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10.31.06 A new MP3 this week, from axton kincaid, a Bay Area band comprised of country-loving locals (playing 11/12, the weekend after next, at the Rite Spot). This is a bootleg of sorts, a new track that the band's been playing live but hasn't released yet. I've had it for a while and really love it, but hadn't thought of posting it until it came on my iPod at the gym this morning. Not really your standard work-out fare, but I find this song so infectious that I have been listening to it all day since. The peddle-steel and the mandolin really shine here (sometimes they pull the band off course, but rarely) and turn the song into a kind of sweltering, foot-stomping joy. Except that, lyrically, it's a bittersweet song. The joy's all in the music. I'm posting this one almost entirely for David, but the rest of you are entitled to listen in as well. Check out Rearview. # Has anybody ever used one of these (link fixed, kinda) bluetooth enabled handset phones? You can connect them to your cellphone to make calls through your cellphone. It's a small difference, but I really hate using the cellphone around the house (comfortable in your pocket does not necessarily translate to comfortable while doing the dishes). The whole thing feels a little unnecessary, but I'm still curious. # 10.20.06 A few weeks ago, Nick and I went to see the french band Phoenix play at Slims here in San Francisco. I'd seen them at Coachella this year, but was underwhelmed. Something seemed amiss, or else I was just worn down by the heat. I heard later (but couldn't confirm) that the band had troubles with their keyboards and had to play without. But after the festival, I had more of a chance to get to know the band's latest album, and I totally fell for it. It's all simple melody and easy rock, but it's perfect mood music. And their show was great (this time). It's likely you already know something about this band, so I wont bore you with any efforts at analysis or backstory. Check out my favorite track on the new album (and from the response this garnered at the show, many other people's as well; it might even have been the single?) Sometimes In A Fall. # 10.16.06 These are really cute. I want to make some. # 10.12.06 Yes. Good. Thank you. # 10.06.06 Is this the new Decemberists album? What, exactly, has major labeldom wrought? Another quirky, great album full of upbeat, melodic music and quirky, melodramatic storytelling. And prog rock. That's what. (mp3 after the jump) The Decemberists, that charming indie group of literary music nerds who sing songs about captains and courtesans, signed last year to Capitol EMI. The Crane Wife is their first major label album, following the incredibly popular and incredibly approachable (and incredibly beautiful) Picaresque, the bands's swan song on their old label, Kill Rock Stars. The new album opens with a song called "The Crane Wife 3". It appears 8 tracks before "The Crane Wife 1 and 2", the 11 minute epic prequel. Very Decemberists. But then, wait, what is this? On track number two, the 12 minute epic called "The Island, Come And See, The Landlord's Daughter, You'll Not Feel The Drowning" (who came up with these names? Sufjan Stevens?) which I suspect may feature Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones in an uncredited cameo on keyboards. Seriously. It's long and it stinks of big early British metal. For 12 goddamn minutes. And yet, it's completely delightful and will feel familiar to any long-time fan. The album bounces back and forth, but manages to not feel too schizophrenic. After blowing it out a bit, they reels in their newfound love of bombastic classic rock until track 6 ("When The War Came"), in which the band does a rather unfortunate (and mostly unbearable) excursion into dark, moody, apocalyptic prog rock. Seriously. There are bread crumbs leading to this. The Tain EP (as Evan pointed out to me the other day) is a kind of rock opera that looks like a precursor to "The Island...". (Although The Tain does nothing to explain the origins of "When The War Came". But the rest of the album, almost every other track, shines with the same kind of wonderful, melodic sing-along that the band is known for. Laura Veirs guests on a handful of tracks, bringing her own off-kilter, endearing voice, which plays a perfect counter to singer Colin Meloy's off-kilter, endearing voice. Together, they perform some of the best songs on the album. There are other differences, besides the two rockadelic tracks. The band has made an obvious and impressive effort to mainstream their act a little, without dropping any of the storytelling, funky folk qualities they're known for. On "O Valencia", arguably the