Tuning Fork

Ben Harper & Relentless7

2009-01-14T23:58:00.002-05:00

It turns out that Ben Harper's new band is pretty badass. He is onto a new project with some very talented musicians. Relentless7 features Ben Harper on slide guitars and vocals, Jason Mozersky on lead guitars, Jesse Ingalls on bass and keys, and Jordan Richardson on drums. Apparently Ben has known these guys for a while, and he recently decided he wanted to do a 70's rock thing. I've seen several videos on YouTube already, and his shows at smaller clubs in the LA area have been selling out very quickly. If they come to your area, go see them. It's definitely a show you don't want to miss.

What a show. What a country

2007-03-13T20:33:00.000-04:00

So i went and saw KC and the Sunshine Band at Barnebys Bar and Grill on Sunday. They were just as good as i have always imagined, and i have spent a lot of time imagining it. Sure i would have liked to have seen KC as a beautiful 20 year old, but i will take the 58 year old man that was poured into a leather vest anyday. That voice, those legs, that receding hairline! He played all the hits, served up some deliciously spicy chicken wings and (i am not ashamed to say this) made sweet tender love to me afterwards in the male bathroom. You havent lived until you've had a 238 pound chunk of funk on top of you. Highly Recommended.

Hiatus Shmiatus for a Good Cause

2006-12-12T18:17:00.000-05:00

Callum Robbins, son of J. Robbins (Jawbox, Burning Airlines, Channels, plus a slew of producing and engineering credits) and Janet Morgan (Channels), is in need of your help.

Desoto Records is asking for donations to help J. and Janet fund treatments for their son's life threatening diseases. You can go to Desoto Records website to learn more and help out.

http://www.desotorecords.com/cal/index.shtml

For a year that started so awfully here in Richmond, it'll feel good to do something for some musicians and their family this holiday season.

A tail of Pickles

2006-11-21T20:40:00.000-05:00

“You will not touch my pickles!”

It had been a long day for Farmer Chockles. Earlier he was forced to assault Jermon with his pitchfork and now Clarint was trying to unlawfully steal his pickles
.
“Lay off you old Mackledam,” Clarint said as he stroked the pickle basket. “I ain’t trying to steal these pickles. I’m just going to borrow them and store them in my abdomen.”

Farmer Chockles’ temper was rising.

“You will do no such thing young man!” he exclaimed. “You think I don’t know about you? I seen how you look at my pickles. Your eyes all aglazed, hoping you can steal one to put in your pants.”

Clarint smiled a mischievous smile. “That’s right,” Farmer Chockles continued, “I know what young fellas do with pickles. But I’ll see none of that today!”

Clarint shrugged, pulled up his pants and walked off. Farmer Chockles placed the pickle back in the basket and walked back into his hut. The fire was burning inside, and the pot that sat over it was rapidly heating. Farmer Chockles pulled up a stool and started to cut pickle slices into the pot. He had spent all day out in the pickle fields and now he would have a rich reward of pickle stew. He so loved pickle stew. The secret was to use three full pickles, only four pinecones as opposed to the usual six and then add just a little bit of goat urine. Most prefer the traditional mixture of cow urine and squirrel semen, but not Farmer Chockles. All he needed was that goat urine and he was set. He was halfway through cutting the second pickle when Sabvert flew in through an open window and vomited into the pot.

“Sweet fucking mastodon!” Farmer Chockles exclaimed at the crow. “What the hell are you doing?”

Sabvert cocked his head. “Spices,” he said.

“What did you eat today?” Farmer Chockles asked suspiciously.

“ Spiders, honey, berries,” the bird said looking around the hut.

“Liar!” Farmer Chockles yelled as he threw down his knife. “ You had squirrel semen, didn’t you! Answer me!”

Sabvert flew over to the bed and began to clean his feathers. “Just a little bit” he said,” it was free. Laren the Patchy was having a spring-cleaning and he was giving it to anyone who wanted it.”

Farmer Chockles shook his head. “Well michy michy magoo,” he said. “If I offered to shit on your head for free, would you take that too?”

Sabvert stopped cleaning and looked up. “Are you offering?” he asked.

“Oh get out of here,” Farmer Chockles said as he sat back down and continued cutting.

“I ain’t leaving,” Sabvert said, “I wants some stew.”

“I thought you just ate,” Farmer Chockles said not looking up. “Isn’t your belly all full of squirrel semen?”

“Jekus, you sure are hung up on this whole squirrel semen thing aren’t you?” Sabvert said flying over to the window. “For your information, I only had a Dixie cup worth of the stuff.” And with that Sabvert flew off into the early evening sky.

Farmer Chockles continued making his stew.

Um....uh....wow

2006-10-02T14:53:00.000-04:00

Monkey see, monkey, well, do.

yeah, so thats disgusting.

And uncalled for.

Did i mention disgusting?

Despite all of that I totally agree with Pitchfork on this one. Jet is a horrible, horrible band. Monkey pissing bad? Yes. Yes they are. Why waste words on them? Well played PFM.

Extreme Nerd Challenge

2006-09-27T18:22:00.000-04:00

Happening right now at Viewingfork. Come see me in all my nerd glory. Honestly this is the kind of thing you can only do if you are secure in your geekness and don't mind admitting to things like you own Lord of the rings action figures, or your wife has a dress made out of a Star Wars sheet.

See if you can stump me. I doubt it.

TQT

SPECIAL BENEFIT - PLEASE READ

2006-09-21T13:51:00.000-04:00

Please donate at www.roguewavemusic.com and read below...

On September 30th 2006, San Francisco band Rogue Wave will host a benefit concert to raise money for their drummer Pat Spurgeon, who is in desperate need of a kidney transplant.

The benefit concert will feature performances by Rogue Wave, Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie,) Matthew Caws (Nada Surf,) Ryan Miller (Guster,) John Vanderslice, and other special guests. Daniel Handler (AKA Lemony Snickett) will MC the event.

Pat was born with one kidney and it failed. He had his first transplant in 1993, which served him well until now. After 13 years, it has started to deteriorate. He has been on dialysis since April and is hoping desperately to find a donor. Some of their friends have gotten tested to see if they are a match, but Pat has yet to hear good news. Provided he finds a donor, there will be an enormous amount of costs that both Pat and his donor will incur.

In a logical world, medical insurance would cover his donor's and his expenses after the procedure, but it does not; so he and his family must carry the financial burden. The expenses can be huge. We are trying to raise money for costs like: donor's travel, care, bills, lost work wages, etc., as well as Pat's expenses, care, bills, etc. while he is in recovery.

Remember?

2006-09-13T13:20:00.000-04:00

Remember the first time you saw Backstreet Boys on the cover of Rolling Stone and thought "they were irrelevent anyway, but this is ridicuous".

Remember when Spin started putting fakey emo-punk bands on every cover and you were left with 7 months on subsciption you should have canceled long before?

Well Pitchfork gave the new Justin Timberlake an 8.1. Why it didn't get 'Best New Music' is a question i cannot answer. The review reads even higher than an 8.1. I am gonna get slammed for being too narrow minded, but fuck it. I hate Timberlake. He is as manufactured a pop star as you can get. He was a mousekateer. He dates the vapid Cameron Diaz. His music sounds like it is made by the MJ 2000 MUSIC REPLICATOR. Why embrace this?

I am going to go listen to the new BPB to wash this taste from my mouth.

2 New Music Journal Entries...

2006-08-28T13:21:00.000-04:00

Can be found here.

xoxo
pitch perfect

It's my blog and I will post if I want to.

2006-08-24T12:10:00.000-04:00

Let's talk Junior Boys So This Is Goodbye.

Rumors have been piling up that this record rules. Have you heard it yet? It must be a slow year for dance music if this kind of record qualifies as one of the best of the year. Help me out people. I am hearing OMD, Pet Shop Boys, and electo-pop artists that labels Morr, Astralwerks, and Plug Research (to name just a few) having been releasing for years.

Don't mistake me, I am not hating on this record. In fact I really like "In the Morning" but in my top twenty or 30 of 2006? I don't think so. If I am going to wave the flag of best electronic record of the year in any direction, I am waving it for Clark's Body Riddle on Warp. Now that **** will blow your mind.

Anybody heard the new Squarepusher cd yet? Not that excited about that one ever but I have only really played it once so I won't give my thumbs down to it quite yet.

Mommy, Is There a Heaven for Blogs?

2006-08-22T16:30:00.000-04:00

Why Pitchperfect, why? I am so distraught.

Ok so not really. I work with Pitchperfect so our communication will not really be effected by the untimely demise of this site. But I will miss getting to read what she thought day to day. Damn could the lady write. I am constantly astounded by how much she put into this site, and while I will miss it I think it is best for her to slow down. I guess i could just call her and ask for an audio version of the site.

I think I got involved in the site when I got an e-mail from PP saying "hey, look what I did. Wanna write something?".

Of course I did.

No one had any idea what it would become. I think we are all very proud of what we contributed. Sometimes we acted as Pitchfork Errors and Omissions, sometimes we had to pointed out lazy or inept writing and sometimes we had to praise them for recognizing great music and sharing their passion in words.

I have never been the strongest reviewer on the site, because I find it very hard to put my feelings about music into words. Hopefully I haven't messed up too much. I always enjoyed doing the concert reviews and fiction stories more than anything. But trying to do reviews gives me a respect for my fellow writers and the good ones on Pitchfork who spend a lot of time thinking about these things and expressing their thoughts in such an organized manor.

So a couple things before I go: If you have not liked my writing, then congrats! You no longer have to deal with me. If you have enjoyed it please check out Viewingfork or Crapiown for plenty more of my thoughts on film and life in general.

If you have liked the indie rock adventure tales then I have good news for you. They are being collected in zine form (with illustrations by my lovely wife) and will be ready shortly. If you would like one free of charge please e-mail me at tuningdave@hotmail.com

Thanks to all the people who commented on what we wrote. Positive or negative it was all appreciated. Except that guy Anonymous. That guy was a dick.

TQT

Ta Ta For Now

2006-08-21T09:53:00.000-04:00

Late this past Saturday, I spent time with some friends in a very 21st century activity – sharing music on each other’s iPods. Each of us had an iPod and our host had one of those iPod boom box things. We stood around in his kitchen, drinking beer and swapping out iPods, each of us dialing up a favorite track for the others. Listening to Boris, The Cult, Clutch, Parts and Labor, Sybris and more, we stayed up way too late talking about music, which wound its way into other talk about drinking, pot and houses.

Now, I’m not pushing Apple. However, it struck me how remarkable it was that each of us had a large portion of his collection with him and we could pull songs instantly from them. In the past, I’ve been known to invite friends over for dinner, and then swap CDs or records in and out of my stereo, playing them songs while we drank. Now, we were standing around with shelves worth of music in our hands, picking out favorite songs with the ease of dialing a telephone while drinking a beer with a free hand. We were using new technology, a device less than five years old uses a file format just a little over a decade old, but still doing something that folks have done for decades – listen to and talk about music they love.

For over two decades, I’ve talked about music with friends, band mates, bartenders, fellow college radio DJs and co-workers. The best times that I’ve had talking about music have occasionally involved a drink or two, but always have been face to face – whether in a practice space, a record store, a club or in a car on the drive back from a show.

That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy reading about music and writing to other people about it. Shortly after I started using the Internet 12 years ago, I quickly found out about Usenet and the various music newsgroups. However, until Pitchperfect and I crossed paths last year, I never thought much about publishing those thoughts. I was content to be some guy talking about music to a few friends and fellow fanatics. The last few months have been nerve wracking and occasionally sleep depriving, but they’ve been something new that I’ve come to enjoy.

For all that we heckle Pitchfork Media, they’re far from devils. I’ve read them for at least four years and have many favorite records in my collection because of them. I believe that the writers who started it and most of their current writers love music. However, Pitchfork would do well to remember that more people are bypassing professional writers and going directly to other fans. That’s not to say that a journalist cannot speak to what’s great in music. However, it does mean that readers will quickly sniff out feigned ardor and faulty knowledge when it comes to music. Music fans don’t want style and attitude – they want knowledge and passion.

Like Pitch perfect, I’ll probably take a breather for a while until my paying job settles down. I’m very thankful to her for letting my words share some space alongside hers and I’m equally thankful to those of you who’ve dropped by and taken the time to read.

Over and Out

2006-08-17T19:06:00.000-04:00

My problem with Tuning Fork is it gives the impression that Pitchfork means something to me personally when in fact if I didn’t have to pay attention to it for my work I wouldn’t read it at all. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate them now nor have I ever. The truth is I am not (ironically enough) much of a computer person and I don’t really enjoy pursuing my passion for music via the internet. What I am trying to say here is I have had my fill of full time blogging no less about Pitchfork. This isn’t exactly a good-bye, think of it more like I have much much much better things to be doing with my time and this is my official declaration of independence.

I am uncertain as to what this blog will turn into but for now it will remain up and open for any of the writers to post on. This however is a promise: I personally will not be posting reviews of Pitchfork reviews anymore

Wha happened?

I miss me. I miss my free time; the days when I was a creative person that had nothing to do with a laptop or Pitchfork. I miss listening to a record and not wondering what PFM was going to say about it, especially since their opinions never mattered to me personally in the first place. I hate the fact that I can’t listen to a record without instantly beginning to translate the experience into the words. I started making my own record two years ago and not only have I not had the time to finish it but I realized rather recently that I haven’t written any new music since the inception of this silly website. Pathetic, right?

How did I get myself into this mess anyhow?

