The stage presence and allure of a band's frontman is surely an important ingredient to any musical dynamic. Their captivating movements are usually one of the main components people remember. Enter UK foursome Arctic Monkeys and their latest video, "Cornerstone," featuring their likable frontman Alex Turner.
The concept behind "Cornerstone" is extremely simple, a one-shot clip that finds Turner in oversized vintage headphones behind a sea of white. The heartbreaking lyrics illicits interest, but it's Turner's subtle swagger and facial charms that truly engulfs your senses.
Thanks to Rick Rubin's "YouTube research," North Carolina trio Avett Brothers went from finger-pickers in their Concord, North Carolina hometown to the super-producer's new favorite band. The LP Rubin discovered, Emotionalism, wasn't their debut, though — "It was maybe our eighth or ninth release," says Seth Avett, counting records he and brother Scott had recorded with their previous hard-rock band, "and at this point the dreams of being a rock star have been put in perspective."
But it was a boost that put the Avetts' career on the fast track. Rubin produced their major-label debut (and fifth overall release as the Avett Brothers), I and Love and You, released in September, bringing out the group's twangy harmonies and banjo-picked acoustic grooves. On the record the brothers (along with bassist Bob Crawford) tackle love, heartbreak, and the honest stories of their lives. "Folk music is just like early hip-hop," says Scott Avett. "You're singing about where you're from, the hardships and the good times."
Looking back at their first band Nemo, the brothers describe their Mars Volta-like aspirations as a rebellion against their roots. "We wanted to be that kind of mobile, dynamic band," Scott says. "We were heavily influenced by Mr. Bungle — the metal and the hardcore." But twice-weekly jam sessions wound up bringing the Avetts to bluegrass. "You noticed that something was happening, and I think what was happening was Seth and I were much more natural in this acoustic sort of form," Scott says. "I think we weren't hiding behind anything."
Contrary to recent mythology, it is not perpetually winter in Eau Claire. The Wisconsin city achieved fame and notoriety due to the musings of a certain troubadour seeking solace there during the harsher months of the year, but as much as the city does indeed experience all four seasons, folk is not the only music being created in the Chippewa Valley.
Combating the notion that Eau Claire is solely populated by flannel cloaked folkies, Laarks constructs smart, fun, danceable pop-rock. The group was founded in 2006 by Ian Jacoby and Brian Moen after the dissolution of their former bands Sic Transit Gloria and Amateur Love, respectively. Eventually guitarist Kyle Flater and bassist Zach Hanson were added to the mix. Together the four craft light-hearted and energetic music lead by Jacoby's layers of keyboards and bolstered by Moen's spirited drumming.
The band's debut album, An Exaltation of Laarks, re-released this week by Absolutely Kosher, is a sunny collection of pop gems reminiscent of Mute Math and Death Cab for Cutie. It's nearly impossible not to bob your head to the frantic, frazzled energy of "The S Stood for Science" or be swept up in the momentum of "All the Words You Can't Say Right." By contrast, "Where Do You Wanna Live?" is a simple and refreshingly upbeat ballad that is sweet without being sickly sentimental.
As Eau Claire prepares to hibernate for yet another bleak winter, let Laarks keep your ears and hearts warm with remnants of summer.
Experimental Brooklyn-based tripsters Yeasayer have released a new song called "Ambling Alp," and if it's any indication of what their forthcoming album Odd Blood will be like, the critics are gonna be cooing over Yeasayer circa February 2010 even more than when they released their acclaimed debut, All Hour Cymbals, back in 2007.
"Ambling Alp” strikes that rare balance between forward-thinking experimentation and good ole-fashioned fun. The track sounds like some sort of trippy synth-pop bubble bath, with Yeasayer splashing around in effervescent electro waters which are surprisingly warm and inviting.
Toward the song's close, Yeasayer splice some Bee Gees harmonies and Gary Numan blips into the mix, giving this immaculately crafted tune a feeling of loose joy. It might not be brand new territory — Animal Collective has already left their scent on this kind of avant-pop — but it's thrilling stuff nevertheless.
The small stage of Cake Shop on New York's Lower East Side may have not been the most ideal place for Canadian indie rock quintet Silver Starling to perform their CMJ showcase last month. The stage, which is located underneath a cafe, was so small that the band members were cramped together, yet they rocked in spite of the space limitations throughout their six-song set .
Hailing from Montreal, Silver Starling — vocalist/guitarist Marcus Paquin, violinist/keyboardist Marika Anthony-Shaw, guitarist Gab Lambert, drummer Liam O'Neil, and bassist Peter X — just released their self-titled debut album in the U.S. It's a collection of poignant melodic rock songs with atmospheric guitar and the heartfelt vocals of Paquin.
