She & Him's debut was a simple affair. Zooey Deschanel's homespun grace and M. Ward's unobtrusive production made for a winning combination — which means they risked a lot by making a follow-up album as complex and ambitious as this one. On Volume Two, swirling strings and lush backing vocals underscore Deschanel's increasingly sophisticated songwriting. She plays the dewy-eyed ingénue a bit too faithfully at times, but there is no denying her legitimacy as a tunesmith, divvying her set between bouncy piano-pop, folk-flavored sing-alongs and orchestral anthems. In lesser hands, the American Graffiti-styled themes of star-crossed lovers and summer nights would drown in their own sincerity. Here, they provide a pleasant escape to a mythical America of endless horizons and youthful resilience — not such a bad place to be in 2010.
Auckland band The Naked and Famous are well on their way to becoming what the latter part of their name promises.
Their latest single "Young Blood" debuted at Number 1 in the New Zealand single charts in June (the first single to do so since Sean Kingston's "Beautiful Girls" back in 2007) and was named one of the five songs short-listed for the prestigious APRA Silver Scroll Award.
The masterminds behind the group — named after a line from a Tricky song -— are singer/lyricist Alisa Xayalith and songwriter/producer Thom Powers. The couple met three years ago at Auckland music and audio school, but dropped out and teamed up to write songs instead.
Soon after, they added second producer Aaron Short to the line-up, which was completed last year with David Beadle (bass) and Jesse Wood (drums).
Like Kids of 88 and Computers Want Me Dead, The Naked and Famous are part of an emerging scene of bands who are putting an electronic produced edge to their music, treading the borders between catchy pop-songs and rugged indie-rock.
They released two EPs, This Machine and No Light, in 2008 and are now following up with their debut album Passive Me, Aggressive You.
While their singles are topping the charts and their music videos becoming favorites on music channel C4, The Naked and Famous don't think that the success will change anything in the way they work.
"We are actually an independent band and it's a funny term because now it is used to describe bands with Telecasters (guitars) and tight jeans," Powers says.
"People consider that indie; but indie-band actually means an independently run band, a band responsible for what is happening.
"We are doing the songwriting and the producing and have put out the album through our own record label; Universal Records just distributes us," he says.
Since the release of their EPs two years ago, the band's sound has taken a big step up.
"Everything you're hearing on the album is a pretty much more evolved version, partly just due to our skills improving on the production side but also because we're running now with a five-piece band which allows us to have so much more added into the recording," Short says.
"A lot of the electronic production was done at home," Powers adds.
"That is kind of where everything starts and a lot of what you hear on the album is bedroom-recorded stuff and then we went into the studio and recorded live instruments, drums and guitar and lots of the vocals," Powers says.
"It generally starts off with Thom and Alisa developing a song, which is then passed on to me as the production evolves and extra layers were added or taken out from the songs and at that point it gets also passed on to the band to practice the songs for the live version and to adjust things for the recording to fit," Short explains.
The young band — all in their early 20s — was already dubbed New Zealand's answer to MGMT, but the Naked and Famous have their own take on things, not shying away from tapping into influences from all over the board.
Apart from catchy electro tracks, the album also contains dark, industrial vibes, tracks reminiscent of 80s pop, 90s trip-hop and songs on which the band let loose and thrash their instruments in good old punk rock tradition.
The band agrees that there has been a growth of electro-based bands in the last year or so, but Powers thinks that guitar music is making a comeback as well.
"It's been a lot of cookie-cutter kind of pop on the radio over the last few years. I think guitar music is something people are craving. It is obvious that we have some relation to what is happening in electronic music at the moment. But I guess when you hear the album there's also a heavier site to it," he says.
The Naked and Famous are not only hailed for their song-writing and producing but have made themselves a name as a live band.
The quintet played the CMJ alternative music convention in New York and Big Day Out, but their most memorable gig so far was opening for one of their favorite bands, Nine Inch Nails, last year. "We heard that they were coming over and so Alisa and I went to the promoter and just begged that they send out stuff over to the band and see if we could get a support slot," Powers says.
Their initiative paid off and they were picked by NiN to open their show in Auckland's Vector arena. "The most thrilling moment was backstage when (guitarist) Robin Finck came to our dressing room and introduced himself and said thank you for supporting them. I was really star struck at that time," Xayalith remembers.
Later NiN head Trent Raznor dropped by and told them that he liked their show. "It was an amazing experience and quite an honor, we could have retired right after that," Powers laughs.
In "We Used to Wait," a restlessly mutating song deep in the recesses of the Arcade Fire's ambitious new album, The Suburbs, Win Butler sings about a time when handwritten letters were the norm, and we waited for correspondences to wend their way through the postal system.
But Butler, the lead singer and principal lyricist for the Quebecois band, isn't nostalgic by practice. "By the time we met," he admits, "the times had already changed. So I never wrote a letter. I never took my true heart. I never wrote it down." Later he says he will do these things, but it's safe to file that under "the broken promises we make to ourselves in the instant gratification age." Sure, and less time on Facebook as well, right?
One promise that the Arcade Fire keeps is crafting an old-fashioned, back-to-front exploration of one topic. In this case, it's suburbia, the album's most immediate symbol of complacency. But Arcade Fire's third album doesn't seek to condemn; the band knows that whether in a city — its Montreal or in Los Angeles — or a subdivision outside Houston, (where Butler grew up), we're all grasping for meaning. We're searching in the shadows of the shopping malls that singer and multi-instrumentalist Régine Chassagne observes endlessly rising in "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)."
Claiming seven members, though often swelling to more in a live setting, Arcade Fire first gained recognition in indie circles with its 2004 debut, Funeral, which established its talent for combining the symphonic with a certain wiry punk agility. By the time its follow-up, Neon Bible, landed in 2007, Arcade Fire was headlining venues such as the Hollywood Bowl, where it first played in 2005 with admirer David Byrne.