This whole blog began as a joke among friends about a year and a half ago and I can promise you it never crossed any of our minds the site would be discovered by others. Rather accidentally Tuning Fork took on a life of its own and before I knew it I was posting every day - no less spending 2-6 hours a day to keep it going. With thousands of readers each week I felt pressured to keep the ball rolling and for a time there, I was happy to do it. I have truly enjoyed aspects of blogging but I have better things to be doing with my spare time than policing Pitchfork. It’s really an incredible compliment that anybody cared about our site no less kept reading and I don’t know what is a bigger shock to me…the fact that our idea took off or that I didn’t come to my senses and stop it sooner, ha!

I want to thank my fellow Tuning Fork writers for their brilliant contributions and again I welcome them all to continue posting here to their hearts desire.

I want to thank you kind readers for making this experience completely gratifying and my friends in bands for gracefully handling the awkward experience of me talking about the music they make to strangers in blog form.

Thank you Mr. Perfect for all your patience and support. (And for sitting through hours of music you didn’t like only to have me add insult to injury by rambling on about them as I worked on and completed my reviews)

Lastly thanks to Pitchfork for tolerating (for the most part) our scrutiny and near daily ribbing. We may play for apposing teams using different techniques but clearly we share a love for the same sport.

In closing:

The amount of power Pitchfork wields in the music industry is disturbing; bordering on obnoxious. What has helped to create this forked media monster is a massive dedicated following and I am happy to announce today that I am no longer a part of it.

Over and Out,
Pitch Perfect

PS: You can keep track of me via last.fm.com here or feel free to drop me a line at tuningforkmedia@hotmail.com

Agoraphobic Nosebleed / PCP Torpedo / AnbRX / Rating: 6.0

2006-08-17T00:40:00.000-04:00

There are too many dumb lines in this PFM review to pick just one to quote as a hyperlink.

PFM says: “Like most revolutionary forces, Agoraphobic Nosebleed didn't last long.”

Okay so Agoraphobic Nosebleed’s impact on the reviewer’s life is what I can only assume was short lived here as A) this band has been together ever since 1994 and B) fans of extreme music still love the crap out of this band.

PFM says: “Once crowned kings of the ultra-fast sweepstakes, their grindcore made their competition extinct by breaking the genre's essential rule: They canned their drummer and turned over the bpm to a drum machine. The Locust, Charles Bronson, even Discordance Axis-- helmed by the fastest living drummer, Dave Witte-- couldn't keep up.”

Dave Witte is to blast-beat as Kevin Shields is to new-gaze; at least in this day and age of predictable music journalism. Anyhow, I didn’t really get this quote so I called up the drum master himself (Mr. Witte) to help walk me through this paragraph. We used to play in a band together years ago so really- it isn't a big deal to call the dude and ask.

Dave was never actually in A.N. It was talked about, the press ran with the rumor but it NEVER happened. Our best guess is this PFM line is a failed joke. Dave did however confirm a drum machine does indeed play faster than him but it’s okay because blast was so 1993…at least Pitchfork got that right...hehehehe. (and a new Municipal Waste record is being worked on as I type this. Fuck yeah and thanks Dave!)

PFM says: “Brainchild of Pig Destroyer's Scott Hull and the former Isis programmer J. Randall, Agoraphobic Nosebleed aren't hacks or comedians but dudes who know basic secrets like "if it's fast, it might rip," and "if we can write 17 three-second parts anytime we want, then why not put them all in the same song?"”

I love it when a writer assumes they know what a band is thinking when they write music.

PFM says: “If there is a joke here, it's how laughable the idea is of reissuing a suite of songs that are about half the total length any given song on Southern Lord.”

What the hell? Since when did Southern Lord become the metal ideal or the control in the 666 experiment? There are so many fucking metal labels out there that it is a genuine pity that Pitchfork only seems to recognize one of them. I know PFM has a hard on for all that is Southern Lord but come on. If Pitchfork is going to pretend to be a tastemaker on all levels, why be so behind the curve with metal? It’s shameful really.

PFM says: “Cue then the dubious decision by Hydra Head to include a second disc-- the drug-punning ANBRX-- of remixes of Agoraphobic originals by industrial noise types. Why bother? Agoraphobic's formal innovation, as far as they had one, was just that: mating industrial noise and pseudo-breaks played off a drum-machine with a not-so-dissimilar grind that was already getting both noisier and more techno. In effect, they were already remixing their metal tracks, just in first draft form. Why put amphetamine rock on amphetamines?”

Are you kidding me? Who does this writer think he is? A remix is just what the word implies and it applies to this genre as rightfully as any other. I don’t know what metal rule book PFM writer Zach Baron owns but it apparently is a closed book.

I would say the average of most of the reviews I read on line, including my own, works out to about a B grade. In number terms I guess that would equal a 7 but this isn’t my favorite brand of metal so while I can talk the talk and walk the walk, I am not wholly qualified to judge this kind of record.

At least I am willing to admit defeat rather than fake a review. Do yourself a favor and read these Agoraphobic Nosebleed reviews instead.

Final Fantasy / He Poos Clouds / Rating: 8.0

2006-08-16T06:12:00.000-04:00

“Pallett's combination of pop idiom and classical practice is fluid and natural; he sounds perfectly at home here, miles from the self-conscious "conceptual" way indie acts usually take up string quartets.”

My hero.

I have to respect a man who unabashedly is who he is; a gay video game enthusiast who was so interested in the 8 schools of magic found in D&D that he decided to base his enter new record (loosely) around that theme. Plus he is Canadian lad who sounds a little something like Charlie Brown if he played the violin, sang, and scored films for Alfred Hitchcock.

This sounds unbearably pretentious on the page but I swear to you Owen Pallett has mastered the dramatic flare of Rufus Wainwright along with the dizzying darting strings of composer and arranger Bernard Herrman. This isn’t a goofy kid record spoofing on epic soundtracks and far out themes; Owen’s songwriting skill has a foundation built on genius.

It feels shameful to call this just another great indie record. Owen knows how to do things like orchestrate an entire record strictly dedicated to a string quartet and voice. I mean what band(s) do you know who can not only complete something so gorgeous and accurately rooted in classical composition but no less support it with a larger than life concept of every day living through the eyes of a Dungeons and Dragons roll player.

Yeah!

I know these artists come from two totally different worlds but I am imagine a band like The Donna’s listening to this record and melting like a scene out of the Wizard of Oz due to the shock of music minus power chord formulas and entry level lyrics.

Not to drag this Oh my god I can’t believe this guy can play classical music no less write classical music (with spastic pop elements) really well but writing for a string quartet is something that relies on nearly expert skill to execute successfully. You don’t have to like twitchy chamber pop to appreciate the endangered species level of talent displayed on He Poos Clouds - which as far as titles goes straddles the fine line between best and worst name ever.

I’ve been trying to figure out why Pitchfork ignored the fanciful details behind this record but in the end I am glad to see we nearly meet eye to eye on rating this record. PFM says 8 and I will stand that 8 on its tippy-toes to give it an 8.5. What we have here is another record to enter my top ten of 2006; I am just sorry it took me so long to get to this review.

Jason Lytle - Hotel Cafe - 8/11

2006-08-14T17:50:00.000-04:00

The Onion recently reviewed the most recent (and last ever) Grandaddy album "Just Like the Fambly Cat and had this to say:

If ever a band begged for a greatest-hits collection, it's this one—strange, since Grandaddy albums are often marked with weird interludes and spaces that define their moods. But pack their best moments together—Fambly offers the weepy "Summer… It's Gone" and the bloopy, self-reflective "Elevate Myself" as candidates—and you'd have a stunner.

Well if you happen to catch the blink and you miss it solo Jason Lytle tour this is what you will get. I didn't even know this was happening, but thankfully I was clued in by a helpful friend. Lytle and a non Grandaddy friend pretty much did the best of Grandaddy in a stripped down, almost acoustic form. I say almost acoustic because there were some keyboards, a little drum machine action and some familiar Grandaddy effects. But it was all the "hits" in a concentrated form, and as a fan I have to say it was a delicious nerdy treat.

Everything was covered in the hour long set, from new songs (Summer it's gone) all the way back to the first EP (Levitz) to random tracks off Ep's (What Can't be Erased) and everything in between. I think Lytle knew he wouldn't be playing these songs again anytime soon, although I can't wait till the clamoring public calls for a reunion in 2023, so he cherry picked his and the audience's favorites. Listening to the songs this way made it seem for a second that the band could have been so much bigger than they ever were.

Of course Lytle has no stage presence to speak of and spent the whole set sitting in a chair, half way turned from the audience. He didn't look up and he didn't engage, but his voice sounded great and that's all I cared about. He did wear a trucker cap, but he wore one before it was cool and still has it now that it is out of style, so it was ok.

Side rant. I hate the Hotel Cafe. It is more of a bar than anything else, which isn't always a bad way to see a show, but this one is right between Sunset and Hollywood and the crowd it attracts kind of stinks. I was a hipster adrift in a sea of yuppies. Plus I haven't shaved my beard in a month so the guestlist guy looked at me like I was a crazy street person. And another thing! (I am starting to sound like my dad now): If there is a credit card minimum at the bar they need to post that info so I don't end up ordering without cash. I didn't want another beer dammit!

Ok that's enough of the grumpy old man portion. Like I said in my Grandaddy album review, I cannot be all that bummed that the band is no more, since it was more or less Lytle anyway. He will make more music for sure, but I doubt he will ever do a Grandaddy set again, so I was happy enough to have seen what was left of one of my favorites again. RIP sweet prince.

Nouvelle Vague / Bande a Part / Rating: 5.9

2006-08-14T10:21:00.001-04:00

“For a project built on contradictions, it's only fitting that Nouvelle Vague's most lasting work stems from its most forgotten inspirations.”

My French vocabulary has been shrinking since high school but on a recent Jean-Luc Godard movie binge via Netflix I learned several things. 1) Bande à part (also the title of the record in question) is a Godard film and is also considered one of his most accessible films. 2) Bande à part translated into English means a band of outsiders 3.) Le Nouvelle Vague (also the artist in question) is the name of French film movement Godard was a founding member of and when translated means The New Wave. 4) I don’t care much for Godard films; no matter how much he has influenced modern cinema. ( Tarantino, Scorsese, Hartley, and Jarmusch to name a few)

I have spent my adult years obsessing on music not film so I had to do a bit of research to follow up on just how the band Nouvelle Vague related to the film movement. It also seemed like naming themselves after a particular film seemed like an obvious place to explore as well. Finally because I typically have zero interest in cover bands, part of me is fascinated by those artists who are drawn into the challenge of trying on another artist’s song size. The answers to these questions quite accidentally created the review of this record at the same and also covers territory that Pitchfork neglected to cover.

Your fun fact number one: Bossa Nova (a form of music NV relied heavily on for their first release) roughly also translates into new wave. New wave is a word play repeat offender here and seemingly is both the band’s main focus and purpose.

“Godard’s genius was to manipulate the tried-and-true tools of moviemaking into a fresh syntax.” and “It’s unlikely a Godard film will ever lead you to heartbreak or tears, but it will invigorate your love of movies.”

Nouvelle Vague take familiar songs and reshape them into something new and never heard before but like much like Godard’s films, the idea often outweighs the final product. Like any experiment there are also bound to be successes and failures. I could have happily lived without hearing any Billy Idol or U2 covers in my lifetime and while I don’t regret these versions exist, I (gulp) would still rather hear the originals. I thought I would be saying this about the entire cd but their renditions of "The Killing Moon", "Ever Fallen in Love", and "Human Fly" are all clever and surprisingly sophisticated.

A review of the movie on popmatters.com revealed even more parallels between the movie and band.

“Band of Outsiders is one such reinvention, a playful reworking of narrative form.”… At the same time, the movie offers a highbrow gloss on its lowbrow origins”… “With such loving images, Band of Outsiders shows that Godard's ostensible "destructiveness" is, more emphatically, a gift of creation. Its fragmentation and experimentation maintain a kind of wholeness, not by conventional linearity and causality, but by an emotional thread. In other words, Godard has made a new cinema out of pieces of the old.”

The above quotes in relation to the film sum up the idea of this record eloquently and exactly. The problem is and I repeat: this kind of deconstructive behavior does not guarantee a film or song to be greater than the concept itself.

The below quote about the theme of the record comes from founding member Marc Collin and is taken from their band bio.

“I then had the idea to set these songs in a very different dimension, namely the Caribbean between 1940 and 1970. Just as on the first album I'd imagined a young Brazilian girl singing "Love Will Tear Us Apart" on a Rio beach in the '60s, this time I envisaged a young Jamaican with his acoustic guitar singing "Heart of Glass" in his Kingston township suburb.”

This kind of cute idea worked well enough in The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (Brazilian Seu Jorge taking on Bowie with just an acoustic guitar) but 14 new wave tracks whipped into fluffy reggae-lite audio meringue leaves the listener hoping for something less cotton candy and a little more rock candy AKA solid. This island vibe often gets washed away and left behind are plain old lounge versions of songs that I am certain any half way decent composer/arranger could toss together in a few days for a television commercial using any girl with the capability of singing breathy baby talk.

Okay …so how did particular grouping of material come together no less with the Jamaican flavor?

“In certain cases I dug the production idea of the original title (like the voodoo sounds and horror movie organ on Bauhaus' "Bela Lugosi's Dead"). Sometimes I started a biographical anecdote (I read that an early version of Blondie's "Heart Of Glass" was essayed in a Reggae style). Others, like the Buzzcocks' cover, were introduced to the set by (singers) Melanie and Camille during our 2004 tour.

I was also thinking about the loop which was being created during the period when most of this music first appeared - the influence of Jamaican music on English post punk (manifesting in the Clash and PiL most obviously, but also in the work of the Slits, Mark Stewart and so on...). It's interesting to note how successfully these titles adapt to reggae-based rearrangements."