There is a backstory to perhaps why the material on this album is so affecting: a friend of Paquin's passed away from cancer last year, according to the band's website. The sweeping and expansive approach to this album carried over well onstage. Silver Starling delivered some driving rockers such as "Caught in Your Glow" and "Love and a Broken Heart," as well as a moody tune, "Blue Light." However, the very poppy "Ghosts" brought a little levity to the set with its whimsical, romantic lyrics and catchy melodies. But for the most part, Silver Starling's music was driven on pure adrenaline.
For those who wonder what a starling is, it is defined by Merriam-Webster's as a European bird "that is often considered a pest." If that's the case, then it's to the band members' advantage that they push those buttons, which they did very well during their performance.
After 10 years, Norwegian folk duo Kings of Convenience are making a statement with their third record, Declaration of Dependence — when it comes down to it, they're not so dependent on each other anymore. The two compose delicate songs that teeter the lines between pop and coffee house acoustics, recalling Simon and Garfunkel at times. But over this decade, instead of pumping out a new Kings record every two years, they've constantly branched out. Eirik Boe is working with a new band called Kommode and Erlend Oye keeps busy with his electronic project the Whitest Boy Alive as well as various DJ appearances.
Now when they resume as the Kings of Convenience, Oye says it's become a bit trickier. "I have to say, it was much more clearer in the beginning," he tells Spinner. "Ten years ago, we were much more dependent on each other. But three years ago, when we started to think about this record, it wasn't so clear. We didn't necessarily need each other as musicians."
So the album isn't a commentary on the band, but instead Boe suggests it's a bit more metaphorical throughout. "Our whole lives are about trying to figure out how to make other people love us and finding other people to love," he says. "We wanted to say that independence is not what we are."
To that thought, Oye adds, "Now we have happiness and it's clearly only down to yourself. If you're not happy, it's your fault. So, it's great if you can depend on something. That's another choice you have to make."
The last Nirvana collection recorded before the untimely death of Kurt Cobain, Unplugged caught many by surprise with its stripped down, neo-acoustic offerings with a bridled fury. When Cobain sings, "I swear I don't have a gun, I don't have a gun" with clenched teeth (instead of an open howl) and when the haunting strains of "About a Girl" — from their earliest LP — chills even with quieted guitars, you discover a new appreciation for the nuances of one of the greatest bands of recent times. Highlights include covers of three Meat Puppets tracks (featuring special guests Curt and Kris Kirkwood of that influential "college rock" band), the weepy cello on the Vaselines' "Jesus Doesn't Want Me for a Sunbeam," and their cover of David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold the World."
Does It Offend You, Yeah? usually come across as a band to let your hair down and rock-out to at the local disco, or the kind of bleepy-gametronics that could only come from a group that had its brain ripped out and replaced with a vintage games console. But this isn't the case with the morbidly titled "Dawn of the Dead." On this single, the four-piece bridge the gap between electro and an emotive-indie ballad, passing by the soundtracks to your favorite '80s teen movies. Synths and guitar chugging are aplenty — a standard combo in today's climate of chart-crawlers — as are a new-wave heart, an ear for a great hook-line-and-sinker chorus, heartfelt vocals and an elastic bassline not unlike that of Parisian favorites Justice. As displayed on debut album You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into, the band are not chained to just one style and can write a balladesque single with the best of them.
"Kids" from the EPRemind Me the Reason I Came
2009 iTunes
Can you share a little information about yourselves?
Jeff Buckley (lead singer): We are called Make Your Exit. We are five (sometimes more) Toronto boys who have been playing together for about a year-and-a-half now. Many of us grew up together and were in bands together before MYE existed, so we know each other too well. Our inside jokes are often frightening to the outsider, but man do we find them funny. We now have two EPs under our belt, with our latest Remind Me the Reason I Came just having come out at the end of September.
Could you describe the recording process of Remind Me the Reason I Came?
This was without a doubt the most fun we've had recording. We found a guy with a place an hour outside of Toronto that was a church-turned-studio. We figured it would make us seem cooler if we recorded our album in a church. In actuality, we knew it was the right place because we wanted a more "live" sound for the record, and the church had a great big live room that was going to give us what we needed. We lived there for ten days, amongst the guitars and amps, and had a lot of fun trying out new sounds and playing with gear we could never afford on our own. My favorite part of the record is the first twenty seconds — we took a very hot microphone into the basement of the church and started recording drums through the floorboards to get that dirty muffled drum sound you hear at the start of "Kids." I got to stand in the basement and play my ukulele and sing to the beat coming through the floor. We have it on video, but it probably doesn't look as cool as it sounds.
You read this blog and I've visited your Myspace page. So now that it seems the Internet isn't a fad, what are your thoughts on the power of the web in relation to helping or hurting an artist?