Arcade Fire tends to cleave to singular concepts, wrenching elaborate but intimate orchestrations from both the big strokes and nuances, but on its previous efforts, the results were sometimes too pristinely chilled on art-rock ice.
Occasionally, the band gets trapped in the same frost on The Suburbs, but the moments when it strikes warmth are some of the best of its career. Arcade Fire seems to have borrowed ideas from such bards of the wasteland as Bruce Springsteen. And while they don't fashion songs with the immediate hit potency as "Dancing in the Dark," the band members find a way to tap into the same approachable frustration and tenderness.
"Modern Man" is an impeccable showcase, a mature, controlled song that features a vision of the so-called Modern Man waiting in line, going nowhere, bothered by some ineffable sense of opportunity unfulfilled. It's underscored by rough, cottony guitars that almost occlude the song’s chillier synth effects.
In one of the record's many wonders of sequencing — a lost art in the download age resurrected on The Suburbs — "Modern Man" is followed by "Rococo," a resplendent epic wound up by near-hysterical strings that encases one of the album's trickiest sentiments: Making fun of the modern kids. It's hard to tell if Butler was once one of them or not. Is it a swipe at what he knows all too well, or is he simply casting disparagements? Either way, Butler sounds angry. He nearly spits out the word "rococo," as if the fanciful living rooms of old — picture the Draper household in Mad Men — will explode into flames from his very force.
A kind of meta-commentary is used to brilliant effect throughout the album. As much as The Suburbs seems to be a stubborn reinforcement of the pleasures of a complete, multi-song work of art, it also critiques the very impatience that resulted in listeners abandoning the album format. In "We Used to Wait," he sings, "we used to wait for it, now we're screaming, 'sing the chorus again.'" In "Suburban War," Butler laments that "music divides us into tribes," though his band, first crowned by cool-arbiter Pitchfork for its debut, has benefited from such tribalization as much as anyone.
Beyond the lyrics, the musical inspiration suggests a certain amount of nostalgia as well. There are Springsteen and Neil Young, but they mine the '80s and '90s as well, shuffling in the synths and pulsing dance beats of New Order and Depeche Mode.
Bloat, however, occupies The Suburbs just as it does Orange County. The album inevitably sprawls too far; a few songs could have been sacrificed without losing the central conceit. "Sprawl I" is uncomfortably maudlin, and "The Suburbs (Continued)" only unmoors the complicated emotional balance of the title track.
All the same, The Suburbs is an accomplished love letter that radiates affection as much as bitterness. Don't forget the album, they seem to urge, the slow read, the long stretch of night uninterrupted by e-mail or text messages. In doing so, Arcade Fire offers "hope that something pure can last."
One of the most promising new British bands to emerge in 2009, Delphic made their eagerly awaited full-length debut with Acolyte, an impressive alternative dance album that adds eight songs to the previously released singles "Counterpoint" and "This Momentary." Like those early singles, Acolyte finds the Manchester band making blissful dance music with fellow Englishman Ewan Pearson in his Berlin studio. While Delphic are new on the scene, Pearson isn't. He's an ace producer with a reputation for remixing the best in the business. He's a celebrated DJ with several mix albums to his name. Moreover, he's the producer of Tracey Thorn's solo albums. Here on Acolyte, Pearson works with a faceless young band eager to follow his lead. Delphic and Pearson embrace the Manchester style wholeheartedly, reviving not only New Order but acid house, too, and they come up with a sound as contemporary as Bloc Party or Hot Chip. Even better, Delphic are an able live band. Part of their up-and-coming buzz came from their tour of the 2009 summer music festivals, when people got to see them performing on-stage in the flesh. No question about it, though, Delphic are at their best when they're in the studio with Pearson. His production wizardry is a joy to behold on Acolyte, above all on the title track, a nine-minute epic that wouldn't sound out of place on one of his DJ mix albums. In addition to "Counterpoint" and "This Momentary," highlights include a couple songs with catchy vocal hooks, "Doubt" and "Red Lights." The album unfortunately starts to drag with "Halcyon" at the album's five-track midpoint. "Counterpoint" is the only late-album highlight. Pearson's dazzling production carries the album only so far. The aforementioned handful of highlights are really amazing, though, making one wonder what the future holds for Delphic, if they stick with Pearson, who casts a tall shadow over them, or if they go in a direction of their own.
Can you share a little information about yourself?
Absolutely. I grew up in a suburb of Chicago called Arlington Heights. As a kid, I spent a lot of time in my room, practicing guitar and learning every Jimmy Page guitar solo I could. By the time I was in high school, I played in a few bands, finally settling in a band that can only be described as "Caribbean Rock" which, as bad as it sounds, was actually a great band. I moved to Colorado for college when I was 17, and music took a back seat for a bit while I enjoyed the mountains. When I was 21, I started writing again, and I recorded a (terrible) demo and started playing local open mics. A year later, I moved to New York and I started co-writing with a bunch of very talented musicians, and I really started to begin to break out of my shell as a singer/songwriter. After writing songs and playing in my bedroom for a while, I put together a band and starting playing shows around Brooklyn. I had a great time playing shows, and one night someone handed me a note that said "you should really get some recording done." I took their advice and started planning what would be Atlantic/Pacific. In between all the music stuff, I watched a lot of Gilligan's Island and played a bunch of text-based RPGs.
You've 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?
There's so much that could be said. I feel like I should put together an outline or PowerPoint presentation, but I'll try to give my opinion best I can.