All of this in print form is fine until you hear the chorus on their version of "Bela Lugosi’s Dead" which distractingly features a female vocalist repeating Bela La-Goosey’s Dead. The word goose-y for me in such a dark song turns it instantly into accidental comedy and something I am sure Nouvelle Vague was not aiming for.

Admittedly, no matter how interesting all these factoids are as footnotes to the music, it is still the music that should earn a high or low rating. Concepts aside, the music is very hit or miss and for Nouvelle Vague’s sophmore release, more miss than hit. The concrete foundation of a theme never hardens into something solid and sadly by the last track the floppy structures topples into a mess of island instrumentation and voices as delicate as a lazy tropical breeze. My rating isn’t too different from PFM’s but for what it is worth, I would have opted for a slightly higher 6.5.

Envelopes to tour U.S. with Ratatat

2006-08-11T13:33:00.000-04:00

I think I am one of about 10 people in the States who worship Envelopes but I am going to post their tour dates anyhow.

Upcoming Shows:

Sep 5 2006
8:00P
Bowery Ballroom
New York City, NY

Sep 6 2006
8:00P
The Middle East/ Downstairs
Boston, MA

Sep 7 2006
8:00P
Les Saints
montreal

Sep 8 2006
8:00P
Lee's Palace
Toronto

Sep 9 2006
8:00P
Blind Pig
ann arbor, MI

Sep 10 2006
8:00P
five star bar (RATATAT DJ SET)
chicago, IL

Sep 11 2006
8:00P
empty bottle
chicago, IL

Sep 12 2006
8:00P
7th st. entry
minneapolis, MN

Sep 15 2006
8:00P
el corazon
seattle, WA

Sep 16 2006
8:00P
berbatis pan
portland, OR

Sep 18 2006
8:00P
Great American Music Hall
San Fransisco, CA

Sep 20 2006
8:00P
Troubador
Los Angeles, CA

Sep 23 2006
8:00P
Glass House
Pomona, CA

Sep 24 2006
8:00P
Casbah
San Diego, CA

Sep 25 2006
8:00P
Rhythm Room
Phoenix, AZ

Sep 27 2006
8:00P
gypsy tea room
dallas, TX

Sep 28 2006
8:00P
emo's
austin, TX

Sep 29 2006
8:00P
TBA
Houston, TX

Sep 30 2006
8:00P
The Republic
New Orleans, LA

Oct 2 2006
8:00P
The Earl
Atlanta, GA

Oct 3 2006
8:00P
Local 506
Chapel Hill, NC

Oct 4 2006
8:00P
Black Cat
Washington D.C., DC

Oct 5 2006
8:00P
The Khyber
Philadelphia , PA

Oct 6 2006
8:00P
The Guggenheim Museum
New York, NY

Oct 7 2006
8:00P
Alfred University
Alfred, NY

Junior Boys / So This Is Goodbye / Rating: 9.0

2006-08-11T09:03:00.000-04:00

“Just their second full-length overall, So This Is Goodbye isn't just an improbable notch above 2004's Last Exit-- it's also among the best records you'll hear all year.”

Sorry but unless you get your hands on a promo or do that naughty file sharing thing, you will have to wait until September 12, 2006 (US and UK 9/11) to decide if this is one of the best records you heard all year.

You can wait a month, can’t you?

While a 9.0 Pitchfork rating for any band or record label is the stuff indie dreams are made of, I can tell you it is considered a bum deal in the music industry to have such a rave review happen so far away for the album’s street date... no less a nearly perfect score from the world’s most popular and powerful music publication.

Positive press is great and all but it sucks (from an industry point of view) when people can’t buy the record anytime soon.

This PFM review (as far as I can tell) isn’t matching any import cd street date which has been Pitchfork’s reasoning and excuse in the past for running a review of a cd that isn’t out in the States. They have the right to jump the gun and hype a record before the rest of my music publication / blog world does but it will most certainly raise frustration levels when readers discover they have to wait a month to check it out.

Sure 4 weeks isn’t that long but think of what can happen in a month? Considering the political climate of the world right now; anything goes.

In the meantime:

DOWNLOAD: In The Morning MP3

VISIT: JuniorBoys.net

VISIT: MySpace.com/JuniorBoys

Adventures in Indie Rock: Issue 5

2006-08-10T23:33:00.000-04:00

Stockholm Vice

Another bullet flew past Jose’s head, but he didn’t even flinch.

He had had been shot at too many times to lose his cool now.

Crouched against the filthy tenement hallway he calmly re-loaded his pistol, gave it a kiss for good luck and returned fire. He was one of the best shots in the department and sure enough one of the bullets found its target and Jose heard a body slump onto the ground. Getting up he rounded the corner and saw Paco Jones laying dead, a bullet hole in his temple. Jose laughed in a gentle sort of way.

“Serves you right Paco,” he said to the dead man. He reached into Jones’s pocket, removed his wallet and slipped it into the side of his trench coat. He kicked the corpse once for good measure.

“You don’t fuck with Jose Gonzalez,” he said walking out, middle finger extended in the air.

+++

Jose was known throughout the city for three things: An unwavering allegiance to law and order, a fiery hot tempter with an itchy trigger finger to match and of course his dreamlike melodies and masterful guitar strumming.

This evening Jose was finally one step from catching up with the elusive criminal mastermind known as ‘The King’. Paco Jones had been one of his top henchmen and now he was dead. It was the break Jose had been waiting for.

He swung the door of his coup open and hopped in.

“Dispatch,” he said into the police radio, “This is Detective Gonzalez, badge number 5445423. Put me through to Captain DeBusse.” A moment later the captain came one the line. He was angry.

“Dammit Gonzalez! Where have you been?” the voice blared through the speaker.

“I got Jones,” Jose said.”

The voice on the radio paused. “Did he give it up?”

“He said a few things before he went for his gun,” Jose said taking Paco’s wallet out of his pocket and flipping through it.

“Jesus Christ Gonzalez, you need to stop shooting people!”

Jose just smiled. “Jones was nothing,” he said, “but I think we are closer than ever.”

“What did he tell you?” the Captain was getting impatient.

“Behind the scenes they grow their schemes. Hiding intentions, revealing only fractions.”

The voice exploded out the radio. “Godammit Gonzalez! How many times have I told you to not speak to me lyrically!”

Jose didn’t even hear him. In the wallet was a business card. ‘Glambek-Boe Imports. Dock 42, Suite 19’. This was it. The final piece of the puzzle. It all made sense now: The drugs flooding the streets, the crime wave, the influx of electronic elements into traditionally staid folk music.

“Captain I gotta go,” Jose said starting the car.

"What the hell are you talking about? Go where?”

"I know who the King is and where he is.”

“Where? Tell me. You’ll need backup! Don’t go in alone. I repeat do not go in alone!”

Jose sneered. “No backup Captain. This is between me and him.”

He turned off the radio over the vocal objections of Debusse. Next stop: The docks

+++

The docks were deserted, except for a cluster of Volkswagens parked near dock 42. Gonzalez parked out of sight and then made his way in silence and shadows to the window of suite 19. Peering in he obsevered a number of men milling about.

In one part of the office was a stack of synthesizers and tons of discarded old vinyl. In the other half were giant piles of cocaine being cut by small children in lederhosen. But it was the center of the room that drew Jose’s attention. A group of broad shouldered henchmen were standing around a man Jose knew all to well: ‘The King’. He seemed to be talking fast, relating some asinine story perhaps. He was pole thin and tall, his hair the color of strawberries. To the untrained eye you would think him a quiet reserved type.

You would be dead wrong.

Jose made up his mind immediately.Bursting through the door he opened fire, and with his usual accuracy felled all the henchmen with disabling shots to the knees. The King stood alone.

“We meet at last King,” Jose said aiming his pistol at the man. “Or should I just call you Erland.”

Erland Oye looked very annoyed. “Jesus,”he said, “what is your problem?”

“I hate drugs and I hate crime,” Jose almost spat at Oye. “And I really hate people taking the music I love and added unnecessary effects. You are the problem, and I am the solution.”

“Ugh,” Erland said putting his hands to his hips. “Spare me. Your threats are as clichéd as the whispery vocals on your last album.”

“Either way this ends here, once and for all.” Jose said cocking his gun.

But all in a flash he felt the gun fly from his hands and a hand grab him from behind. Just before he lost consciousness he saw the flash of a man with a beak and heard faintly dancy music from afar. That is when it all went black.

When he awoke he was in a hospital bed, Debusse standing by the side.

“What happened?” Jose asked. “Where is Oye?”

“He got away,” Debusse said. “You may have gotten through his first line of defense, but you didn’t take into account his most dangerous assassins.” Debusse handed him a note. “We found this at the scene.

” Jose’s eyes scanned the paper. Everything was written in duplicate, as if one hand had written over the other.

JG – do not think that you can defeat us. We are powerful. We are smart. We are very popular for no discernable reason. You are warned.

-THE KNIFE

Jose crumbled the paper in his hand. “Now its personal.”

Matthew Friedberger / Winter Women/Holy Ghost Language School / Rating: 5.0

2006-08-10T00:37:00.000-04:00

“Winter Women and Holy Ghost Language, with their more narrow aims, each represent only a fraction of that whole, and as such may provide Furnaces haters with more ammunition than their defenders.”

Dear Mr. Friedberger,

I am begging you to take your one dimensional diarrhea of the mouth and creative Tourette Syndrome and defile some other industry for a year or two. Theater? Publishing? Television? Film? Talk radio? Spammer? Anything but music please. In fact until you get over your experimental ramble rock opera phase, the kind of spewed nonsense that never reaches a climax or goes anywhere, please spare us another record period.

If your music was a phone conversation I would hang up. If your music was sitting next to me on a bus I would move my seat. If your music was a car I would crash it so it could never be driven again.

We didn’t need one new record from you no less a double disc and since there are two discs I give them a total of a 2.0 rating.

Please God please make it stop.

Your friend,
Pitch Perfect

Radio Free Chicago verse Pitchfork

2006-08-09T14:26:00.000-04:00

A kind reader (thank you sir!) passed this Radio Free Chicago link along to me today and in turn I am sharing with you all.

I give you clash of the Chi-town media titans round one.

At Last!

2006-08-09T09:10:00.000-04:00

Two weeks later my laptop and I are reunited again...reunited and it feels so good. Not only do I have a working computer again but the true miracle is nearly all my files (music et all) have been restored.

Let the steady posting begin again! (tomorrow),
Pitchy McP

Psapp / The Only Thing I Ever Wanted / Rating: 7.0

2006-08-08T08:58:00.000-04:00

“The drab sound is a shame considering the well-constructed songs and Galia Durant's emerging strength as a vocalist.”

PFM writer Mark Richardson spent a good half of his review energy talking about Psapp’s production value. I appreciate this angle as I am a firm believer that even the best songs in the world can be killed by a bad engineer or mixing job but what is wrong with this record in my humble opinion has nothing to do with the laptop aspect of making a record at all. In this case it is the old fashioned story of there can be too much of a good thing. The good thing being all the endless hammering of samples and children’s toys squeaking, creaking, talking, honking and plonking.

There might be “well constructed songs” buried in there somewhere but it’s impossible to tell when every single tune is buried under something that sounds like Willy Wonka running over a clown car. After sitting though al 11 tracks I wish this cd came with a bottle of ibuprofen.

The Only Thing I Ever Wanted starts innocently enough with the familiar backdrop of rhythmic plinking, this time by something that sounds like water bouncing off something made of glass. Per Psapp's norm it is all set to exotic time signatures and then decorated by feminine, often sad velvet melodies. Galia Durant's spectacular Lolita like voice is the lighthouse that leads this band towards something memorable and it is an absolute crime to have a heavy blanket of distracting sounds extinguishing her potency and charm. This noisy elf workshop attacking a songstress would be forgivable had it been a one time only situation but the elves never put down there tools for the duration of most of the record. (A brief respite from tracks 9 -11)

PFM points the finger of blame towards the “laptop pop” for their lack of dynamic range but I blame whoever thought every song needed to be bedazzled with a billion cute little sounds. Leave the computer out of it Pitchfork. This is a composer’s faux pas and a song arranger’s worst case scenario.

I get it. I really do. Especially after seeing them live a few months ago with all their adorable props and admiration for the feline species. The juxtaposition of childlike innocence performed with children’s toys tip toeing into adult themed songs played by grown ups using more tradition instruments like guitar and strings makes for an unusual and clever tit for tat.

Part woman - part child, both personalities are well represented but instead of these two sides working in harmony, the glitchy clickety clacks of God knows what turns the delicate dance that is Psapp’s songwriting into something that sounds more like a cuckoo clock wrestling a cashiers register to death. Their first record was a much more successful balance of sounds so I know it is possible for Psapp to find their balance, they just didn’t land on their feet for this one. The vocals are there but darn it the rest of it isn’t and that can’t be worth a 7.0 rating, I am going down to a 5.5.

PS: Do see Psapp live. All the dynamics and depth missing on this record are made up for when they take the stage as a full group. Fear not, all kindergarten props are present and they look pretty darn adorable when held up to the mic to perform, even if maybe it is a little creepy coming from a stage littered with adults.

Khlyst

2006-08-07T16:30:00.000-04:00

I've been waiting for Runhild Gammelsæter (the legendary female doom singer of Thorrs Hammer) to work on music again and it looks like her new project Khlyst (and her only recording since her guest appearance on Sunno)))'s record) will be released in September or October.

Here is a taste of the upcoming record she is making with James of Khanate for Hydra Head Records. I don't think there has ever been a more sinister and challenging male/female duo than Khlyst.

And yes, that really is a woman singing/screaming/growling.