most recognizable track on the album, Meloy sings a classic Decemberists tale of starcrossed love. But, instead of a Romeo & Juliet story, this is a West Side Story. Not a single word suggests the story taking place any day but today. Look for this one to appear in the credits of next year's most heavily promoted independent movie about young lovers. It goes on and on. Each song has a mentionable, memorable moment. "The Perfect Crime 2" veers back towards the rock thing with some funky keyboards (I can't get "The Streets Of San Francisco" out of my head here). "Summersong" is good old Decemberists, accordion and all. And "Sons And Daughters" is a classic and well done album closer. It's a really good album. It's not as good as Picaresque ("The Engine Driver"? "On The Bus Mall"?) but neither does it feature any "Mariner's Revenge" songs. Picaresque was a band coming of age, hitting their peak, writing what might be their best album. The Crane Wife is a well orchestrated step away from the quirks that kept them out of the mainstream — one that most long-time fans wont find disingenuous. Sample: Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then) # 10.05.06 It would be easy to dismiss Beck's new album, The Information, as a rip or a rehash of his last album (Guero). It's not. There are similarities, but the biggest one is simply that this album is not: food-funk, acoustic heartstrings, space blues, or any of the other genre defying sounds that Beck has invented over the years. Guero, minus an interesting flirtation with a kind of urban latin sound and 8-bit bleeps, was not one of his breakthrough albums. Neither is this. But wait. Listen. Because it's still better. (mp3 after the jump) There's a pattern at work in Beck's album releases. It's spastic pop concoction, then heartfelt subtlety, then spastic pop concoction, heartfelt subtlety. We've been blessed to hear the heartfelt subtlety in the crafty hands of Nigel Godrich, who has produced most Radiohead albums and all of the better Travis records, among others. And he's good at it. The two seem to have a connection on this stuff, because Beck's not, by himself, an exception talent in the singer-songwriter category. On albums like Mutations or Sea Change, the greatest value of the album is in the production. The same is true of this album. The Information is not like the other Godrich produced albums in Beck's catalog. It's radio-friendly. For the most part, it's very "Beck-ish". There some acoustic strumming and thumping in there (see: "Nausea") and some beat and scratch (see: "We Dance Alone", "Motorcade") but almost as often we hear a deft intertwining of melody, natural percussion, and piano. All of it is backed up by the quiet background sound artifacts of modern craft-production. The percussion on the first half of the album will remind many people of Guero, but this album avoids the latin beats and 8-bit sounds that likely dominate impressions of that album. But what The Information has that Guero lacked was a completeness, a finish and polish to the sound. Many people (especially pitchfork) describe both recent albums as "Beck influenced". Beck imitating, or at least evolving, his back catalog. Not entirely untrue, but I think it's unfair to criticize an artist for learning from and building on what they've done in the past, so long as the end result is greater than the sum of it's parts. Both albums are. The Information even more so. With this album, Beck is perfecting how to sound like Beck. Sample: The Information # Bullshit meets bullshit. We still have the CA Supremes left to weigh in, but that doesn't change the fact that the ruling, and Schwarzenegger's veto, are bullshit. I will say this however: Assemblyman Leno's comments are partly wrong. He said, correctly, that the governor missed a historic opportunity, and that he "failed his test of leadership." But he also said that the guv "cannot claim to support fair and equal treatment for same-sex couples and veto the very bill that would have provided it to them." Not entirely correct and not entirely fair to Schwarzenegger. The guv said at the time he vetoed the bill that he would continue to support the domestic partnership laws currently in place. Those laws, which are some of the best in the country, are under near constant attack from conservative groups; protecting them is no small feat for a conservative governor, and should not be irrelevant to the GLBT community. It's not leadership, but it's also not heartlessness. It deserves at least not to be mocked, because the day may come when we need badly that support. # « September 2006 | archive index | November 2006 » built with movabletype |
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