In a sense, the Internet is the greatest thing that happened to a musician. It opened the doors so an artist can now be heard across the globe and can sell a track to someone, instantly, 1000 miles away. There are so many ways to get your music heard by so many people, but at the same time, there are now millions of musicians trying to do the same thing. The walls that discouraged a lot of people before have come down, which has encouraged a lot of people to write, record and release material. But, there is so much more music in the marketplace now that a listener has to sift through to find what they want. Back in my day (which isn't long ago), people discovered music through radio, MTV and friends. Now, people discover music through YouTube, MySpace, Last.fm, Facebook, iLike, etc. There's a lot more of a discovery element out there for a listener, and a ton more content.
It's a lot easier now to be heard, but it's harder to make people care about your music. Depending on your goals as a musician, this can be tough. Even if someone likes you, you have to keep their attention, and you have to be persistent, or else you'll fall out of their mind as quickly as you popped into it.
If used for good (meaning: not just to reach for fame and fortune), the Internet can be a really cool thing. There are some really talented, hard working musicians out there that really should be heard.
Could you describe the recording process of Atlantic/Pacific? Atlantic/Pacific was recorded at The Bunker Studio in Brooklyn with a great engineer/producer named Aaron Nevezie. Playing on the record was Steve Purcell on drums, Tim Lappin on bass, and Kirk Schoenherr on guitar (Kirk produced as well). We recorded the EP over five days, taking as much time as we could to experiment with different tones that we had wanted to add behind the songs. We did about a song a day, which was great because it gave us time to add some of the textures to the record that we had all wanted to hear. I had been listening to a ton of Wilco, Radiohead, and Sigur Ros, which definitely influenced the recording process and the sonic themes behind songs like "I am a Fishbowl." I'm really proud of what we put together in that short period of time, and I owe it all to the guys that were in the studio with me.
Are there any current bands or records or websites that you enjoy and would recommend people seek out?
There are a lot of great bands coming out of Brooklyn right now that I hope grab people's attention. I'm really loving Great Elk's record, which is one of the best local bands I have heard in a while. Jessi Robertson is putting out a record in the next few months and she just put out the first single this week, which is absolutely gorgeous. I spend a lot of time seeing Kevin Johnston's Unnamed band play. He has one of the greatest voices I've ever heard, and I find myself singing along to every song. Besides that, I'm loving the new record by Arcade Fire, and the accompanying Google Video release they did. The new record by The National is also fantastic. I heard one track by Mumford and Sons, and I am buying that album tonight. Atomic Tom just put out their record, and it's been on repeat on my ipod. In terms of websites, I've been spending a lot of time on thesixtyone.com and have found some great music on there.
Parting words?
For anyone that takes the time to read this or listen, I really appreciate it. Jonk Music - thank you for your support, your blog is one of the best I've seen. I'll be in Madison in December, so let's hang out.
On meeting fast—rising Mancunian duo Hurts we are not prepared for a religious experience. Yet the venue seems strangely appropriate, seated as we are in the chapel of St. Barnabas House, deep in Soho. Our voices echo slightly, while the clink of a coffee cup turns into a near—deafening crash.
As befits their tradition, Theo Hutchcraft and Adam Anderson are immaculately dressed, the former with his hair slicked back in a manner recalling Jude Law, the latter slightly more at ease but still with a sharp waistcoat and jeans combination that cut a dash.
Hurts — or HURTS, depending on your persuasion — are back in town for the first time since an appearance at Lovebox, "when we were almost dying of poisoning," says Adam. "When I came off stage half of my head had been in the sun the whole gig, and this side of my head was almost black and this side was pale Mancunian," he recalls.
"Also," says Theo, "we'd traveled for about 15 hours from Berlin, and we had a really shit old 1970s bus which was so bad all the fumes from the exhaust were coming in the air vents, so we spent 15 hours on a bus inhaling exhaust fumes. We only just got there in time, thought we were going to be sick but then had to go straight on." "I'm actually worried about that now," says Adam, "because we thought it was a laugh at the time but I was actually inhaling carbon monoxide for 12 hours, and it's like 'what happened to me?!'"
The band played in searing heat to the denizens of Victoria Park, and as Adam says, "playing in the daytime and playing in the sun is always a bit weird, because of how the music is, but it does kind of work". Is that because their music exists on two levels, with light and shade? Theo nods appreciatively. "That's the perfect observation! It's what we've said as we've gone round playing gigs in different environments at different times of day, different kinds of venue. You do realize that about your own music, that it has different sides to it. We went to Japan last week, and people there do see the light to it. Even though they don't speak English it's because the music is often hopeful, whereas the lyrics are often quite sad. They just get the melodies, and the rest of it doesn't register."
So what is the ideal Hurts venue for a live gig? "We played the first gig in a church like this", says Theo. "For me the best one is KOKO," says Adam, "as the whole gallery thing is amazing. It's kind of intimate but a big space too." "That kind of theatre is what we saw in our head when we wrote the songs," agrees Theo, "but then playing in a tiny club in Berlin can also be the most intense show in the world, and it kind of works on that scale. Maybe we should play an oil rig, or a cruise ship or something!"
Hurts polled fourth in the BBC Sound of 2010 poll at the start of the year, a billing that has brought their music to a lot of people, as Theo has found. "One thing we've noticed as we've been going around is that we get asked about that everywhere. Even in Japan every interviewer asked us about that, so it must carry a lot of weight." "I think what's important about that is people getting a chance to hear our music," says Adam, "because it offers people an alternative to the music that exists in their life, music that we don't think is available that often." "That poll was based on one song, 'Wonderful Life,'" says Theo, "and a video, which was great because we already had all the other songs written, so it gave us confidence to finish the record. We didn't falter but it gave us that extra bit we needed."