Sigur Rós Sæglópur's gain extra numbers, tilde, and letters

2006-08-07T11:49:00.000-04:00

PFM Says:

Sigur RÃ³sS
SÃ¦glÃ³pur EP
[The Worker's Institute; 2006]
Rating: 5.7

I have no idea how a major publication such as Pitchfork would allow this kind of text glitch to remain on their site...no les the front page... for more than a few minutes. I am not sure when they update they site, 8AM or 9AM(?) but nearly three hours later it still reads as I posted above.

Weird.

The Futureheads / News & Tributes / Rating: 7.7

2006-08-07T02:51:00.000-04:00

“News & Tributes is a satisfying record, nooked and crannied with asymmetry and surprise detours, and marred by only one truly shitty song.”

Yes/No. (And what do you know, this also happens to be the name of the first track of the record in question.)

Ultimately I am satisfied with The Futureheads’ display of post puberty songwriting that showcases undeniable maturity and Jack and the Bean Sprout growth but while I wouldn’t call any one song strictly shit, I would have liked to see the fat of 16 tracks (50+ minutes) trimmed down quite a bit.

Playing music God in my iTunes format, my perfect News and Tributes would be 10 songs / 28+ minutes. It’s not that I have a crap attention span but songs 9-12 aren’t nearly as memorable as the other half of the record and this lull creates the façade of a second rate follow up which I will firmly say N and T is not.

I know… who the hell am I to reshape a full length by a band I am not in no less after they have clearly spent time building the track listing to something they, their producer or label consider just right but regardless of their vision, I have my own as a fan too.

My version:

1) Yes/No. This smart little intro further proves these boys really care about how their full lengths flow and their songs are strung together.
2) Cope. The sonic 4 part harmony resembles a jumbo jet’s horn, I mean if they had one)
3) Fallout. Not a favorite but this track is the Golden Gate bridge of tracks lying handsomely between and ever so importantly linking song 2 to song 4. Even bands like The Beatles have this kind of set up number.
4) Skip To The End. A fine follow up single to Area which includes a youthful energy that reminds me of a game of patty cake interpreted through snare drum rim hit clicks and grade school playground teasing reflected in their chorus of Naaa NaNaNaNaNA NaNa.
5) Burnt. I wonder if Andy Partridge appreciates a good XTC tribute as much as I do?
6) News and Tributes. This is where it is so easy to compare The Futureheads to an artist like Elvis Costello who came out of the shoot raising a punk rock ruckus in the 70’s and evolved into a complex songwriter- careening all over the musical map in the decades to follow. This is also not my favorite song but it is the title track and for trivia sake is named after a 1958 headline from a British paper when a plane carrying the Manchester United F.C. football team + journalists, fans, and staff crashed in Munich during a blizzard. "News and Tributes" pays homage to the lives lost in the plane crash.
7 ) Back to the Sea. This brings me back to the C-86 / Grebo world of bands.
8) Area. This is as good as any of the best songs off of their debut.
9) Help Us Out. This begs to be on a mix either before or after English Beat. I would suggest "Mirror in the Bathroom" though my better half says anything by Devo.
10) The Return Of The Berserker. PFM might call this names but I call it a perfect way to end with a holler and bang.

____________________________________________________________________

Give me a week on and off from Tuning Fork and I go soft. I will be honest and confess that thanks to a friend’s art opening and running into friends / the fellas from the band Doomriders, I am drunk and probably shouldn’t be posting but I need to wrap this piece up. This means my writing skills from here on out are a mess and I am not really proofreading anything. Hooray for the casual world of blogs.

Back to The Futureheads…

The Pitchfork 7.7 review is fair so there won’t be an argument from me there in the slightest and I am not just saying that because I am seeing 4 of my computer screens right now and want to go to bed.

My focus may be garbled at this late hour but the basic point is there aren’t very many new bands whose career I look forward to following. Ideally I want another two decades of music from The Futureheads because keeping track of talented people is so much more rewarding than investing your musical faith in the average. (AKA 90% of the new music out there)

All l I ask is that the band work on their lyrics and once that happens I think we have a classic/ timeless act on our hands.

Wait... is your computer spinning too?

Monday Monday

2006-08-03T13:09:00.000-04:00

Word on the street is I will get my computer back on Monday so hopefully this means I will be able to post reviews on a more regular basis again.

Thanks for your patience and thank you TFM staff for covering so nicely for me during my time of need!

Your Pal,
P to the P

Stirring the Pot

2006-08-02T21:49:00.000-04:00

Today PMF posted a news story about Linda Kay , an ancient ex-member of the band Lifetime (who also happens to be a topless waitress) getting charged with improper disposition of human remains....or as they put it "hoarding human remains"

Okay it is a crazy story, I will admit that but PFM reported the details in a way that doesn't really speak the truth of the story. Its more like they twisted the information to sound more severe than it actually is. Come on Pitchfork, you aren't the National Enquirer so why go for that kind of trumped up reporting.

The real story as reported ABC news is this:

"According to the police report, officers responding Friday, July 21, 2006, to a report of a suicidal person at the home of Kay discovered a large, crudely severed human hand in a glass mason jar of formaldehyde on the dresser of Kay's basement bedroom. While the subject of the initial phone call was not located in the home, authorities found six skulls in an upstairs room. "

It goes on to say:

"Friends say the hand, whom Kay nicknamed "Freddy," was a gift from a medical student who frequented the all-nude juice bar where Kay dances. Kay's mother told The Star-Ledger of Newark she believed the skulls were bought from a mail-order catalog. "

Now that doesn't sound nearly as tabloid serial killer does it? Anybody who has friends into macabre shit (goth and metal people I am looking in your direction) know that their are plenty of people in this world who collect skulls, animal bones, circus sideshow things in jars...and the likes. Sorry but that isn't really news to me.

What is more surprising to me is this "it's a felony in New Jersey to disturb, move or conceal human remains. " I know this law sounds very common sense and who would want that in their home anyhow but there are actually places on line to buy human skulls and bones on line and it's legal. It isn't my scene but I actually didn't know owning that kind of material in certain states was illegal. Items that began as science tools don't always end up in classrooms but then again, a hand in a jar is certainly a different story and it makes perfect sense that this woman in under investigation. But you have to admit, as grim as this is, the hand being dubbed "Freddy" brings black comedy to a whole new level.

I'm not trying to defend this girl. I don't know her at all and maybe she is into some horrible and possibly illegal stuff that should legitimately lead to a conviction but all I can think of is how many collectors of morbid material in N.J. are redecorating their homes right now to avoid similar charges.

An Albatross/ Blessphemy (of the Peace-Beast Feastgiver and the Bear-Warp Kumite)/5.6

2006-08-01T22:30:00.000-04:00

when it comes to this hyperbolic spaz-metal stuff, nothing's too new or shocking

It didn’t take me half way through Moerder’s review before it began to ring false. For one thing, there are way too many pseudo-genres in the review. Spaz-metal? Spazcore? Nintendocore? I can’t find any of these on Allmusic.com. Hell, I can barely find them on Google outside of a few message boards. And the band references – Gwar, Fantomas and System of a Down – are nowhere near. There are enough recent touch points for An Albatross - Parts & Labor, Neon Blonde – as well as classic ones – The Boredoms, Naked City – that there’s no need to stretch. (System of a Down?) If there had been some better RIYL’s or even comparisons or some actual genres that didn’t include the word “spaz,” I’d be a little more sold on the review. I guess Moerder listened to the CD, but it would have been nice if the reviewer appeared at least sympathetic to Blessphemy’s musical objectives, if not a little more familiar with similar artists.

Blessphemy is twenty-seven minutes of lockstep playing that veers from progressive rock to metal to noise to hardcore channeling a combination of elation and torment through instrumental and vocal noise. However, where the ferocity of the playing gives the illusion of chaos, there is a tremendous amount of deliberation went into the CD. The individual tracks are sequenced in a steady ebb and flow of noise that keep the CD from descending into noisy monotony. The band’s playing is wickedly airtight – the “noise” they creates an endless stream of notes and snare explosions flying at the listener like a swarm of hornets.

An Albatross’s music isn’t for most listeners. Edward Geida’s vocals are particularly difficult to assimilate. However, if you listen to the songs carefully, Geida’s shrieks are another instrument on top of the rolling keyboards and Ziploc tight drums and guitars. Nonetheless, a half hour is a hefty dose of An Albatross’s onslaught. Folks who crave the aural battery of bands like Lightning Bolt will drink up Blessphemy. For fans of frantic, controlled cacophony, I’d give it a 7.0. However, Blessphemy is not for the faint of heart nor is it an ideal starting point for starting into noisier, experimental rock.

¡Forward, Russia! / Give Me a Wall / Rating: 6.2

2006-08-01T13:44:00.000-04:00

“Give Me a Wall gives many clues but few definitive answers about where Forward Russia! are heading-- but the important thing for now is that they keep on moving.”

Oops. The actual name of this band is ¡Forward, Russia!. Pitchfork forgot the first upside down exclamation point.

Secondly this record doesn’t come out in U.S. until Sept 19th on Mute. Please take note that this is a review of the import.

Thirdly we have been through this so many times over the past year and a half. No review needs over 5 references to other bands no less 10.

New Kids On the Block (in fairness this is used as a wordplay tool not a RIYL)
Bloc Party
Orange Juice
At The Drive-In
Refused
“Heart of Glass”, - code for Blondie
Robert Smith
“Kele Okerke” – Bloc Party singer had it been spelled right.
Julian Cope
Wilderness’ James Johnson

Next - You need to correctly spell the name of the band member you are referencing. The correct spelling is Okereke. Hopefully by the time I post this, this will have been fixed on PFM. I know I fuck up all the time on TFM but I also don’t have an editor and we are just a little hobby blog.

Lastly, I was just thinking about timelines the other day. When I discovered Pavement in 1990 I don’t think I knew much about The Velvet Underground, The Fall, or Sonic Youth’s early material. To my green ears I had never heard anything like this band before and I didn’t care if they weren’t the ones who invented that sound. They were my starting point and while eventually I discovered how and where their sound fell in the bigger picture, I still don’t regret my initial worship of Pavement. We all have to start somewhere and I think as a record nerd and writer (and I use writer in the loosest sense of the word) it is easy to forget the innocence of being young and new to music. To somebody out there ¡Forward, Russia! will be their starting point and who they sound like is totally irrelevant. Especially with bands in this general genre that appeals to mostly the under 30 set, the fact that a band might sound like 20 others doesn’t mean much. Especially for hardcore / emo kids it is more about scenes and finding unknown bands before everyone else and claiming them for yourself. Sorry to stereotype but there is something about the 14-25 age group that likes to feel part of a movement. The bitter jaded thing can set in early but it usually takes a good 5 to 10 years in that kind of scene before all the “new” bands actually sound like something you have heard a 100 times before.

If I wasn’t approaching my mid 30’s and wasn’t having Shudder to Think / ATDI flashbacks I am pretty certain I would be sleeping with this record under my pillow and rating it an even 8.0. But alas I am old, admittedly jaded, and giving the record a 7.5 because while I am not impressed, I am willing to bet my 16 year old intern and all her friends will be. There is a community of kids who aren’t interested in knowing who a band may or may not be influence by and truthfully all they should care about is that they like it. I miss those innocent years so the least I can say is enjoy them while you can.

Know Thy Enemy

2006-07-31T23:04:00.000-04:00

Hello there,

This is Pitch Perfect checking in and letting you know I am still in computers are not my friend mode and still without my usual computer. Seriously people what is the point of downloading music when A) it often sounds like crap and B) your entire collection can be wiped out in a flash by a system crash? I was just telling Ghostbeard earlier today that the music industry should be running scare tactic TV and radio campaigns reminding people that CDs and LPs are forever while mp3s are more like a hit and run. Maybe external hardrive companies could cash in on this too?

I know this isn’t a review of a PFM review but the below list is chock-full of items I think are worth checking out or waiting for. Consider this my official what’s hot list for the summer of 2006.

later skaters,
pitchy p

* If Colbert’s speech at the White House press dinner was available as a record it would be my number one hit of the year. I am building a shrine to the man in my home as we speak.

* Chantal Goya – an ep of material from Jean-Luc Godard’s Masculin Feminin. I am a French pop junkie and these tracks are top notch!

* New project for Erlend Oye - The Whitest Boy Alive

* Looking Forward to new music by Joanna Newsom in November and Yo La Tengo in September. What started as a weak year for new music took a serious turn for the better at the mid-year point.

* Final Fantasy - R-rated Charlie Brown meets Hitchcock score

* The White Birch – Come Up for Air – Glitterhouse. One of my top 5 favorite records of the year!!!!!!

* Chris Herbert – Mezzotint – Kranky. I have no idea why I like this actually. Soundscape journies usually bore me to tears but this study of white noise and static keeps me on the edge of my seat. Think jet planes humming a melody you can't quite make out over a bad phone connection to a lawn mower.

* Eye Hate God reissues - I have loved this part Melvins part Born Against band since I was in high school!

* Helen Love - Found an LP used in Chapel Hill

* Chapterhouse – Whirlpool - Classic.

* Hell Preachers Inc. – Supreme Psychedelic Underground - LP – wah wah records – I limit myself to once a month searches on Forced Exposure because I could easily spend a whole paycheck in just 10 minutes browsing time.

* Lucio Battisti – Amore E Non Amore – Water - The Caetano Veloso of Italy.

* Plocky’s Louisiana Peppa Red Beans ‘N Rice Tortilla Chips - Hot sauce + just like the name implies: Rice and Red Beans tortilla chips. Gods gift to snacks.

* The Science Of Sleep : A brand new Michel Gondry film.

