd rather hear Norpoth repeatedly rhapsodizing about how much he loves the freeway on "Coughing Boy," sounding like a more world-weary Jonathan Richman but still going a hundred miles an hour. After visiting the band's MySpace page and hearing how the current iteration sounds, I'm definitely curious as to how they'd fill a full-length CD. Labels: art-pop # |Tuesday, May 19, 2009 ( 5/19/2009 10:28:00 AM ) Bill S.  OK COMMUTER After disbanding Grandaddy three years ago to spend some away time elevating himself, singer/songwriter Jason Lytle has happily returned to the home studio. Produced in his relocated digs in the wilds of Montana, Yours Truly, the Commuter (Anti) finds our thoughtful hero holding up in a snowbound winter, ruminating on life, mortality and decay. Usual themes for the former Modesto skateboarder (check out the photo of his scratched-up legs on the CD booklet!), but still appropriate for these struggling times.Lytle's first official solo disc sounds of a piece with the music he released as the leader of Grandaddy: lots of emphasis on strumming folkiness and mid tempo rockin' spiced with faux orchestral and electro flourishes. If the CD begins to flag a bit by the last five or six tracks (could've used a skate punk track like "50%," perhaps), a quick shuffle will get you noticing the disc's later sweeter moments like "Rollin Home Alone," which sounds exactly like Grandaddy fans can already hear in their minds. The opener title song sets things up succinctly, Lytle telling us in that high-pitched, contemplatively resigned croon of his that "I may be limping, but I'm coming home." The conflicting desires to sing to the world and hide away from it provide meaty lyrical subject matter -- in "The Birds Encouraged Him," a nameless boy tries to hide in a hole as the sounds of nature keep trying to force him out of it -- though at times the listener can't help worrying whether Lytle's own retreat into the mountains hasn't blinkered his distinctive eye for lyrical specificity. No refs to Ikea lamps or rusting El Caminos here, folks. Still, there are plenty of great tracks here for those who've loved this perennial indy cult spaceman. California-splashed "Brand New Sun" takes up the battered and bruised imagery ("I might fall down, and my back is bad") of the disc's opener and answers it with a paean to sol that I'd love to hear a croaking Brian Wilson cover. The melancholy "Ghost of My Old Dog" depicts the singer ruminating on passed pets as a misunderstanding lover jealously accuses him of thinking of an old flame. "It's the Weekend" provides Ramones-y spareness over some engagingly fuzzy guitarwork and keyboards. And every once in a while, the guy sneaks a trace of lo-fi prog rock into the mix, much as he did in the glory days of The Sophtware Slump. "Sudden death is just boring," our hero succinctly whines on Commuter's finale, "so I'm here for good." Great to hear, Jason. Labels: art-pop # |Tuesday, April 14, 2009 ( 4/14/2009 09:27:00 AM ) Bill S.  "I'M STILL WONDERING WHY I'M HERE AT ALL." S'fair to write that I probably wouldn't have heard the Milk & Honey Band if a promo copy of their third release, Dog Eared Moonlight, hadn't arrived tucked alongside Ape House Records' recent reissues of the Dukes of the Stratosphear. But since the disc has come, I've been playing it almost as obsessively as my beloved Dukes. This is one sweetly smart pop-rock set.You can quickly hear why Ape House founder Andy Partridge wanted to put these guys on his label: on more than one track, you can detect elements of XTC in bandleader Robert White's song constructions. The piano-driven "Maryfaith Autumn" melds Moody Blues-styled chordwork with the XTC of Mummer, while the winning "what's-it-all-mean" track "Absolutely Wrong" sounds like a series of questions that the self-deprecating Mayor of Simpleton might've asked himself as he strolled along the village green, muttering to himself. Elsewhere, singer/songwriter White, with his soothing Sweet Baby James styled voice, rocks a trace more insistently, though never so harshly as to spoil the pastoral ambience. In a couple of tracks ("Waste of Time," "What You Really Need"), I'm reminded of Dave Grohl in one of his more melodic moments, though neither cut goes for the full-throated