The duo dress to impress, both in their videos and on stage. It's clear this is important to them, and for Theo the origins run deep. "We want to make it very minimal, but funnily enough the way we dress comes from an odd place, quite different to what people would think. When we were on the dole, which was for about three years, we were working on our music every day and trying to learn what to do. Every Wednesday you've got to go to the job centre and go 'I'm a loser, please give me some money', which is a fucking horrible experience. If you go in there in a suit or looking smart, you come out with a little bit of pride left, and we'd go back to our flat and go 'Ah, we're not losers!' The more it goes on the more you do it. We'd be meeting record companies and stuff, and we'd have to get a Megabus overnight from Manchester, and feel worthless doing it. So it all comes from there."
He takes a sip of coffee, retaining his poise while doing so. "It retains some dignity, and that's really important. But also with the presentation we wanted things to be simple. We didn't want to clutter the music with it being overly presented, because pop music covers that sort of thing up a lot. We wanted to be bold and say 'there's the music', and just let people judge the music alone. It's a good stance, because it is brave to do that."
Much is made of their discovery of slow disco in Italy. Theo laughs. "That's our boring trip to Verona, which has somehow become the most romantic thing ever! It was cheap — the cheapest place where Ryanair did flights. We had no money, and Verona's kind of not that brilliant. It's not like Romeo and Juliet. So we went out and got drunk, and met this guy who asked us what sort of music we made. We were talking about Italian disco and Savage, stuff like that, and he said 'your music sounds like this!' And we were like, 'you haven't even heard it!' but he said 'I can see it happening'. We'd been so interested in how European and Western music is perceived, without any sort of agenda, just pop music for the sake of it. But then it was a bit of 'what was that guy about', and we took from that. We've taken a lot from Italy, our videos are influenced by Italian films. Those places are a million miles away from where we wrote the music, in the rain in Manchester, and then to go there, and to perform in Greece, it was so weird. Songs about Bristol and suicide, they connect somehow. People say they're exotic, but not in the way we imagine exotic to be."
Does that mean their music has its roots in club music? Anderson shakes his head. "Not particularly." "The funny thing with that," says Theo, "is that when we started we did listen to a lot of Depeche Mode and Tears For Fears, and then we moved away to people like Coldplay and even Nine Inch Nails, for the production. The constant challenge with our music I think was to make it modern, which is very difficult. To position an idea in the modern environment was a big thing, so we were even listening to people like Take That."
The band have their own operatic singer, who performs with them live. "Hopefully it separates things from the album, pushes it on a bit," says Adam. "It's something nobody else is doing. He always gets his own round of applause though, and gets a bigger round than we do, which is kind of annoying!"
Was being on the dole has been their primary inspiration for writing music thus far? "The inspiration is not to go back there!" is Adam's take. Theo expands further. "I think a lot of our music is about escape, which is why there are the dramatic and cinematic elements to it. We've sat there in the bedsit, we put all of our desperation into the songs in a way of never going back there again. We thought if we could just work hard enough, we won't have to live this life. Now we're in a perpetual state of 'keep it going, keep it going', and now we've been given the opportunities our brains are just wide open. It's a big thing, that, escape, and the way it's presented and the live shows. Unknown to ourselves we created a world around us and what we wanted to do, as a means of escape."
Will that continue to be their influence? Adam thinks a while before responding. "It'll be interesting when we start writing music again, because when we started writing this album our world was so tiny. My world was a bedsit in Gorton in Manchester. Your comfort zone expands so much with traveling around, I can feel it already, which way we could go. In the beginning it was simple and small ideas."
Does that mean what they've heard on their travels will inform their musical choices? "For the 18 months or so that it took to write the record we weren't listening to anyone, which is mad! We were so desperate to not make it sound like anyone, we were only listening to our own songs, which drives you mental. There were weeks where we would think, 'are we doing the right thing, shall we get some perspective', and it was like 'NO!' But it's good, because now we've started to see it again, we've got a lot out of us."
"It's really nice to do that again," continues Adam, "because we're rediscovering music having been locked away, and collecting influences again. So it's very inspirational, and makes you think what could come. Going to Europe makes things bigger, and makes you realize what parts of your songs connect with people, and what things you do make sense to people, how you can get things across. Because we put a lot of layers in the songs it's great when people say 'I see what you're doing now'.
Those are the musical layers that come across either on headphones or in a club, presumably. "Exactly, that's the point. If you put all that effort in to it, which we've done, whether it's being perfectionist or being neurotic or whatever, it's offering people an alternative. Pop music doesn't have to all be one dimensional, on the surface. If you ask people who their favorites are, people like Michael Jackson, Prince and even Madonna, there's not one layer to it, there never was. There's a responsibility for people to put that effort in, and not just make it a simple thing. Some people can just take a melody, which is enough, but we want people to go further."
"People say pop music is disposable," he continues, "but it's not that really, it's the type of music that makes it disposable. It's why someone like Lady Gaga sits astride the world, because her songs work in a car on the way home from college, in a nightclub, but also on a level where you can sit at home and just watch."
A lot has been made of how Hurts might be perceived as something of a boy band, but Adam professes himself more than happy with their record label RCA's vision. "It's been easy from the beginning with them. Before we were signed we spoke to them about every part of who we are, and they completely supported the vision and have never really challenged us." His band mate is in full agreement. "It's amazing in this day and age to find a record label who will just let you be yourselves. I personally know people who get pulled around and personalities get lost, so they've allowed us to retain that. We put in a lot of work before to make it a fully formed idea, and it gives you faith in the music business when someone says 'OK'. You need to show your personality, every part of your personality, and everything — the videos, the production — needs to come from the same place. We know how much we need them as much as they need us. It's a give and take situation — a no brainer really."
So the fact the album is called Happiness — given the conversations we've just had — isn't more than a slight irony? "Not at all," says Theo, "there's a contrast in everything we do, with light and shade. All the songs are about the pursuit of happiness, which is often quite sad — everybody's journey towards that can often be quite tragic, but also very hopeful. For us it's very telling of our situation. A year ago today we were on the dole, very, very unhappy and very insecure about what we were going to do. Then we finished the album and all of a sudden we feel more secure, confident in ourselves and happy."