The issue of geographical placement is essentially obsolete, so it has made it easier to reach new fans, as well as have a closer relationship with the listeners of our music. I think it's allowed us as independent artists to control what music listeners receive from us (whether it's rants on a blog or unreleased tracks, etc.), rather than having a record label dictating what is shared. This has made it infinitely easier to survive as an independent artist. The total freedom to put out your own content to a virtual world that seems to be consuming media at a very impressive rate seems like the biggest power grab that the major label world has ever been up against. On top of this, it's certainly opened the flood gates for the saturation of the music world, for better or for worse. Any band can have a Myspace, any blogger can be a reviewer, and I think this is great. Sure, it produces an "interesting" variety of content out there, but the fact that people are getting more involved and just producing more shouldn't be viewed as a bad thing. It just means there is a less-defined group of people who are dictating what music should be, and that might just lead to something new and exciting. It might also lead to the popularization of guys farting on snare drums and releasing it on yspace as the next big thing. Time will tell.
Parting words?
We greatly appreciate being put up on your site! If anyone reading this happens to be in Southern Ontario, odds are we'll soon be playing in your town so come on out to a show and we promise to be very nice and give you sweaty hugs after the set.
Remember tape cassettes? No, me neither. Not until Alan Palomo's Neon Indian reminded me how it sounded when a tape played so much it unraveled in the deck: twisted, flanging, and misshapen. Still, retro and warped suits the project's simple arrangements, which, with sonic manipulation and Korg interjections, are as fun and offbeat (with titles like "Terminally Chill" and "Should Have Taken Acid With You") as they are old-school in production. "Deadbeat Summer" is yet another catchy mix of bent guitar, ditzy pop melodies, and reverberated vocals set to a momentum of bass and rock drums. Lyrics like "All my dreams reminisce" point to the sentiment and longing for past misadventure that M83 has built his entire discography on, but Neon Indian renders precisely these memories of chilled-out, lazy days of youthful abandon in song. Here the project really finds its groove, nailing perfectly the essence of woozily nostalgic synth-pop.
Johannesburg natives BLK JKS (pronounced "black jacks") have been creating stateside buzz since performing at South by Southwest and appearing on the cover of the Fader magazine last year. Produced by Secret Machines' Brandon Curtis, After Robots justifies the blogosphere hype by offering a wholly unique sound that veers among prog rock, funk and jazz. Songs like "Molalatladi" and "Lakeside" rely on lilting vocal harmonies that recall tribal chants, while "Kwa Nqingetje" is an epic with slowly unraveling arrangements. At the heart of the album's combination of genres is BLK JKS' South African influence, manifested in the band's use of polyrhythms and a driving horn section. Althouh the set's complex instumentation finds BLK JKS occasionally losing their footing, their confidence in their craft largely covers up any glaring errors. After Robots positions the act as an organic, impressive response to the African influence in American rock music.
An award-winning actor, his best friend, and a children's choir in creepy costumes combine to form Dead Man's Bones, a new band that's released its album through record label ANTI- on October 6.
Dead Man's Bones, a collaboration two years in the making, is the brainchild of Ryan Gosling, Zach Shields, and the Silverlake Conservatory Children's Choir (a side project of Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea).
Since their meeting in 2005, Gosling and Shields had the idea for the project but were unable to start production until their careers permitted. The album, also titled Dead Man's Bones, is an intentionally sparse Old World-sounding lamentation that is contemporarily catchy.
The general premise behind the album is love separated by death, with the partners — one living, one dead — trying to reunite and dealing with the difficulties that this presents.
Sprawling piano pieces like in "Buried in Water" prove Shields' and Gosling's talent in their crossover to music. Gosling's crooner-style voice and experience on guitar make Dead Man's Bones effectively eerie. This fact is surprising, especially considering their great limitations on the project.
Shields and Gosling both had to learn additional instruments and restricted themselves to doing Dead Man's Bones without electric instruments or multiple takes, which could have altered their songs. Thus, everything on the track was played in real time. Additionally, the dynamic of the Children's Choir enriched the sound of the album, even though it's basically stripped to the bare essentials.
"Pa Pa Power," the catchiest song on the album, is also the most emotionally powerful. Focusing on the already dead and their interaction with the living, it presents angry lyrics ("Burn the streets, burn their cars / Broken glass, broken hearts") that are offset by the choir singing, "We won't destroy you, no we will not destroy you," in a bittersweet, if not confusing, song.
"Dead Man's Bones" is one of the most "poppy" and disturbing songs, complete with a wailing lover in the background and lamenting singing saw. The song is based loosely on ragtime piano and gospel. The baroque feeling evoked by so few band members is a wonder to think about while listening.
Shields and Gosling's persistence at simplicity benefited their unpolluted album, creating something much more than expected from two so inexperienced in the business. They also exceed expectations in their refusal to descend into the pitfalls of many who make the transition from the screen to recording studio.