takeoff that the Foo Fighter would bring to the material. Would love to hear that band tackle the obsessive "Waste of Time," though. White's lyrics are plainspoken, if frequently quizzical. ("Why did God invent disaster?" he asks in "Wrong.") While we may not always believe the man when he affects an "I don't know much" stance, he and his band still manage to convey the sense of sitting outside on a dog-eared summer night, idly wondering where this world is spinning us. I'm not usually a sucker for these sensitive troubadour types (could never quite fathom the appeal of Nick Drake, for instance), but White and the gang have enough bright pop neurosis to keep me listening. And when he's not waxing wonderingly, the Milk & Honey man displays an intriguingly edgy sense of the risks of romantic love. In "Cut the Line," for instance, he uses slide guitar and a Spanish melody to pull us into a tale of a trapped lover, while, in the Aztec Camera-eyed "Incredible Visions," he describes obsessive love so appealingly that it isn't until the song's atonal guitars slip in that you don't start to consider how potentially creepy it all can be. Life on the village green -- as Ray Davies and Partridge both have reminded us in the past -- ain't all sweetness and light. Labels: art-pop # |Thursday, February 05, 2009 ( 2/05/2009 05:51:00 AM ) Bill S.  "THIS WORLD'S NO PLACE FOR A MIND OR A THOUGHT; NO IT'S NOT!" Gotta admit I'm a sucker for a good elpee fanfare, and the debut disc by Notthingham art-poppers Late of the Pier opens up with the right goods: a stately guitar-based anthem entitled "Hot Tent Blues" that happily bursts into a reggae-inflected piece of woozily over-sung romantic angst entitled "Broken." It's a fractured take on the old one-two punch of Elton John's "Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding," if Sir Elton sang like Booji Boy were squeezing his boy parts.The sounds of Gary Numan's early Tubeway Army also figure strongly on Pier's Fantasy Black Channel (Astralwerks). On "Space and the Woods," for instance, a tromping synth bass line is elevated by a high-flying keyb hook, while both "Whitesnake" and hidden track "No Time" deploy a Theremin for that good ol' retro late nite moodiness. Elsewhere, the lads toy with goofy funk whizzery ("The Bears Are Coming") and the kind of glam beats Supergrass has made its own ("Bathroom Gurgle.") The band's not averse to tossing Zappa-esque tempo shifts and weird jerky nasal retentive synth sounds in between the lines, though they never lose hold of their dance rock sensitivities. I haven't heard such an engaging clash of pop and ugly music sensitivities since the first XTC album. For me, the track where it all kicked in was "Heartbeat." Opening with a set of keyboard triplets that recall "Hot Fun in the Summertime," the song quickly morphs into a herky-jerky series of marshmallow sky lyrics (is singer/songwriter Sam Dust really wailing about "pineapple pieces in brine"?) capped with a high-end synth line soaring over singer Dust's assertion that it's all "just a line." But "Focker" -- which breaks up the singer's poppish entreaties that he just wants to "be your friend" with a throbbing old-fashioned prog rock freak-out -- was the frosting on the pineapple cake. The band loves to play Dust's nerve-scratching guitarwork against keyboardist Jack Paradise's Ultravox-y inclinations, and, by and large, the approach works -- especially when Dust forgoes the strangulated vocal affectations for a more normal range. Authoritative drummer Rouge Dog Consuela (okay, the pseudo-names are overly cutesy) holds it together even through the album's trickier rhythmic moments. On "The Bears Are Coming" these smart guys even manage to make the overused Sound of Breaking Glass sound fresh. Pere Ubu (or is it Green Day?) would be proud. Labels: art-pop # |Sunday, October 26, 2008 ( 10/26/2008 04:47:00 PM ) Bill S.  "THERE WAS SOMETHING IN THAT LOOK OF YOURS, SOMETHING LIKE A PLAY ON WORDS." Of all the major bands to come out of the CBGBs Era, it was Television who remain arguably the least fully appreciated. Despite releasing two magnificent albums of guitar-driven art-punk (Marquee Moon and Adventure), the New York band never passed into the MTV circle of their peers in Talking Heads or Blondie, for instance. Perhaps lead guitarist/singer Tom Verlaine's introvert nature kept the band from pushing themselves as a commercial entity (no Big Suits for our boy!); perhaps it was their record label's unwillingness to push a singer whose crooning style was at least one yelp higher than early David Byrne. Whatever the reason, Television's inability to rise out of cultishness remains a great what-if? question for the band's admirers.Once the group disbanded - and its dual guitarists Verlaine and Richard Lloyd went their separate solo ways - it was clear these guys would carry the mantle of Criminally Unappreciated Critic's Darlings in perpetuity (though Lloyd would etch out a nice little career doing guitarwork for the likes of Matthew Sweet and John Doe). For members of the cult, though, the recent reissue of two of Verlaine's post-Television releases, Dreamtime and Words from the Front (Collector's Choice Music), is good news indeed. The latter disc, in particular, has been too long M.I.A. Though some fans consider it the least successful of TV's albums, in a lot of ways it's his most consistently accessible. But let's start with the earlier of the two new reissues, 1981's Dreamtime. Recorded with two different backing units (members of Patti Smith's group, the Dictators and, of course, Television among 'em), in part because a tape snafu ruined some of the earliest finished recordings, the disc sounds more cohesive than it perhaps has a right to do. Of the two reissues, it's closer to Television in sound - particularly in those moments when Verlaine guitar duels with future how-to music writer Ritchie Fliegler, who brought a bracing sixties sound to the party (I assume he's responsible for the Bryds-ian guitar on "Mr. Blur"). While some of the fun gets lost in a muddy Stones-y mix (perhaps to match the "Jumping Jack Flash" homage of "Future in Noise"?), the results remain inventively clamorous in all the right places. Even the goofy placeholder instrumental has its charms.  To these ears, though, the highlights are those tracks which move furthest away from his old band: "Always," with its ringing chorus and Talking Heads-like admonition to "Think it over," and the concluding slow number, "Mary Marie," which deserves to be recovered by some thoughtful band of modern alt-rockers. With its hints of early r-'n'-b balladeering, it serves as a good lead-in to Verlaine's next solo release, Words from the Front. Produced by Jimmy Rip and featuring members of new wave r-'n'-b-er Mink DeVille's band, the disc is a polarizing one for many of Verlaine's fans, though to these ears, it surpasses Dreamtime in more than one track.Admittedly, the disc sounds less "underground" than its predecessor, less like something conjured up in the middle of the night within a dim studio. Soon as the opener, "Present Arrived," kicks in, it becomes obvious that this will be a sonically friendlier album (much as Television's Adventure was to debut release, Marquee Moon), though a careful listen to Verlaine's always well-crafted lyrics reveals an ongoing theme of separation and loss throughout the disc. "Postcard from Waterloo," arguably one of the impeccably constructed pop songs in the singer/guitarist's repertoire, tells the tale. The romantic story of a couple about to separate (perhaps the war-torn narrator of "Words from the Front"?), it hangs on a mournful guitar line and an exquisite chorus. Another song that deserves to be reworked by some smart pop-rocker, methinks. If the bulk of Words sounds commercially constructed ("Coming Apart" even possesses the rockin' rhythms of a Steve Miller track), the album's finish, "Days on the Mountain," throws a curve at the listener. A throwback to the days of extended psychedelic jams, it's embellished with some of Verlaine's most Jerry Garcia-esque serpentine improvising – and the sudden injection of a quasi-Oriental motif that adds to its echoing mystery. It's a surprisingly trippy move but an effective one, the guitarist taking his listeners on an ascent to the sublime. Though most of his admirers knew he was capable of reaching musical divinity, few of 'em would've wagered that it'd sound quite like this. Labels: art-pop # | |
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