The strong sense of inner conviction is clear to see. "It's blind, yeah!" says Theo. "You can't falter from it for one moment. That's why you can be on the dole for three years and lose all your friends, because they tell you you're chasing a dream. When it's pop music the ceiling is so far away you've got to aim right up with it. Once it gets in your blood it carries on, so if we enjoy and value every day, we will be OK — but we can't have a day off."
Drummers don't always get the credit they deserve. They sit in the back and dutifully fill their role while the lead singers and guitarists get all the attention. Whenever the members of a beloved band strike out on their own, the drummer is usually the last person fans look to for a solo album. So I wasn't sure what to expect when I heard that Radiohead drummer Philip Selway was putting out his own record. As a member of one of the most accomplished rock bands in the world, the bar is set pretty high. But when you listen to the beautifully produced pieces Selway came up with on Familial, out Tuesday, it's easy to see him not as a percussionist but as a genuine singer-songwriter.
A self-proclaimed "bedroom noodler," Selway says he mostly gave up songwriting once he became a drummer in his late teens, and only recently began working on songs again during breaks from Radiohead. Now, even he admits his new record is a surprise.
"It's a cardinal sin for drummers to come into rehearsals with the comment, 'I've got this song.' I don't think anyone knew I played guitar or sang," Selway says. "[Even] I didn't think I could sing before."
But Selway can sing, and he's got a wonderfully nuanced voice. It's a more natural falsetto than heard in Thom Yorke's wails on the last several Radiohead albums, but it's no less memorable. And the songs Selway wrote sound heartfelt and inspired.
"I've made this record more or less at the midpoint of my life," Selway says. "In one sense, you've reached the height of your powers in terms of responsibility and experience, which is a very heady time. If you stop and take it all in, it can become a scary place. So don't look down — keep going."
Now 43 with a wife and three kids, Selway wistfully explores themes of growing older and the importance of family (hence the album title), and even steps into darker territory like fear and depression. The tracks are imaginatively packaged, with some nice digital glitch-textures, without trying too hard to resemble Radiohead songs.
"If stuff came up that sounded very 'Radiohead,' I'd edit it out," Selway says. "But at the same time, I wouldn't do so to the detriment of something I felt was genuinely me as genuinely Radiohead, too. I don't want to cut off an arm for the sake of it."
In addition to Selway, Familial also features the haunting voice of singer Lisa Germano, former Soul Coughing bassist Sebastian Steinberg and Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche.
"If you grow up in the river, the river's all you know."
Let's get the rather strange yet essential set-up out of the way first. Stereogum writer Brandon Stosuy invited Dirty Projectors and Björk, mutual fans of each other's music, to collaborate on a benefit show performance at a New York bookstore. After discussing what to play, the two camps decided to collaborate on brand-new material for the performance instead of just cranking out their greatest hits.
Later that month, Dirty Projectors vocalist Amber Coffman witnessed a family of whales on the Northern California coast near Mount Wittenberg, and Projectors songwriter/frontman/crazy man Dave Longstreth connected the two ideas by writing a 20-minute song cycle about the experience, designating each vocal performer a corresponding whale character. Longstreth plays the part of Coffman; Coffman and fellow vocalists Angel Deradoorian and Haley Dekle assume the roles of baby whales; and Björk, the mother of all weird, alternative vocalists, appropriately plays the family matriarch. Mount Wittenberg Orca is the result, and the proceeds will be donated to the National Geographic Society, helping create "international marine protected areas."
Got that?
Helping marine life is certainly a worthwhile cause, but as much as Björk and Dirty Projectors want to raise awareness about whales, Mount Wittenberg Orca will ultimately raise awareness about their music, which is a worthwhile cause all on its own. As an encore for Dirty Projectors' highly acclaimed 2009 full-length Bitte Orca, Mount Wittenberg Orca is a knockout. It works completely, even when removed from its unorthodox origins.
Then again, "unorthodox" is pretty standard stuff for Longstreth and company. Their music has a tendency to mix the extremely foreign and experimental with the catchy and familiar. Longstreth is a master of mood and color, pairing the most unusual of musical elements ("How about a string quartet, and then we'll do a electro beat ... or how about some white noise?!"). A track like "Stillness is the Move" from Bitte Orca is their most pop moment, with its R&B vocal stylings and bright production, but the twisted guitar figures and layers of sound keep it firmly planted in the strange.
On Mount Wittenberg Orca, both the experimental and the pop tendencies are toned down somewhat, due in large part to the template. Here, the distorted batshit guitar solos and drum kit explosions are replaced with acoustics, in keeping with the original bookstore performance. There are no surefire breakthrough singles, either. Instead, this EP finds the band trying out something a bit new for them: sonic consistency. With most of the noise and half of the layers of instrumentation removed, Mount Wittenberg Orca ends up giving priority to flow and ease instead of shock and flair.
The players revel in this new setting. Nat Baldwin's acoustic bass sounds warmer but still powerful. Brian Mcomber, one of indie rock's most unique drummers, still explores the outer limits of his kit, but this time focuses more on nuance, favoring snare rim clicks and bass drum accents over his trademark bursts of John Bonham-like thunder. Longstreth still plays like a classical guitarist who fronts a noise outfit on the weekends, exploring more of his melodic fingerpicking previously displayed on tracks like Bitte Orca's "Two Doves."
Björk fits in perfectly, which is no surprise. She and Longstreth have mutually odd melodic sensibilities, so much so that an album of Björk covering Dirty Projectors songs (or vice versa) really wouldn't sound like anything out of the ordinary. It's no wonder, then, that their styles mesh so seamlessly, almost to the point where Björk simply sounds like another from Longstreth's gang of female vocalizers. When she takes lead vocals ("On and Ever Onward," "Sharing Orb," "All We Are"), it's clear that her melodies could have been written by Longstreth or all on her own.
