This is the first track in the series that you can't download from Soundcloud, likely because it contains a sample of someone else's song. Not surprisingly, since it's at least partially built on someone else's completed work, it sounds very album-ready; this one could easily go as the third track on an EP as is.
6.2.15
It's been four years since Beirut's last album, The Rip Tide, but they are returning with a new record this year, No, No, No, and they have shared the title track:
My initial reaction was to dislike this song for reasons that my lizard brain could not articulate to my higher consciousness, but it quickly grew on me and after a couple of listens I have no idea what my inner reptile didn't like about it.
Reading comments on YouTube can be a dicey proposition, but it's usually pretty safe when it's a video for a lesser-known artist because the only people who watch and comment are people who already like the artist. And that's pretty much the case with the comments on this video, but I loved the final remark from someone who clearly loves the band: "On a side note, does anybody else feel like they're in a Wes Anderson movie?"
6.3.15
I really want to like Courtney Barnett'sSometimes I Sit and Think and Sometimes I Just Sit, but after a couple of listens, I don't really. There's still a chance it could grow on me, but something better click on the next listen or two or I might be done.
6.4.15 Titus Andronicus have shared another song from their upcoming double album, The Most Lamentable Tragedy, this one called "Fatal Flaw":
This doesn't feel very classic Titus Andronicus——it's got a very 70s pre-punk vibe——but I am pretty taken with this song, and I immeidatley like it better than the other song they've shared so far, "Dimed Out" (which is a pretty fine song itself).
I'm in a bit of a dilemma in regards to the band's upcoming tour. The only time I've seen them live is when they opened up for the Pogues at the 9:30 Club a few years ago, and they were amazing, one of the few times I've seen an opening act outshine a great performance by a headliner. But when they come to Atlanta this fall, they're playing at the Masquerade, a club I used to love but which I haven't been to recently because of the utter lack of parking (the only options are parking on the street in a very dicey neighborhood or parking in the parking lot of a grocery store that has a historical plaque designating it as——and I'm not kidding about this——the "Murder Kroger", where you not only run the risk of crime (the most recent murder in the parking lot was earlier this year) but also of having your car towed by an irate manager).
There used to be great parking at the Masquerade at an empty lot a block away from the venue, but that was turned into new condos last year, and since then there just hasn't been anywhere to park that doesn't require you to take a bus to the show. I'm hoping that when Ponce City Market opens up across the street they will have paid parking in the evenings that will enable me to return to this venue, but I don't know 1) if that will actually happen and 2) if it will happen in time for the Titus Andronicus show.
But I don't know how I can not see them——they are just too vital a band to miss.
6.15.15
With all my recent business and personal travel recently, I missed a week of Jens' Postcards series, so I'll review two at once. Here are "Postcard #23" and "Postcard #24":
"Postcard #23" is a nice quiet little acoustic track, but "Postcard #24" has a dreamlike musicbox quality that's quite endearing. This series continues to impress——if the second half of the year is as good as the first, he could easily do some quick polishing and get at least one decent album out of all these songs.
6.16.15 Beck recently shared a new track, "Dreams", which he says will be part of an otherwise-unannounced album:
This is funky and dance-y in a way that feels pretty sincere for Beck (whose early career was built largely on an ironic hipster approach to dance music), and that's the thing that impresses me most about it——not that it's an especially great dance punk track in the vein of bands like !!! and the Rapture, but it feels authentic in a way his posing on an album like Midnite Vultures did not.
At any rate, it's a nice change up from the maudlin, somber, and utterly boring album-long dirge that was his last album, Morning Phase. Who knows what the final album will sound like, but it's unlikely that he would nestle a track like this among a bunch of acoustic slow burners, which gives me some hope that we could get the more inventive, carefree Beck next time around.
6.22.15 Jens Lekman, "Postcard #25":
Short, sweet, pleasant, and easily forgettable. This would be rejected even as a the third or fourth track on an EP, but it's perfectly fine for this year-long experiment.
6.23.15
Recently switched from my 80s playlist to my 90s playlist. There's a little more swearing, and a greater chance of hearing hip hop or loud guitars, but it's surprising to me how much of it fits into the general "nostalgia" category like most of the 80s playlist does.