* Au Revoir Simone – Versus of Comfort, Assurance, and Salvation hand screened and self released(?) cd. A darling all girl (3 to be exact) Fisher-Price version of Stereolab and I mean that as a genuine compliment. Thank you Other Music for picking this out for me!

* Darker My Love – S/T – Dangerbird records - Former Distillers and Nerve Agents members create something for Telescopes/Psychic Ills/Dedicated Records fans

* Chad VanGaalen - Skelliconnection - Sub Pop - And I thought I loved his last record. A modern day Roy Orbison with hints of Lou Barlow, this hasn't left my car stereo in a week straight. (and still counting)

* I think I might be the only person not excited about Grizzly Bear’s new record Yellow House on Warp. It sounds like a more orchestrated Animal Collective 45 played at 33 but with better harmonies. I’m not a fan but I am certain most of the indie community will name this a best of 2006 contender.

Film School Loses Drummer and Bass Player

2006-07-31T10:15:00.000-04:00

I don't think this story has been reported on much ....taken from their MySpace blog:

"Film School status

Hi it's Krayg.

As some of you have noticed Justin (bass) and Donny (drums) have moved on. We're sad to see them go, but we also want everyone to know Film School is continuing on and is already in the process or working on the next record to be released on Beggars Banquet, date TBA.

Just to give a little history, over the years it hasn't been unusual for Film School to switch up members for each recording. Each release has had a slightly different lineup of musicians. We're excited about the upcoming record, the songs already being written and the special guest appearance from other bands.

In light of the current changes and the fact that we've been touring the world since October we've decided to move on to the next record and cancel the fall tour with Serena Maneesh. But, ... DEFINITELY GO SEE THIS BAND! This is one of my favorite bands right now and they put on a great live show. You will not be disappointed.

Thanks so much for your support and love this past year! It's been very appreciated.
Krayg

James Figurine / Mistake Mistake Mistake Mistake / Rating 5.2

2006-07-31T00:12:00.000-04:00

“Tamborello attempts to craft historically informed techno while recoiling from its unforgiving nudity, dressing it up in a variety of garish, mismatched costumes.”

Mistake 1: Oh Jimmy Strictly Ballroom DNTEL Postal Service (James) Figurine Tamborello (full name I think), shame on you for entitling a record that cruel music snobs like me could use against you in a review. Mistake X 4 is simply just asking for it.

Mistake 2: The press story might be (and as PFM retells) an ode to minimal techno but the lyrics dribbled out on most of these tracks spell out relationship troubles for the artist. These casual monologues using lingo normally shared between people who are friends really only works if the listener is a friend and well…gives a fuck. Sorry but a grown up (who I know is intelligent and clever normally) singing about cell phone pictures, text messages, charm bracelets, and driving out of town after a breakup teary eyed listening to a mixcd is something I would maybe expect from R Kelly or Kelly Clarkson but not this typically pseudo intellectual indietronic gentleman.

Mistake to the power of 4 would be a damn fine record had it been kept instrumental. The words should have been used for a good-bye letter to his ex rather than flashing us innocent bystanders via inarticulate song. Note to all artists: If you are not going to keep your personal sentiments to yourself (live journal / blog is okay too) or the person they are directed towards, at the very least try to make your thoughts a little more abstract and captivating. You know… something vaguely poetic. Anything that shows you care about lyrics and the vocals as much as you do about your meticulous electronic backdrop.

Mistake 3: I am not trying to be insensitive but it also sounds like Jimmy has been so focused on working out / flexing his glitchy electronic muscle that the talent once owned by the post hardcore emo kid who used to know how to write a good vocal pop numbers has diminished slightly. It makes sense, if you don’t practice something regularly it is very likely your skills or muscles in that area will soften.

If he wanted to write a genuine tribute to the artists on Kompakt why not focus on just that and leave the he said-she said in the dim den. (As described in the first track “5556668883”)

Mistake 4. PFM says: “Nuanced stasis proves a stretch for Tamborello's maximalist sensibility, and most of the tracks sound exactly like what they are: An apprentice's overwrought take on the stark, sublime depths of Isolée and Luomo, overloaded with guest vocals and concessions to hyperbole.”

I am not sure why Jimmy who has yet another vocal record in the works (not quite finished yet) via DNTEL decided he needed vocals on this record when clearly they didn’t need to be there...no less for the most part by a guy who doesn’t have a particularly interesting twist on the woes of dating. Sure there are well known guests who also share songwriting responsibilities and vocal duties on this record but they don’t add any new or tantalizing depth to the music itself. In fact you get so used to following the heartbreak bouncing ball it’s a tad interfering with the theme to have Erlend singing about digging holes in the yard for his Dad.

The problem with any collaborate effort is how to keep the entire record sounding cohesive and one solid unit and I am afraid James Figurine did not rise above this inherit team effort flaw.
Unlike Pitchfork I don’t have issues with the music itself. I like this bouncier pop version of streamlined micro-house and had it been vocal free I would have been willing to rate this a 7 something but with its mistakes x4 I am forced to give it rate an even 6.

PS: Besides the electronic canvas, I do like Jimmy T’s soft spoken singing/spoken voice (hence the higher rating than PFM)…just not the slang and half thought out hooks he muddies up his sentiments with.

Just Doing My Rock and Roll Duty...

2006-07-28T17:18:00.000-04:00

Hey music fans...

It's hot where I am. I am tired. I have nothing really long and elaborate to write. But given the death of our fearless leaders laptop I feel I must keep up my end of things here. So with that... some thoughts for you to ponder over the weekend.

As the lovely Pitchy P pointed out, a lot of us got together for the first annual Tuningfork convention earlier this month. Conversation ranged from "why mistakenly making out with a girls eye in a dark room thinking it's her mouth won't get you a second date", "should we hunt down and punish the next person to refer to Loveless in a review", and most importantly "what album did you lose your virginity to?"

Actually let's make that last point interactive. All comments welcome. I'll get the ball rolling. Me = first Suicide record. You want to talk about not getting second dates... apparently girls think you're really fucked when going for it while singing along to Frankie Teardrop. "Oh yeah, baby, that's it.... Frankie put a gun to his head... yeah, baby right there...". You get the picture. Girl had a mo-hawk and Crass shirt, so I don't know what she was all uptight about. Perhaps long passionate foreplay to "Christ : The Album" was more her thing...

Speaking of Suicide. I worked with someone on an album recently who told me he got into Suicide when he was really young because he was a big Aldo Nova fan (what, he had big fans!), and someone told him Alan Vega & Aldo Nova were the same people. Awesome. I work with a guy who has a shirt that says "Life Is Just A Fantasy, Can You Live This Fantasy Life". Why does Aldo Nova keep coming up in conversation.

I was a big fan of Ted Nugent's "Wild Hunting Adventure" show on OLN a few years back. What wasn't to love? Ted takes some kids hunting and then roasts the kill while rocking out on Wang Bang Sweet Poontang on the acoustic guitar while sitting fireside. His line of beef jerky launched at the same time ruled. Without a trace of homo-erotic irony he was up on that buffalo on the packaging exclaiming "I test ride all my meat!". That leads me to recommending and endorsing the Nuge's new show "Ted Or Alive" (also on OLN) where Ted takes him some city slickers out to the ranch and runs them through the paces. Man, the Nuge. What an idiot. But so entertaining.

Anyone ever see the Styx behind the music where Ted is burning on Dennis DeYoung being to soft and then they cut to the clip of Damn Yankees "Can You Take Me Higher"? Yeah, Ted, "Babe" is for pussies, but Damn Yankees... they were tough as fuck. I mean how can anything involving members of Night Ranger not be... and can you still Rock In America? Remember in that episode when Dennis DeYoung is talking about developing light sensitivity partially due to rehearsing a musical adaptation of The Hunchback Of Notre Dame with Liza Minelli? What the fuck... did that ever happen?

Rock stars. Awesome.

SuperNova? Really? Like shit guys, how low can you go? I attended a live taping of a special on Voivod this week to launch their new record 'Katorz'. Jason Newstead... I'm sorry... Jasonic, called in for an interview. The best part of interview...'Working with Voivod was night and day to Metallica. They listened to me, they respected me, they liked my ideas, we got along great...". Geez, rough gig with Lars and the boys. But how's life with Gilby Clarke, and Tommy Lee in the mansion. I'm sorry but when I look at you all I can think is "fuck". Hands up everyone who rates that as their favorite line from "Some Kind Of Monster".

I saw Slayer a few weeks ago. They set up their Marshall stacks in 10 amp by 5 amp upside down crosses. Hot.
Children Of Bodom opened. Their singer had the best metal banter ever. An amazing grasp of all rock cliches. It led me to wonder what it would be like not growing up with English as a first language and being in some Scandinavian country with my only reference for English being on like Iron Maiden's 'Live After Death' record. And then you start a band and every night say "SCREAM FOR ME LONG BEACH" without realizing that Long Beach is a place. That's sort of how this dude came off... but it was highly entertaining. And a relief after being disappointed that Mastodon's set sounded like mud.

New Voivod album. Pretty damn good.

Getting a promo of The Best Of Cheap Trick seemed like a good way to start the day... but then the reality hit that it doesn't really rock as hard as I remembered 20 years ago.

Wouldn't it be awesome if John Carpenters "The Fog" was remade every year, but each year something different came out of the Fog. I mean shit, anything is better then Pirates... Pirates John...? 90 minutes later you give me pirates? Fucking Poltergeist was scarier dude.

Anyone else notice that new Wayans Brothers film "Little Man" is actually a plot line from a Flintstones episode.... seriously.

Okay then. How's that for 10 minutes of first thing that comes to mind writing. Wait, that's the shit that comes to my mind first. I'm feeling fear.

Hot Chip/The Warning/Rating:8.1

2006-07-28T07:39:00.000-04:00

"The Warning is propulsion and power and punctuation rolled up into one, abandoning a lot of the graceful, delicate melodies of the debut for songs with more wallop. It was a necessary move-- a step forward-- and the results are mostly golden."

When you work retail the content of the store's cd changer is no small matter. At times it is your final defense in the lines of war with a brainless mob of American Shop-a-holic mediocrity trained somehow subliminally from birth to expect far too much and demand far more from a mere daytime/nighttime hawker of such and such a product. It's a wearying task of emotional acrobatics to pull a smile and a pleasant greeting out of your embittered shell of an existence for every mind vacuum with a mullet that makes that front door go ding just when you have finally recovered from the last stream of questions issued from the larger hole in the head of another PFC in the army of seekers with no intention to buy. In retail land the crashing wave of attack is unending and the war is never won. Morale gets low. The troops grow despondent and ineffectual. "On les aura!" starts to sound more like "screw this job, I can't wait to get home and cook up some candy in my meth lab, err.. damn I've already signed my name for one package of Sudafed this week..." It's low times like this that the parrumpapump of the little tin drummer boy squashed into the black box marked Sony becomes the necessary call to arms, the way to triumph, girding up the will and boosting the old esprit de corps where it was waning so very thin.
(True, unless of course you work corporate retail in which case you will certainly learn to hate music on the whole, having spent months of your life hearing the same volume of Verve Remixed with that endlessly plonking version of "Sinner Man" and whatever drippy Coldplay gem has oozed it's way into the hearts and minds of America via a Volkswagen commercial. Yeah in that case, you're pretty much a strip mall POW. Our hearts and prayers are with you. Learn to like the taste of rat and the thrill of Russian Roulette).
Well it was at that very moment of desperation several weeks ago that it came to my ears like an artillery barrage from allied forces. Emanating from the four stereoed corners of the store came sweetly the battle cry: "Hot Chip will break your legs, Snap off your head."
Yes, customer, yes I will do that. If only in my silent thoughts.
I'm not sure how this disc ended up in the work player but thankful, indeed, I was. I must admit that music associated with the work environment is not always met with instant approval and usually I will summarily reject new material with no further reasoning simply because it came to me while working. Hot Chip's The Warning, however, I could not discard according to this rule, no matter how hard I tried. The beats are too infectious, the silly percussive flourishes too novel, and the vocals just too darned comfy not to warrant at least a few selections entering the sanctum ipodium of the Top 25 Most Played playlist. The vast majority of the songs on this album sound like a group of underappreciated witty geeks with great record collections getting together and having some underappreciated witty geeks with great record collection fun with their guitars, pots, pans, whirly-gigs and um, microkorgs. According to the live videos I've peeked on YouTube, this isn't far from reality. It's amusing if somewhat quirky pop that, despite its numerous points of reference, actually sounds fresh and somewhat intelligent in a swelling market of wannabe tongue-in-cheeky retread dance shite that hasn't ceased to plague since Electric Six invited us all to the gay bar to start a fire or something. Haters.

Moment of Clarity: So yeah, I'm pretty much agreeing with the 'forkers here. The record is good and a well played departure from previous material. There are a few missteps but nothing quite worthy of serious admonition... wait no, the beat on "Careful" is unforgivably heinous and after the first listening finds itself permanently in the "ugh, I hate having to skip track one" club... but, yeah, otherwise good. As for numerical reviewing lets stick with a solid figure 8, shall we.

Oh the Horror. (Haaaw-rahhh for you Jersey types)

2006-07-27T15:08:00.000-04:00

Well gang my hardrive is kappppoooootttttt and it is going to be another week before I find out for sure what, if anything, can be recovered. I will try to post when I can but it might still be a little shakey for the first half of next week.

Also would the winner of the Lovel Feathers cd please email me. In the crash I lost your mailing addy and still have this cd looking for a nice place to call home.

This also means my mixed cd is off the trade market since it was stored in my computer and at least half the tracks were things I transfered from LPs and 7"ers and only had saved in my computer. Sigh.