"On and Ever Onward" immediately demonstrates the breathtaking synchronicity between the two camps. Björk throws in the line "Tempur Pedic is the ocean," which, with both its vivid imagery of being swallowed in bed and strange product placement (think back to Longstreth's Gatorade plug on Bitte's "Temecula Sunrise"), lets you know you're in good hands. The gang chant "Our love is all around us," atop a bed of bouncy bass and arpeggiated acoustic guitar, is probably the happiest they've ever sounded. Listen to it through headphones and feel the plink of the guitar strings, the encompassing vocals disorienting and enlightening with precision and warm breath.
I first heard 'When the World Comes to an End' on a Twitter video posted by Roots drummer Questlove, showing the band rehearsing the track backstage with nothing more than an unplugged electric guitar and the surround-sound ping-ponging vocals of Coffman, Deradoorian, and Dekle. Questlove was so stoked by the performance, he could hardly keep his camera phone still, frequently capturing his own entranced reaction shots.
You can't blame the guy.It was a startling, arresting performance for such a limiting environment, especially for a band thriving on sonic chaos. Luckily, the intimacy and simplicity of that performance has carried over to the studio version. Dirty Projectors have always been a "headphones" band, but seriously: put on your nicest pair, sit back, and marvel at the encompassing magic of the wordless "ahhs" and "oohs." There's also a spirally electric guitar solo which, along with lead vocals on all tracks, is the only occasion of overdubbing on the album.
The claps, drum clicks, and stereo-panned vocal undulations in "Beautiful Mother" are quintessential Dirty Projectors, not all that different than some of the brighter moments on Bitte Orca. It's a perfect summation of what this EP does best: demonstrating a warmer, more spontaneous Dirty Projectors, and quite possibly an even more exciting one, if that's at all possible.
That Mount Wittenberg Orca is an acquired taste goes without saying. Yet no one else makes music like this.
When it comes to a group like Everything Everything, being taken aback is par for the course. Their tight, falsettoed sound is unlike anything else out there today. Theirs is the sort of music likely to lead fellow musicians to ask themselves: "Why didn't I think of that?"
Everything Everything aren't even just for show and their album wasn't a formulated, calculated attempt to stir up some new scene. They emerge from Manchester with a debut album to their name in the same year as neighbours Delphic and Hurts, but their sound couldn't be further removed from either. And why should everything sound the same just because it originated from the same city in northern England, after all?
Sporting successful singles, re-recorded demos, and sparkling new efforts, it's a debut album that should displease no one. Production aligns with the band's erratic character, beginning with a rampant opening trio of songs likely to leave you flabbergasted. The old-fashioned joke that Everything Everything live up to their name in every respect won't be going away any time soon. This is a unique listen.
The slick giant that is "MY KZ, UR BF" ("My Keys, Your Boyfriend") opens the album with unrivaled confidence, the worthy high-speed-car-chase soundtrack "Qwerty Finger" and the frighteningly inventive "Schoolin'" following. That's the listener won over right there. The opening precedes a more diverse two-thirds, blending tenderness and subtleties with unabashed, full-frontal pop.
Jonathan Everything's vocals switch gloriously from 90-decibel heights to softer hues. His Mancunian-tinged falsetto dictates the altering pace, varying between the vulnerable Leave The Engine Room to the jerky eccentricity of "Photoshop Handsome." As the band ceremoniously walk amongst R&B, acapella, and synth pop, Jonathan sounds comfortable within any surroundings.
The variety on show is one thing. But most impressive is the band's ability to cross genres in the space of one song; "Schoolin'" begins as a candidate for future Justin Timberlake hit before scattering its parts into a cacophonous, sweetly-sung jewel, its previous melody disposed of.
Inevitably, this all leads to an incohesive mess, to some extent. There's the naivety that strikes many a band when recording a debut album of such energy and experimentation. It's comparable to Late of the Pier's debut Fantasy Black Channel; a lot on show but with hints of greater achievement. But Man Alive is a step up from that. It could well be their masterpiece; their scatterbrained work of art.
Should everything (everything) go according to plan, Man Alive will cause a shift in the ground. Whilst an abolition of N-Dubz might be too much to ask for, there's every chance that post-2010 hits will have a rejuvenated feel to them. If however — and this is the more likely of the two — Everything Everything fail to break the higher ranks of the charts, they'll embed themselves as a cult phenomenon with this debut.
With her freckles and flaxen hair, Lissie Maurus conjures up images of her native Midwest, full of unruffled country charm. But in reality, the Illinois-born singer grew up listening to gangsta rap. By age nine, she was starring in the musical Annie. She then headed to L.A. to work on her music, which attracted some cool connections; after the EP Why You Runnin', produced by Band Of Horses bassist Bill Reynolds, she returns with her debut album. It's helmed by Jaquire King, best known for his work with Kings of Leon.
Lissie is living the Americana dream, a musical reverie nestled between country, folk-rock and a tinge of pop. Catching a Tiger opens with the atmospheric "Record Collector," her voice captivating us over a track that exudes a mix of melancholy and joy. Assertive drum beats lead the way for "When I'm Alone," channeling Stevie Nicks. "In Sleep" navigates between different registers and arrangements, the intensity in her voice rising and falling like that of the Fleetwood Mac legend. The piano highlights the mellow "Bully," the keys echoing her voice. With its banjo providing the main sound, "Little Lovin'" is perhaps the most country accented song on the album, but it eventually amplifies to something with even more body and mood.