6.24.15
I got Hot Chip's new record, Why Make Sense?, a few weeks ago, and so far I like it pretty well. The first single, "Huarache Lights", might be my favorite Hot Chip song ever (it makes a great addition to a workout playlist), and "Love Is the Future" would be right up there if not for the unfortunate rap interlude in the middle. "Started Right" and "Dark Night" are two other standouts.
The title track (which is also the closing track) is a curious beast: it's hard to put it in the context of a dance track, it's got a compelling synthesizer piece that slowly builds in intensity until it crescendos and the song blossoms into something entirely other than it started out as. I didn't get it until the third or fourth listen, but it's a pretty beautiful sequence, and one that does exactly what a closing track is supposed to do——leave you hungry for more.
6.25.15 Desaparecidos' first album, Read Music, Speak Spanish, was one of my favorite records when it came out way back in 2002, so it's been a long time coming waiting for the follow up, the just-released Payola. Granted, this is the punk protest side project of Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst, who has released many, many records in the intervening years, but none of them with the urgency of Read Music.
So my expectations were pretty low——the first album always felt like a one-off project from a man with too many musical ideas to commit to any one band for too long, and it was as far outside the comfort zone of his core emo folk audience as anything he's done. Plus it was a young man's record, and 13 years later, Oberst can no longer be put in the category of young man himself.
So I'm pleasantly surprised that Payola not only on the same sonic and emotional continuum as the
first album, but that it sounds like it could have been recorded a year or two after, a natural progression in the catalog of an actual band.
It doesn't feel quite as vital
as Read Music, but that could be me——I'm no longer angry in the same way that I was 13 years ago, and although I'm still pretty anti-corporate, I'm not as strident about it (which begs the question: where exactly was this album, along with the non-existent follow up to Rage Against the Machine'sBattle of Los Angeles, back in the early 2000s, when they could have served as rallying points for voting youth in the 2004 elections?). Someone in her 20s right now might be inspired by this record in a way that I'm rarely capable of any more, even though who I was a little over a decade ago might have responded to it in 2004 the same way that I did to Read Music in 2002.
This album has been in the works for a few years, and there are a few dated references——the closing track in particular, "Anonymous", which takes the point of view of the hacker group Anonymous, would have been very cutting edge a few years ago, but is almost wincingly heavy-handed given their current awareness by pop culture. But that's an issue with any pointed political statement——a few years on, there are going to be some big misses if you're referencing specific events or people.
TL;DR: Payola is a good record, and won't disappoint if you're old enough to remember the first record with fondness.
6.26.15
I knew from the first 15 seconds I heard of Girlpool's "Ideal World", the opening track from Before the World Was Big, that they would either be a band that I absolutely loved or absolutely hated. Two female singers (neither of whom is a particularly great technical vocalist) with incredibly simple songs and a lo-fi recording approach would either hit one of my sweet spots or leave me completely repulsed.
It turns out that it's more of the former, although I'm not quite as head over heels in love with them as I might have expected. There are some really great songs on here——the title track is the one that really gets to me——and I definitely appreciate the minimalist approach, but some of the songs feel like they needed either more time or to be scrapped entirely for a better idea. But I end up returning to it over and over, and the playcounts I'm racking up speak for themselves.
6.29.15 Jens Lekman, "Postcard #26":
More robust and meatier than last week's track——I'm not sure if this could transition into a real album track, but this one could definitely work as a b-side.
We're officially halfway through the year, and I have to say, I'm impressed that 1) Jens has kept up his weekly song commitment so far
and 2) there are a lot of very listenable tracks.
6.30.15
I'm not sure if I was previously aware that Cloud Nothings and Wavves were working on an album together, but I'm excited about this pairing. It has the potential to be the Greatest Thing Ever——it's one of those crossovers that, if someone suggested it to you, you'd say, "Yeah, that could absolutely work."
I know it probably won't be the Greatest Thing Ever——previous pairings with this potential have often falling woefully short (see Joe Strummer producing the Pogues or Frank Black producing Art Brut), but every now and then something brilliant does come out of a collaboration like this (like St. Vincent's and David Byrne's work on Love This Giant or Damon Albarn and whoever he happens to be in the room with), so I've got my fingers crossed that it's more amazing than lame.