So it goes,
Pitch Perfect

The Pipettes/The Pipettes/Rating: 8.4

2006-07-26T22:30:00.000-04:00

Last week I thought about posting a preemptive review that guessed what Pitchfork's rating on the Pipettes would be. I had a feeling it was going to be in the 8 range, though it's not a very strong album top to bottom and deserves something lower.

And then it came in yesterday: An 8.4.

Why would this album get such a high rating? There's nothing new about it, that's for sure. In fact, the Pipettes are decades late to the genre they've decided to take up. And they really borrow heavily from their chosen genre. Is being so unoriginal worthy of such high praise?

Oh....well this sentence explained it very well.

"It's a welcome reclamation of indie pop as the work of bright kids with more ideas than money at a time when the genre's reigning kings, Belle and Sebastian and the Decemberists, are embracing theater-sized, 1970s-aping rock."

I'm sorry, but when did the two above bands start sounding like Yes and E.L.P.? There's nothing wrong with sounding like those bands -- even though B&S and the Decemberists have nothing in common with the type of '70s rock that has got a bad reputation over the years.

Anybody who read the Sound Team review knows that certain reference points are good and some are off limits.

And why is it ripping off Yes is so bad, but ripping off the Shangri-Las is OK?

"That the Pipettes are doing Shangri-La's impersonations on stage is almost a moot point. The necessity and charm of the Pipettes could have just as easily manifested itself had they framed their approach around replicating any other dormant indie pop totem."

Oh, there it is. Because the Shangri-Las represent an acceptable "indie pop totem" and prog rock -- and that kind of bloated '70s rock thing that B&S is supposedly doing now -- does not. At least to young music critics who have been force fed a belief that any technically challenging song is to be termed "self-indulgent." Mine the correct vaults and you will be praised by Pitchfork. Mine the wrong vaults and you're a waste of time. This isn't just opinion. Any band that takes a prog route is, in Pitchfork's mind, standing on the wrong side of history.

So why they 8.4 rating? Plagenhoef puts more value on ripping off '60s girl bands than he does '70s bands. Which is a crazy premise, to say one genre of music is inherantly better than another. Then again, could you imagine if Pitchfork started giving props to Yes, or Gentle Giant? Could you imagine if they had the same hard on over Soft Machine that they do for Can? What if Pitchfork enlarged its pile of Cool Albums And Genres That Are To Be The Blueprint For All Hip New Music?

Dare to dream. But their record collections are just too small, their body of knowledge too thin, their self-awareness too high. Certain records will remain high upon their Pitchfork pedestals, and any group that imitates them will be complemented.

Then again, if Jeff Magnum says he's a big Yes fan then Pitchfork will change its tune in a heartbeat.

And you know what? If his album were released on an American major, it would have got a 5.2 because Plagenhoef would have gone into it looking for a bone to pick. The Pipettes enjoyed a Memphis Industries handicap of probably 1.5 points, I'd have to say.

Computers are stupid and lazy.

2006-07-26T11:47:00.000-04:00

Apparently, Pitchperfect's computer ate something that it shouldn't have and is now misbehaving terribly. Things may be a little slow here at TFM until either her notebook gets fixed or our valiant cadre of contributors dive into our CD piles and scribble up something brilliant.

So in hommage to Linda Richman, "Tawk amongst yourselves… I’ll give you a topic...The Pipettes debut LP is neither 'Best' nor 'New' Music. Discuss."

Björk / Surrounded / Rating: 5.9

2006-07-25T22:29:00.000-04:00

"It would have been faster just to burn my money."

It's true. It is all very true.

I know way too much about Björk so normally it is very hard for me to read any review and not pick it apart but Pitchfork got this one very right. In fact this is the first Björk release that actually makes me a little angry. Is it too much to ask for at least one brand new never heard before track? Something, anything fresh beyond the packaging and remastered versions?

Damn you Icelandic woman- have you gone mad? Money hungry? What is your reasoning behind all this?

I haven't read any interviews or articles explaining just why Surrounded needed to happen, no less smack in the middle of 2006 when not only is she still very much alive but certainly still making new music and miles from a serious gift giving season. I am assuming this box set will still be around for the holidays (which to me would have been a more appropriate time to release this in the first place) but this heat of the summer street date makes me wonder if the box is limited and if so, to how many. I couldn't find that info on line anywhere so maybe one of you kind readers knows the answer?

To put it mildly I am Björk fanatic and have been collecting her work obsessively since her Sugarcubes days. Once upon a time I was willing to purchase all of the hundreds of singles/dvds/ full lengths. I collected them in numerous formats and in multiple versions thanks to pressings from all over the world but a few years ago I finally got fed up and put an end to the madness. A new release a month (maybe not exactly but it certainly has felt like that) was / is plain overkill. Not only is it financially impossible for me to show that kind of support but who the hell has the time and energy to keep track of her massive ever expanding catalog?

Not only am I too broke right now to splurge on this box set but I also own this most of this material already. Oh and I also don't have Dolby 5.1. Don't get me wrong, if Santa left it under the tree this year I wouldn't complain but it is simply not in my budget any time soon nor do I expect to be upgrading my stereo system in the near future either. Besides there is already Bose 6.1 channel surround sound floating around out there so this collection is technically already outdated.

And just how many people listen to their cds in their dvd players anyhow?

It's not professional of me or very fair to rate a cd collection I don't own / have decided to boycott so I won't insult it / you with a number rating. Passing on this title as a mega-fan I think speaks louder than any rating in print form possibly could. Ultimately it is an artist's choice to do whatever the hell they want with their music but looking at the under 800 units (ouch) Surrounded has sold since its release nearly a month ago also leads me to believe that most of her public isn't buying what she is trying to sell...at least this time around.

There is surprisingly little information beyond the basic sale info about Surrounded on line but I do find these Amazon comments rather illuminating. I know I shouldn't be that surprised but it was still disturbing to discover that even this all inclusive box set varies depending on the country it comes from. (Insert wild cursing here.)

According to her MySpace site, Björk is working on a new record right now so we can expect a flurry of new titles to ponder purchasing but at least it won't be any time soon.

Be Your Own Pet/Be Your Own Pet/8.2

2006-07-25T00:06:00.000-04:00

No, what BYOP does isn't exactly the most original thing in the world-- watch out for rampant Yeah Yeah Yeahs comparison-- but they do it with a flair and panache and enthusiasm that belies their youth.

Less Indie, more Rock.

That’s what’s crossed my mind at least a half dozen time listening to some recent CDs these past few weeks. I don’t want clever musical reference to Balkan folk music and Ian McCulloch. I don’t want analog modeled synth lines layered over a sample from a Brazilian pop record. This summer, I crave Rock – guitars, bass, drums and discontent.

Be Your Own Pet have provided me with relief for that craving so far this summer. There are no clever musical allusions, no winking nostalgia – just a singer, a bassist, a guitarist and a drummer playing straight ahead rock. Be Your Own Pet are following an old formula, as ancient and revered as Eddie Cochran, Iggy Pop, Joey Ramone and Feargal Sharkey. It’s also a formula as timeless and satisfying as the ones for bread, beer and barbeque. In terms of polish, the second half of the record has more developed songs – “We Will Vacation”, “October, First Account” and “Love Your Shotgun” show more polish than “Wildcat” or “Thresher’s Flail” earlier on the CD. Other songs like “Fuuuuun” and “Bicycle, Bicycle” survive on the band’s inexhaustible energy and youthful recklessness. I seldom say “Motherfucker” as an expression of joy – Pearl seems ecstatic blurting it out in the chorus of “Bunk Trunk Skunk.”

While there may not be much new to Be Your Own Pet’s songs, I especially liked the production on the record. The band’s exuberance come through clearly without being left too glossy. Fishing around online, I found a Popmatters interview with Be Your Own Pet where the band talked about their producer Steve McDonald of Redd Kross. BYOP spent three weeks in a Nashville studio recording with Steve McDonald (and engineer Jeremy Ferguson). According to Pearl, McDonald kept the band’s energy intact, coaxing them, encouraging them and guiding them through each song. To me, there’s something very right about Be Your Own Pet’s debut being ushered onto tape by a founding member of Redd Kross.

Redd Kross was a teen punk band before the members of Be Your Own Pet were born. On their debut LP, the main members of Redd Kross were even younger than Be Your Own Pet; Steve McDonald was only 14 and his big brother Jeff was 18. Redd Kross went on to explore various genres of garage rock and according to some critics were a predecessor of grunge. In the nineties, Steve McDonald and his brother produced the Donnas’ Get Skintight – another album of snotty, unabashed basic Rock.

If you listen to Redd Kross’s Born Innocent, there’s all the same ingredients as Be Your Own, but with rougher musicianship, more brazen lyrics and an average track length as short as Be Your Own Pet’s. “Self Respect” clocks in at seventeen seconds less than Be Your Own Pet’s “Get Sandy”. “St. Lita Ford Blues” is more raucous and cacophonous than anything on BYOP’s debut. Jeff McDonald’s songwriting is more direct that BYOP’s. However, both bands share the same energy, passion and naivete. They’re kids making Rock that captures what it’s like to feel like a teenager – not in words, but in the performance itself.

I started playing in a band late in my teens, buying a used guitar and amp the summer that I graduated from high school. Plugging in my 50-watt amp and just turning it up to three, I could make a sound loud enough to feel in my bones even when playing clean. Three friends and I spent that summer in a garage with the door up – making lousy music with only the quality of being loud; you could hear us at least three blocks away in our drummer’s subdivision. While we went our separate ways at the end of that summer, those memories of being sweaty and loud stay with me. Perspiration and volume are still cherished qualities in music to me, and bands like Redd Kross and Be Your Own Pet have them in bucketfuls.

The rating on the Pitchfork review didn't bother me too much. However, it would have been nice to see one review that didn't compare BYOP to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. There's too long a line of teens making raucous primal Rock that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs need to be the touchstone for this band. I'm not even very comfortable slapping a number on Be Your Own Pet; a band just coming out of high school doesn't need one more grade. I'll just say that I think this record is wicked rad - kkthnx.

Listening to Be Your Own Pet, you can come to one of two conclusions – they’re not doing anything new or they’re continuing a long line of teen Rock that goes back to Ritchie Valens. You don’t need to have a large record collection to find bands that have done the same thing before. However, all record fans started out with a handful of cherished albums – each one representing hours spend at some dead-end job. And I suspect that anyone whose played in any band has experienced that rush of being young and loud with your friends around you, discovering that you can make those sounds you love, sounds that you’ve heard others make, sounds coming from your own hands, fingers, throats and lips. Be Your Own Pet are still discovering the sounds they can make and it’s a wonderful thing to witness.

BTW, if you don’t know Redd Kross and want to witness them in their teenage glory, you can catch this video of them on YouTube as a starter.

Flaming Lips, Thievery Corporation, Os Mutantes - Hollywood Bowl 7/23

2006-07-24T15:43:00.000-04:00

I kid you not, it was 116 degrees where I live yesterday afternoon. I put my vinyl and my cats in front of a fan and prayed both would not melt. So going to an open aired venue at night seemed a bit risky, as in thousands of sweaty people in contained space risky, but it all worked out. Still its weird when 90 degrees feels like a cool down.

Ok so first thing I have to say about this show, other than I missed Mutantes due to some will-call shenanigans, is that I failed to consider one thing while attending: massive amounts of pot smoke. I don't know why this didn't occur to me given the line up and venue, but there was literally a cloud overhead. I don't smoke pot, and am not a real fan of the "aroma" so that was kind of lame. But honestly I should have known better, so no one to blame but myself.

Thievery Corporation was, well, Thievery Corporation. I have never minded the band, especially as something to have on in the background while at work, but I can not see how people are passionate about this band. It is downtempo, unobjectionable psuedo-world music. Neither here nor there. But as mentioned above there was a lot of pot going around so the crown loved them. Lots of aging hipsters working up a tremendous sweat. Wayne from the Lips joined them for their last song and as soon as he started singing I though 'uh oh'. His voice sounded horrible. I mean shredded vocal chords bad. I had noticed that the vocals on the new album were different, and figured he was changing things up, but now I am wondering if he seriously had ruined his voice before the album. It was that bad.

(Sidebar: Pacey from Dawson's Creek was sitting by us. Our seats were not good which led to this conversation.

Wife: Geez, couldn't he get better seats?
Me: What was the last thing you saw him in?
{Pause}
Wife: good point)

The Lips actual performance was good, if not really short. Headliners at the Bowl can go over two hours, but the Lips were gone after no more than an hour, maybe an hour fifteen. It was announced the show was being filmed for a live DVD, and the band was constantly asking the crowd to be louder or more active. That's no fun. It was like going to a Dodger came and having the scoreboard tell you to cheer. I was going to a concert, not attenting a taping of Letterman. Please don't prompt me.

The set was 60% new album, 39% Yoshimi, and one Soft Bulletin song thrown in. Expected, but i wish they had thrown some older stuff in. Wayne's voice got a little better as the night went on, but never sounded great. I would not be surprised if when the DVD comes out they lay better vocals over the whole thing.

As usual they had the dancers in Santa outfits, Martians, the giant screen, Wayne in a giant bubble; the usual Flaming Lips concert experience. Hilariously they handed out about 30,000 glow sticks to people before the show. Perhaps concerned that they would be thrown around the entire time, Wayne goaded the audience into throwing them forward at a particular point.

Thanks Wayne. Those fuckers hurt when they hit you in the back of your head. Plus the move backfired as instead of throwing them on the stage people just threw them in every direction for the rest of the show. I must say it was pretty fun to see a billion of them flying through the night.