And mood is aplenty on "Stranger," set somewhere in the late '60s/early '70s. It's Old California replete with sea breeze, desert winds and country air. Her delivery is faultless, the arrangement is immaculate, the song just plain fun. Pop-rock echoes through the equally catchy hooks of "Loosen the Knot." And that is a key element in Lissie's songwriting: her ability to write memorable, radio-friendly tunes reminiscent of early Sheryl Crow. "Cuckoo" misleads with its opening guitar riff, but it quickly falls into radio pop/rock territory, the sort of thing that's been done and redone a thousand times over yet still finds listeners and buyers.
"Everywhere I Go" is a dreamy ballad where the guitar strings are played as delicately as a lyre. Her vocal range rises and falls with grace and precision, but the song doesn't go any further. Her vocals often outshine the content, but she does build an emotional bridge with the listener. Her lyrics deal with broken relationships, and one can sense this album has been a sort of catharsis. "Oh Mississippi" adds the final note to the album, a solemn folk tribute to the "mighty river" running through her native town. It is really at Americana that she excels, whether it's the sounds of the Mississippi or on L.A.'s Laurel Canyon.
Catching a Tiger has its moments of spontaneity, marking Lissie's talent for songwriting and blending genres, but also of calculated engineering, designed to make her into the Next Big Female Songwriting Sensation. And she probably will be — if they stop attempting to make her into the next Sheryl Crow and let her talent sing for itself.
Sometimes it seems like the last thing the music-listening public needs is another indie duo with a quirky name that weaves guitar chords, synthesizer lines and programmed drumbeats around soaring falsetto harmonies. Thankfully, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.'s debut release, Horse Power EP, not only manages to utilize those textures in tightly constructed and well-written songs, but is also executed in a refreshingly sweet and unironic way. The three original songs radiate upbeat enthusiasm rather than the dry cynicism that pervades the work of many of their contemporaries. "Nothing But Our Love" stands out as the album highlight with its beautifully layered production, sentimental delivery, and serenely optimistic atmosphere.
The group, which is comprised of Josh Epstein and Daniel Zott, demonstrates an awareness of its heritage with the Jackson 5-esque grooves on "Vocal Chords" and the well-chosen and well-executed cover of the Beach Boys' dreamy classic "God Only Knows." Epstein and Zott wisely don't diverge much from the original version, instead choosing to pare down to just a jazzy guitar and some vocals for the beginning of the tune and then adding instruments as the song's power grows. Despite the fact that this debut comes from a hip band with an ironic name — seriously, is Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. the last band name left? — you will find yourself smiling when it comes to a close, and you can't really argue against results like that.
Upon listening to Mexico — the latest EP from Madison folk-popsters Icarus Himself — it's apparent that mastermind Nick Whetro has really learned to let his songs breathe. The old cliché of "no, no, it's the notes he's not playing" is a tired one, but it really holds its ground here. What's even weirder is that Whetro has basically added a full band to what was once a solo endeavor, and the results still sound way more minimal. When pushed up against 2009's more singer-songwriter oriented Coffins, Whetro's haunting vocal delivery sounds a bit more soulful and less forced this time around as he sparsely colors in the tiny arrangements of watery guitar, lo-fi keyboards, and low-key rhythms of tunes like "Digging Holes" and "Half Ton Load." In fact, on some tunes, Whetro only sings on every other measure, allowing his lyrics to be a vehicle for the progression rather than the other way around.
Jentri Colello, another Madison singer-songwriter, joins forces with Whetro over the Casio-disco pulse of "Half Ton Load," the EP's most infectious cut. Collelo's ethereal voice and feathery choruses give his tortured howling a soft place to land. Also, multi-instrumentalist Karl Christenson (who played with Whetro in the late National Beekeepers Society) brings his own subtle wizardry to the table, foregoing bass and opting to rumble out some baritone guitar instead. The volcanic closer "Seen It Coming (Mexico)" is a quiet killer, erupting from its delicate finger-picked chorus into an explosion of crashing drums and rippling guitar as Whetro cries out, "You're my Mexico!" Sure, Mexico tumbles into darker dives than its predecessor, but it may be Whetro's penchant for the morose and his leaning toward incorporating lo-fi electronics that help split him off of his over-orchestrated neo-folk peers.
It's hard to imagine School of Seven Bells turning to Brian Eno's list of "Oblique Strategies" for inspiration. Because from the sound of its new album, it used his "disconnect from desire" suggestion in title alone. This kinetic collection of delectable dream pop and dance-inflected art rock follows through and then some on the band's 2008 debut, Alpinisms. Opener/single "Windstorm" is aptly titled, the guitars and synths whirling and twirling as singer/guitarist Alejandra Deheza takes the lead in lieu of the band's usual, literal twin-voice approach with her sister, keyboardist Claudia. Still, there's no resisting their entwined voices; they're an ethereal force singing of farewells both devastating (the gorgeous My Bloody Valentine nod "I L U") and dismissive (the freestyle-esque "Bye Bye Bye"). Ex-Secret Machines guitarist Benjamin Curtis infuses the tracks with subtle, hypnotic parts ("Babelonia" and "Dust Devil" in particular), and they're paired with heartfelt lyrics that speak to one's inner self. For the listener, disconnecting will be all but impossible.
Memory, childhood, home. These are big subjects that have obsessed novelists, movie makers, playwrights and songwriters for decades, if not centuries. Now the Arcade Fire, a band not known for thinking small, tackles them all in its third studio album, The Suburbs.
When the Arcade Fire burst into sudden prominence in 2004 with its rousing debut album, Funeral, a process accelerated by the kind of viral enthusiasm normally reserved for Paris Hilton home movies and Kanye West tweets, the excitement was tempered by one nagging doubt: Was this just another built-to-implode Internet flash?
But the Montreal septet has now proven its staying power, making three very different albums in a span of six years. Whereas Funeral inspired shout-from-the-rafters sing-alongs, a blast of live-for-the-moment resolve at a time of mourning, Neon Bible (2007) was ominous and claustrophobic, a skeptical look at an era that conflates religion, war and consumerism. If Funeral was about having faith in each other, Neon Bible was about losing faith in the institutions that try to manage our lives.