2004:
Death From Above 1979 makes their considerable racket with only bass, drums, and the occasional Moog squelch assist. This isn't a gimmick — between Sebastien Grainger's frantic wail and the overdriven bass riffs of Jesse F. Keeler, the duo's You're a Woman, I'm a Machine pulses with a steady, sweaty energy that's punctuated with arena-sized hooks. "Blood on Our Hands" boils dance-punk nearly all the way down, leaving only a relentless hi-hat cymbal, while "Turn It Out" and "Cold War" churn on double-time rhythms and rudimentary, yet completely effective bass runs. The duo's setup certainly limits their range, which means the album can occasionally resemble one long song. But at just over a half-hour, it's over before any questions about the lack of guitars can even start to form. There are hyper indie rock flare-ups, like in the Hot Snakes/Rocket from the Crypt yelp of "Going Steady." And "Sexy Results" is a flirtatious and amplified cross of new wave and Rapture-style strut that comes complete with a cowbell upbeat. Preoccupation with the opposite sex provides some of You're a Woman, I'm a Machine's strongest moments, from Grainger's "I don't need you/I want you" clarification on "Romantic Rights" to the frenetic late-album standout "Pull Out." Other highlights include the title track's layered vocals and wiry punk revivalism, and the subtler "Black History Month," which is a nice break from the record's consistently jerking pace. In the 2000s, dance-oriented energy keeps creeping regularly into rock & roll. On You're a Woman, I'm a Machine, Death from Above 1979 makes people move by exposing the live-wire tension rock music had all along.
Even if his major-label debut, Ocean Eyes, is a bit simplistic and sentimental with lines like, "If the bombs go off, the sun will still be shining," Minnesota native Adam Young, the one-man band behind Owl City, has crafted an incredibly upbeat album filled with starry-eyed lyrics and electro-pop fluff. Young's soughing delivery seems to borrow from Ben Gibbard of airy electro-pop stalwarts the Postal Service and Death Cab for Cutie, while his nasal enunciation sounds strikingly similar to that of Blink-182/Angels & Airwaves frontman Tom DeLonge. Ocean Eyes is wrought with adolescent-safe references of romantic beachside excursions, aquatic friendships, and nature walks with that special someone. Although its first single "Fireflies" is a deeply textured, atmospheric, and wanderlust anthem, the album is not without its missteps, as "Dental Care" feels quite ham-fisted in its attempt to integrate dreamy soundscapes with an altogether mundane topic of oral hygiene. Musically speaking, such stargazing naïveté seems a welcome change given the times we live in—but very rarely does it ever have a long shelf life.
When it came time to for Lissy Trullie to re-released her debut EP Self-Taught Learner, she could have recorded a few extra songs and turned it into a full album for her new label, Downtown Records. Instead, the New York-based singer/guitarist took the road less traveled, dusting off old songs and recording one odd cover.
"I didn't want the re-release of the EP to just be new material because then it's more like an album," Trullie tells Spinner. "It's supposed to be something fun and not so serious." The perfect example of that vibe is her cover of Biz Markie's "Just a Friend" that she sang with singer-songwriter and former Moldy Peaches member Adam Green.
"We had an idea for him to sing at this particular show and [Adam] said a friend suggested he cover Biz Markie. It's kind of a ridiculous idea in the first place, which is what attracted both of us to it, and so we did it," Trullie says. "We didn't originally plan to do it for the re-release. The words are actually a lot different from the original song. We had a lot of fun with it. It's already a song that's really melodic and a little bit sweet, even though he's talking about getting his heart broken, and we kind of kept that feeling about it."
Thanks to the original EP release in February and tour with The Virgins and Anya Marina in the spring, Trullie has certainly seen her star rising. "A year ago, I was working a lot but I wasn't doing what I wanted to be doing. I was doing dumb work for bad pay and trying to get by," she says. "It's been a lot of traveling, a lot of learning more about basically playing music and getting better as a band. We've been touring a lot, which is great — it's proven to be my favorite thing to do."
Currently, Trullie and her band are recording their full-length debut in London with former Suede member and producer Bernard Butler, who also helmed the debut albums by Duffy and Black Kids. To hear her put it, we can expect a lot from her future work. "I've been playing with a lot of different guitar sounds, heavier sounds," she says, citing Lou Reed's droning style of playing as a big influence. "I taught myself piano, so that's going to be in my band. I've been geeking out a little bit harder and experimenting, and that reflects on the songwriting as well. It's like the simple rule of practice. You learn more and more and you get better and better."
Madison, Wisconsin, U.S.A. Jonk Music encourages you to buy your favorite music. If you like the sample you hear, please support the artists by purchasing their work and attending their shows.