Overall a good show, even if I felt a little short changed by the band pandering to the DVD audience instead of the crowd that paid to see them. At this point the Lips are showmen more than anything and they gave me what i expected: a warped broadway revue with better tunes.

The Worst Confirmed

2006-07-24T15:01:00.000-04:00

Oh yeah. If my computer was any sicker I would shoot it to put it out of its misery. It looks like I will be sans laptop for about a week so my posts are likely to suffer to because of it. More accuratley, you will be hearing from me a little less than normal.

This also means I am sending out a TFM distress signal in the sky to the Tuning Fork staff or any folks who want to guest post over the next 7 days. I could most certainly use your collective help.

Thanks and again...SORRY!

Pitch Perfect

This just in: Lead Singer Victoria Bergsman Leaves The Concretes

2006-07-24T09:46:00.000-04:00

The official word is:

"The Concretes have announced that lead singer Victoria Bergsman is departing the band to pursue a solo career. The band performed without Bergsman at last weekend's Summercase Festival in Spain but have cancelled their forthcoming V Festival appearances in the UK next month, as well as performances at the Hultsfred, Popoganda and Storsjoyran Festivals in Sweden. They apologise to fans who were hoping to see them perform together at these events and will have more news on the future of the band very soon.

Victoria Bergsman was an original member of the The Concretes, forming the band with Lisa Milberg (drums / vocals) and Maria Eriksson (guitar / vocals) in Stockholm in 1995. Since that time the band have released two albums, the eponymous debut from 2004 featuring the singles "You Can't Hurry Love", "Say Something New" and "Warm Night"; and this year's "In Colour". The Concretes' performance of recent single "On The Radio" on the last series of the Jonathan Ross TV Show is the last time the band will have played together prior to Bergsman's departure. "

Technical Difficulties

2006-07-23T21:53:00.000-04:00

Hey gang,

Not sure when a proper review type post will happen as I am having massive computer issues AKA it might need to be sent in for repairs. As of right now, it ain't looking good.

SorrySorrySorry,
Pitch Perfect

Oneida/Happy New Year/7.2

2006-07-21T07:21:00.000-04:00

Critics love to reach for multiple hyphens and obscure garage acts to namedrop when summing up Oneida's sound.

A few weeks ago Wired had an article about economist David Galenson and his research into creativity. Galenson studied various artists and which works from various parts of their careers commanded the greatest sums at auction. In his analysis, he found out that artists’ careers either peak early with a conceptual breakthrough or peak late after years of experimentation. In the visual arts, Galenson found that artists such as Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns created their most prized work early in their careers while others such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko peaked later in life after years of work. Galenson found a similar trend in literature with writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and T. S. Elliott peaking early in their careers and others like Mark Twain and William Carlos Williams creating their most respected works in the second halves of their lives.

Reading the article brought to mind many records I’ve heard over time – albums by bands that had one promising debut only to peter out by the third or fourth album. Rarer still are bands whose records gradually improve until a masterpiece comes through at the end of a string of intriguing and promising albums. The music scene favors the breakout type of genius – A & R reps seek out promising emerging artists, journalists hope to find the next break out act, fans seek new sounds and styles. However, as I think back on some of the favorite artists in my CDs and records, I treasure most those that have plugged away, trying something different, improving, growing, until something remarkable is created.

Oneida has changed a great deal since its garage rock origins in the last century. Happy New Year is a record of a band in a new practice space, with a new guitarist moving forward with its musical goals. If you look for genres to pin on Happy New Year, you can end up exhausting the glossary of the All Music Guide – there are traces of folk and medieval song in the opener “Distress”, freak folk label could be placed “Busy Little Bee”, a bosa nova beat drives “The Misfit” and dance track “Up With People” combines a disco drum line with dance punk keyboards. However, all of these labels assume that Oneida is trying to sound like anyone else. Instead, these tracks are the results of Oneida’s experiments in creating music with analog instruments and organic sounds. Ignoring genre labels, I find that the music straddles the line between music for trances and music for dancing. Oneida plays with the repetition of melodies and layers of sound overtop of Kid Millions beats. Each track is a new experiment in combining new elements of sound, but each seems to bring Oneida closer to a goal – some genre that doesn’t yet exists, a music that frees the mind and the body in a new way.

Many music fans and critics go looking for the immediate breakout, the band with a clear agenda and style. Oneida doesn’t have that a pre-planned agenda and isn’t trying to accomplish create a particular. After eight albums, Oneida is creating more interesting, more creative music with each song. To me, that progress pushes them closer to 8.0, but not quite all the way. If you’re willing to ride along on the journey, Happy New Year will take you to some interesting places. You may not end up where you expect, but as Buckaroo Banzai said, “no matter where you go, there you are.”

This just In!

2006-07-21T00:35:00.000-04:00

Iceland Airwaves 2006

Where: Reykjavik, Iceland
When: October 18 - 22, 2006
Info: Icelandairwaves 2006

Artists Include:

Brazilian Girls

Islands

Kaiser Chiefs

Love Is All

Mates of State

Metric

Tilly and the Wall

Wolf Parade

Ghostigital (Einar from the Sugarcubes new band on Ipecac)
Seabear

Mugison

Plus:

MOSHI MOSHI RECORDS NIGHT / Date: TBA / Venue: TBA

Artists: Tilly and the Wall (UK), Hot Club de Paris (UK), Mates of State (US), Semifinalists (UK) and Klaxons (UK). For more info visit: www.moshimoshimusic.com

And more! (check the website for all the details)

Please contact your local Icelandair branch for package deals to Iceland Airwaves 2006.

USA: To book please click here (deal #2)

UK: To book please click here.

Denmark: To book please click here.

Sweden: To book please click here.

Norway: To book please click here.

Finland: To book please click here.

Germany: To book please click here.

France: To book please click here

Belgium: To book please click here

Netherlands: To book please click here

Metallic Falcons / Desert Doughnuts / Rating: 7.4

2006-07-20T10:28:00.000-04:00

“A luminous construction of blurred Medieval whispers, narcotic guitar figures, and thunderous percussion that reverberates like hoofbeats across the mesa, Desert Doughnuts appears above the dashboard like a mirage, the music's vaporous structure ready at any moment to dissolve into the twilight.”

I guess it should be expected that 4 out of 5 reviews for this band will try to match or surpass the great American desert experience as told by the band (and maybe one too many bong hits) on their MySpace page. It is all a matter of taste but I don’t like a review that attempts to one up the complexity of the music they are trying to describe. And just because a band doesn’t sound like Bloc Party doesn’t make a band instantly magically terrific. These days it appears the main thing not sounding like Talking Heads does is it makes a band more marketable to the elite. Throw on some crazy urban ghost of a Native American costume on top of some Nico / Bjork sounding spawn, dub it something catchy like “soft metal” and taaadaaa, you have insta-buzz. Add a side project angle from a band people sort of like and a few guest appearances by some top names in the gender bending freak-folk community and you have a record that is very tempting to buy. I mean if you are into that sort of thing.

Personally speaking I am seriously sick to death of the freak-folk thing and their ever growing circle of friends. What records aren’t Devendra and Antony guest appearing on or producing these days? Give it a rest already and let the public miss you for a few months.

Anyhow....

I purchased this Metallic Falcons record about a month back and after some 30 plus days I still don’t feel like I have something deeply illuminating to say about the music. I tried, I really tried, but you can’t force love. I like the band (love their name) but the record on the whole sounds more like a blue print to greatness. The icey (ironic since deserts do not lend itself towards anything frozen)) Zelda game music gone rock meets grieving goth choir of boys and girls directs the music towards something potentially perfect but then it kaleidoscopes out in too many clumsy art school girl having a bad trip directions. This lack of focus muddles the theme into a meandering garish production that sags around the middle. Metallic Falcons try too hard to smudge quality songwriting into a feathered other worldliness and this is exactly where my attention span for the music dies.

Only about 1/3 of Desert Doughnuts is devastatingly captivating and marvelously creepy (especially “Journey”, “Airsips”, and “Disparu”) but I can’t imagine that kind of ratio earning anything higher than 6.1 rating.

Posting troubles

2006-07-20T10:04:00.000-04:00

Not sure what the problem is but my review won't post properly today. I will try again in a bit as I am too frustrated right now to re-post it for the 20th time.

Table of the Elements Festival No. 4 "Bohrium"

2006-07-19T09:33:00.000-04:00

This festival news has not been widely distributed...or at least I haven't seen much posted about it so here ya go:
_____________________________________________________________
August 31 - September 4, 2006 (Labor Day Weekend)
Eyedrum / 290 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive SE / Atlanta, Georgia / 30312 / USA

Day 1: Sea Changes and Coelacanths / Thursday, August 31
John Fahey Tribute/Record Release Concert
Loren Connors (New York)
San Agustin (New York/Atlanta)
John Fahey/Elizabeth Cotten video
Keenan Lawler (Lexington, KY)

Day 2: Carnivals of Ecstasy Friday, September 1 An Evening in the 1960s Underground Hosted by Tony Conrad (New York)
World Premiere, a film by Ira Cohen, "Brain Damage"
World Premiere, a film by Ira Cohen, "Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda" (Expanded Edition) Also featuring films by Jack Smith, Tony Conrad and Piero Heliczer Special guest: Hubcap City (Atlanta)

Day 3: The Thundergods Saturday, September 2
Rhys Chatham's Guitar Army (Paris)
Jonathan Kane's February (New York)
Special guest: Deerhunter (Atlanta)

Day 4: Propellers in Love Sunday, September 3
Arnold Dreyblatt and the Orchestra of Excited Strings (Berlin)
Film and video featuring Charlemagne Palestine Tony Conrad (New York)
Leif Inge (Oslo) "9 Beet Stretch" begin

Day 5: Slow Dazzles Monday. September 4 (Labor Day)
Fourth Annual Esplanade Memorial Goat Roast/Low Country Boil
Leif Inge "9 Beet Stretch" end
World Premiere, Rhys Chatham's Essentialist (Paris)
Festival Close

Additional acts to be announced.

Thom Yorke / The Eraser / Rating: 6.6

2006-07-19T01:50:00.000-04:00

“On a smaller scale, the problems afflicting these tracks afflict the album as a whole; even allowing for the better-crafted songs, there's little-to-no dynamic range on The Eraser. As a listening experience, it's claustrophobic and compressed, and with rare exception, offers little in the way of wide open space.”

For some reason I had trouble opening the Pitchfork review of The Eraser so I began the review process without a hint of what was said by them. To my surprise the chemical reaction I had to Thom Yorke solo was accurately put into words by PFM. The difference is I don’t mind the closed space feeling of the record. In fact I relate to it intensely.

Let me get the rating out of way here and if you keep reading you will understand why I think this deserves the slightly higher rating of 7.6. It is a curious sensation to have an entire record reflect something I associate with mania / panic and while it’s not exactly like staring the beast in the eye, it’s comes pretty close. For this reason I can’t help but want to throw myself deeply into The Eraser just to see where I am spit out at the end of it all.

It has been stated here by me before but as a medicated manic person I still suffer from panic driven moments. I don’t have specific triggers nor are any two attacks the same but the general result is an assault on the brain that feels as if a tornado is striking my head. Words or full sentences, occasionally an event or a portion of a conversation will be repeated over and over again whipping in cycles around my mind at top speeds. When these seizures take place they reduce my sleep to practically nothing and my brain goes into a marathon mode of productivity. I know that doesn’t sound half bad but trust me, living as a restless individual around the clock is exhausting to the point of sickening. Internally speaking I become twitchy; suffocated by my endless freight train of thoughts and activity. Worst of all my more carefully paced spaced out thinking is erased and in its place is a tightly wound person desperately wanting to crawl out of their own skin just to have a rest.

Pitchfork’s use of “claustrophobic” and “compressed” very much hits the nail on the emotional head. It is painfully accurate to both myself and this Thom Yorke record.

Sorry to get so personal but my goal has always been to share my personal reactions to records rather than offer the same old review. I can’t get over just how close The Eraser is to a manic episode. More specifically its stuttered melodies, broken beats, and voice that never seems to come up for air. This particular combination has my breathing tripped up by track 4 and I wholly blame Black Swan’s “this is fucked up” echoed 14x for pushing me into a nearly asthmatic place.

Repetition for manics and OCD types is a wicked but affective tool that chips away at something that from the outside may appear to act as if a record skipping but is in fact is a path with a beginning, middle, and end. When you repeat something / practice an act or repeat a word enough, you will eventually master it and eventually be free to stop whatever it was you started. This is probably a ridiculously abstract way to explain this Thom Yorke record but I hear a similar glitchy pattern created by his relentless vocals. They tick away as if an ominous clock.

For those who have no idea what I mean- imagine the drawn out under water scene from The Poseidon Adventure with Gene Hackman. You are practically holding your breath for the actors as they swim under water for an inexplicably long amount of time; desperate to find a safe way of passage. This fight for life under suffocating conditions translates across the screen to the viewer as a high stress situation and at least for me, it makes me very aware of my breathing. I find myself struggling for air as if having cinematic sympathy pains.

Thom Yorke doesn’t just sing, he chants in an endless string of moody Morse Code-as if his lungs are tapping out serious messages to the listener. Running parallel to the perils of the Poseidon Adventure, I find myself holding my breath until the wrong is turned right side up.

By the end of The Eraser (and the song “Cymbal Rush”) I get a huge sense of relief; a genuine satisfactory feeling that I have been through something slightly exhausting; nerve wracking but strangely beautiful and very much worth the harrowing experience.

Espers / II / Rating: 7.9

2006-07-17T23:59:00.000-04:00

“For the most part, freak-folk tends to eschew any clear genre parameters, but its participants-- willing or not-- are still blissfully united in an eyes-closed, drifting-to-the-strums adoration of ancient British folk tradition, while routinely pilfering from late-1960s/early-1970s folk-rock heroes Fairport Convention, Vashti Bunyan, Shirley Collins, the Strawbs, Pentangle, Comus, the Incredible String Band, and more.”