The title song that opens The Suburbs signals another thematic and sonic shift. It's lighter than anything Arcade Fire has done in the past, with its bouncy piano and skip-along beat, an invitation into an album that seems to expand as it progresses, not unlike the sprawling communities it describes. The song's jauntiness melts into a mass of ghost-like voices and the tone shifts to something more evanescent. The narrator recalls the expectations and dreams he once had as a child and questions whether he has lived up to them.
"It meant nothing," he sings, and later expresses his own lack of resolve: "Sometimes I can't believe it/I'm moving past the feeling."
Band leader Win Butler and his younger brother Will grew up in the suburbs of Houston, a sun-baked sea of golf courses, shopping malls and utilitarian but largely anonymous houses. In other words, it could've been anywhere. That setting describes millions of childhoods, a vast, blank universality that Arcade Fire fills in with personal detail and a deep sense of longing.
Though "suburbia" has long been shorthand for homogenized mediocrity in the arts, Win Butler and his bandmates don't allow themselves to indulge in such easy, condescending dismissals. Instead they invest their upbringing with a mix of fondness and regret, wistfulness and disappointment, and that tension is nurtured by music that is among the richest, subtlest and most unsettling of the band's career.
Amid this disquieting beauty, the 16 songs and fragments melt one into the next, populated by interlocking characters and images. Memo to shuffle-obsessed iPod listeners: Even more so than its two predecessors, The Suburbs is an Arcade Fire album designed to be heard as a whole in a specific sequence.
Two sets of paired songs find Win Butler and his wife, multi-instrumentalist Regine Chassagne, answering each other with distinct but complementary takes on a community that feels as impersonal as a massive airport concourse. "Someone please cut the lights," Chassagne pleads on "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)," responding to her declaration in an earlier song that "In the half light, we're free."
References to cars and long drives pop up continually, not as a means of liberation and escape as in a Chuck Berry or Bruce Springsteen song, but as symbols of a transitory existence that make the concept of "home" feel increasingly elusive. In "Suburban War," desperation overtakes hope as the narrator tries to reconnect with an old friend, searching for him in each passing car.
The music fits the imagery, with lonely-asteroid keyboards, anxious strings, sadly chiming Byrds-like progressions ("Suburban War"), skeletal guitar riffs that faintly echo old Cure songs ("Modern Man") and wordless harmonies creating a sense of vastness and space unlike any previous Arcade Fire album. The beats are more mechanical, rather than the polyrhythmic rush of old. A handful of rockers break up a thicket of midtempo songs; without "Month of May" the last half of the album is in danger of sounding monochromatic. But there is so much quiet passion and rich musical detail, it's difficult to pinpoint any songs that the album could sacrifice. As if to demonstrate it hasn't forgotten what got it to this point in its career, the band brings it all home with "Sprawl II," creating an unlikely anthem out of a mirror-ball disco beat, glacial synthesizers and the pleading urgency of Chassagne's vocal.
Her fire contrasts with the melancholy in Win Butler's voice. More than anything, this is an album not just about loss of innocence, but the erosion of ideals that aging inevitably brings. With it comes disconnection from everything that once mattered: home, friends, family, dreams.
The relationship of a rock band to its audience serves as convenient metaphor for all of the above. When Butler sings "Kids are all standin' with their arms folded tight" in "Month of May," it could be taken as a putdown of cooler-than-thou indie-rock fans. But it's actually an expression of empathy; these were once kids just like him, who grew up screaming in delight, unconcerned about what anyone else might think of them. The Butler of The Suburbs longs to regain that feeling, and the only way he knows how is to make a record that "blow(s) the wires away." But as these bittersweet songs make clear, even that may not be enough.
What's your favorite thing about summer? The sun? The booze? The bikinis? Summer is my favorite time of the year in almost every way, especially so for the music it brings. I live for the upbeat, happy-go-lucky albums that are bound to rule the hot summer days and I imagine anyone else who enjoys the same music probably feels the same way. I mean, just to digress for a moment, does anyone listen to metal at the beach? Tanning, with some guy loudly pig squealing about the undutiful medieval kings of yore in the background? Did the Pagan overlords ever just take a day to soak up the sunshine? Do Slayer make swim trunks? Is corpse paint water-resistant? There's a lot left unanswered.
What I can tell you is that Sun Bronzed Greek Gods is my kind of summer EP. The second lead singer Dom chimes in on synth-romp opener "Living in America" with the prolonged "It's so sexxxxxyyyyyy" hook, you just know you're about to get fuzz-fucked in the most terrific way. It's an invitation: summer's waiting, lose the winter clothes, shave that nasty beard, dig out those wayfarers, be glad for a moment that crocs are a dying trend, and get the hell out there. Dom's sound has enough edge to satisfy the critics and enough energy to satisfy everyone else, but for what it's worth, this is the kind of album you don't have to think about for even a moment; sit back, sing a long, play it in the background, it doesn't matter. Just enjoy.
Though songs like "Burn Bridges" are lyrically about disconnection and similarly dreary topics, when juxtaposed against its glimmering synths and lighthearted nature, who cares? Half the time the message of the songs (if there even is one) is foregone for a feeling that's far removed from anything less than joyful, so as far as I'm concerned they may as well all be about sunshine and pitchers of sangria because that's the kind of mood they stir up. Likewise, the huge "Hey Bochicha!" chorus could be to drunken beach parties like "Kumbaya" is to lame summer camps and it's one of the most contagious things you'll hear in a long time, powered by the restless madness of the bands titular Christopher Owens soundalike vocalist. This is dirty lo-fi pop tailor-made for teenage summer debauchery and when the weather's warm and the sun's out, why not?
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.