Ah freak-folk, we meet again. As if I wasn’t weary of this beaten to death trend already, Espers offers yet another strain of this genre. If I had to rely upon just my ears though (and not the piles of posi press), there really isn’t much freak about this Philidelphia band at all.

In fact all 6 players are so much a unit that rather than a group of people taking turns driving a music vehicle in wild and interesting directions, they are a polite train of pleasant gloom chugging in a circular motion. I have always imagined freak-folk to be an impulsive homespun craft rather than music heavily focused on a formula, no less following one so precisely yet Espers’ pattern of organized extended tones, finger picking, strings, and vocal melodies never climax in an unpredictable fashion.

Allow me to introduce a new genre. Ladies and gents: I give you frigid-folk.

Long repetitive songs drenched in drone and wispy vocals could have quite easily taken me on a meditative journey, a ride to remember but instead their brand of bruised baroque spread over 6 to 8 minutes per track is a non adventure that led me to dozing off with my headphones on. After just a few songs my body did the just fallen asleep jolt and I quickly snapped back into awake but still bored mode; although admittedly more relaxed than when I first hit play.

On a plus, if you like the current trend of folk revival and round 12 of stoner rock then Espers’ II will be your two for the price of one 2006 score. Not sure if this warrants a Pitchfork 7.9 rating but I am certain for many it will.

I can’t give a record that made me doze off anything higher than a 6.5 but more than anything I wish journalists when talking about this genre would avoid name dropping the same bands over and over again. My Bloody Valentine is to new-gaze what Fairport Convention, Pentangle, Comus, and the Incredible String Band is to freak-folk. Comus? Come on now. The only reason people are name dropping this band at all is thanks to a recent-ish reissue that places like Forced Exposure convinced you hippy-sters was a must own record.

Greetings from the first Tuning Fork Powwow

2006-07-17T13:18:00.000-04:00

Greetings readers,

A few exciting things: Tuning Fork writers are spread out all over this country / Canada so this weekend was a treat because four of us were all in the same place not just once but twice! This is probably not too exciting to read about but it was a treat for me damn it.

Anyhow I wanted to let you all know we are going to try to make a bigger effort to show a little love to the bands Pitchfork has yet to review / rave about / introduce to the world. To further enhance this concept we have created a partnership with record stores from all over who will post via us about records PFM has ignored thus far but believe their readers AKA you will be into.

To kick this idea off I recently posted about The White Birch but here is another band you should check out: Annuals. http://www.myspace.com/annuals I can promise that you will be hearing more about this band in a big way soon. Like really really soon. This band proves that Canada doesn’t own the exclusive rights to having 6 members or more or ambitious grandiose pop.

For fun I am going to tag team post with TQT since the fine gentleman is sitting right beside me. Without further ado ….

________________________________________________________________

Hello. First off what a lovely room Pitch Perfect has. The 7 room suite is impressive. If you didn’t know Pitch Perfect makes a lot of money running the popular online clown supply discount store, http://www.Happyclownpants.com.

I have had a swell time seeing the other writers in person, letting them feed me, liquor me up and taking advantage of me.

On with the important business at hand. I too wholeheartedly endorse the Annuals. Young kids making epic sprawls? I’m sold. But the first person who says the words Arcade and Fire will get a punch in the nose.

Let me make my own recommendation to you fine readers. This one comes from the depths of Myspace as well, but this fellow has an album deal so I am sure you will be seeing the name soon. The name in question? Pop Levi. http://www.myspace.com/poplevi

His modus operandi: Freaked out glam-esque rock from LA via Liverpool. Check out the song ‘Blue Honey’, a herky jerky track that sounds like Marc Bolon on a lot of hallucinogenics. Do you feel that the whole ‘freak folk’ movement is played out? Then welcome to the next step.

Danielson, Vetiver, Neil Hamburger at the Satellite Ballroon, Charlottesville, VA 7/14

2006-07-17T02:26:00.000-04:00

From Danielson's latest album, the phrase “step on your trumpet” means to offend some. People, please don’t step on Daniel Smith’s trumpet.

I got to the show for the last fifteen minutes of Neil Hamburger’s act – which was about fourteen minutes too early. Hamburger is a sort of masochists’ comic, spewing out a string of jokes written by twelve year old boys. I honestly can’t imagine a less complimentary opening act for Danielson. The comb over hair and Vegas affectations aren’t so bad; it’s just the material that’s abysmal. If you like gross middle school humor (or like remembering it), Hamburger should be your cup of tea. Personally, I recommend a pass.

I had decided to check this show out so I could catch both Vetiver and Danielson. Vetiver took the stage with six members –two guitars, bass and drums along with a cellist and violinist. When they sounded like a folk band (mostly on the songs from their first album), I liked them fine. On other cuts, Vetiver branches into a more Southern vibe, sounding more like The Band. They don’t quite swing enough to pull off that vibe. However, they put on a decent set for an opener.

Daniel Smith’s latest musical incarnation – Danielson – came on stage in blue uniforms with hearts sewn on the sleeves Conveniently for your correspondent, the members had their names sewn on their shirts – Evan was on keyboard and vocals, Jebediah on bass, David and Andrew on drums and Megan on glockenspiel, marimba and vocals. Each of the singers had a music stand with a binder and a light attached to it. Danielson kicked off with the lead track on Ships, but then played a mix of songs though focusing mostly on Ships. The live band doesn’t quite match the density of the album, but they make up for it in energy. The keyboardist Evan in particular played with the most gusto, hammering on his Hammond and singing wide-eyed into his mic. Aside from their energy, the group provided a tight backdrop for Daniel’s barking falsetto. Daniel tried to lead the small audience in clapping and snapping along, but the lack of air conditioning sapped most of the energy from the crowd. Nonetheless, the band came out for an encore with the same energy and enthusiasm as the main set.

What baffled me were the antics of a couple of drunks. The first guy was mid-twentish and wearing in a blazer (in July, go figure). He walked up to the stage telling Daniel to step on his trumpet then muttered some gibberish with the words “improvise” and “Anthony Braxton” in them. Trying to listen in, I’m thinking “What is this? Some guy trying to hold an academic debate?” Anyways, I’ve met Anthony Braxton and I don’t think he’d encourage folks to tread on brass instruments. The other was a drunk who just couldn’t contain his enthusiasm, hollering out boisterously after each song. I can’t fathom what makes someone decide to tie one on and get rowdy at a Danielson show. Shotgun a few beers and go to a metal show? Absolutely. Guzzle too much merlot and go see Danielson? I guess that’s what passes for fun in a college town in summer. However, Danielson’s summer tour should offer plenty of fun; I may even try to catch them in Falls Church in a week.

Feathers / Feathers / Rating: 7.7

2006-07-13T23:38:00.000-04:00

“the music on Feathers exists largely in the bucolic countryside previously occupied by the Incredible String Band, Comus and their progressive brethren. This might lead skeptics to dismiss this spirited collective as just another escapist hippie revival.”

This track listing image is from a mixtape one of the members of Feathers made for me in my late teens- around 17 years ago.

The year was 1989 and I was starting my senior in high school. Before “punk broke” big thanks to bands like Sonic Youth and Nirvana it was a lonely time to be a freaky girl music geek in grade 12. Luckily I had one year under my belt working at a ma and pa record store so by day I may have walked the halls alone but by evening and weekends (and a 40 minute commute) I was a part of a massive music loving community.

Every hour of every day I worked at this new and used store (5 years total) I was introduced to new music; new music meaning bands I had never heard of but was told for example, if I loved band A then I would HAVE to know about bands B, C, D, E, F that came before them. I was exposed to the idea that all bands come from a complex family tree of influences (be it the decade they are from, the region they are based out of, the bands they like or are friends with….) and there was no crime in this idea of a band having such influences. In fact the real crime was and still remains with the listener not taking the time (at least as a serious music fan) to investigate how the past influences the present. New music as it unfolds from month to month makes so much more sense when you actually have a decent sized context to place it in.

This record store job introduced me to a group of slightly older friends / fellow music fanatics that have remained life long friends of mine. These people also laid down a foundation of music knowledge that is so vast and varied that it continues to inspire me to this day. They opened up a world of music (punk, hardcore, noise, goth, experimental, oi, psyche, garage, folk, metal, rap… you name it) and it was their mixtapes and expertise that I can say without a doubt shaped the headstrong music nerd I am today.

You have to imagine my amazement when I discovered one of my core music heroes from nearly two decades ago (and briefly a high school boyfriend of sorts) shows up in a freak-folk band that people aren’t just talking about but seem to really dig. We fell out of touch in the early 90’s but holy crap there he is tucked among a group of people on the Feathers’ record cover.

Seriously if I could create a list of the ten most influential people in my life in relation to music, this guy ranks among the top five people I should thank.

The photo on the front of Feathers cd actually looks like a twisted communal version of how we once (about 6 to 10 of us) spent our summer evenings deep in the woods of Rockland County NY. We listened to cassettes on a battery powered boom box while some kids ate shrooms or acid tabs and the rest of us pounded shitty cheap beer while pillaging the forest floor for anything that might keep the campfire going all night. I passed on college to learn about music because I had some of the best teachers in the world sitting (and some occasionally passed out) around me. They supplied me with lists of records I NEEDED to own, played me their favorite artists night after night and shared stories about shows I kick myself for not being old enough to have seen first hand. (Swans/Sonic Youth - Pyramid Club or Bad Brains/ Minor Threat / Void - CBGBs for instance)

I can’t speak for all the members of Feathers because I only know this one fella but it isn’t often a person with impeccable taste in music goes on to form an incredible band that reflects one of the genres they practically have a PHD in. We all have friends with great taste in music but for some reason also happen to play in the worst sounding bands ever. I understand taste doesn’t equal talent so it is a truly pleasant surprise when a friend breaks this tradition.

Again, I can’t speak for the whole band but trust me when I say at least this one member isn’t just jumping on the psyche- rock / folk bandwagon. This friend of mine has had these songs in him all along; even if the music was only recorded in 2004 and 2005. This isn’t my favorite style of music- in fairness I only dabble in it but I am willing to swear that of all the new damaged folksters out there- a core member of Feathers had all these other artists beat by decades and I have this mixtape to prove it. Feathers aren’t flaunting a freaky psych-folk façade- this is as close to the real thing as it can get in 2006.

Promise.

Beauty Pill = Lazarus

2006-07-13T21:00:00.000-04:00

Well, I initially refrained from posting this news report here, banking on a false assumption that surely Pitchfork's crack team of reporters would spy this rather exciting tidbit as they spider-crawl their weekly way through the vaults of myspace band pages but, alas, no banana. Perhaps this band represents too much musical validity and not quite enough hype for to grace the front page of the 'fork (I know, I know hundreds, nay thousands, would lose valuable sleep without a weekly Sufjan/Devandra/Thom update), or maybe it's just that Beauty Pill has been gone for so long that they fell off the PFM radar. I guess they never really liked them much anyway. At any rate, here's the juice:
Beauty Pill has emerged from well over a year long hiatus with a beautiful new single, several blog posts by Chad Clark himself, a 9 date U.S. Tour starting a week from today, and talk of a new album in the works. There have been a few line-up changes finding Devin Ocampo (Faraquet, Smart Went Crazy, Medicatons, Mary Timony, etc.) filling in for Ryan Nelson on Drums, multi-instrumentalist Jean Cook replacing Rachel Burke on vocals, and a whole slew of guest artists filling out the sonic space with instruments ranging from shamisen to electric harp. All the details and the new song are on the band's myspace page (linked above). In short, and consciously running the risk of over-doing this post, this is the best new music these ears have had the pleasure to hear (10 times a day) in quite some time. Check it out.

Sufjan Stevens - The Avalanche - 7.2

2006-07-12T22:03:00.000-04:00

Call it burnout or backlash if you have to, but it's hard not to compare the two albums and find this one wanting

I'm Back. What? You didn't even notice I was gone? {Insert ironic foghorn sound here}

On with the business at hand, namely Sufjan Steven's album of odds and sods, The Avalanche. Chris Dahlen makes many good points about this collection in his review, the main being that it is the Danny Devito to Arnold Schwarzenegger's Twin. While slightly amusing, it pales in comparison to the bronzed Austrian god that is Illinois.

Unlike others here at Tuning Fork I am a Stevens fan and believe that Illinois contains some of the most beautiful music of the last couple years, Jesus references or not. And if those religious shout outs make you uncomfortable you can always change them in your head from God or Jesus to Krotog or Bentrak. That way you can avoid your discomfort, enjoy the songs and get the added bonus of being amused by pretty falsetto odes to outer space monsters.

Anyway, I am a fan, but an additional 75 minutes of material culled from the same sessions is the definition of overkill. This needed to be scaled back into a 4 or 5 track EP and left at that. Three versions of Chicago? Totally unnecessary, especially as each one pales in comparison to the album version (although I must say the Multiple Personality Disorder Version is strangely compelling). Yes it is interesting to hear the artist working his way to a final version, and I am sure hardcore (if that is the right word) fans of Stevens will be delighted to be able to put all four versions on their I Pods and play them all in a row. But for the vast majority of us this is just redundant, and diminishing returns are never something that is very endearing.

Apart from that there is a lot of filler here. Some of it is pretty, some of it is so same sounding to previous works as to become indistinguishable in my head.

I don't find the 50 states project to be as gimmicky as others seem to, as you need a jumping off point for any artistic endeavor and it just happens that Stevens uses this framework to make his music. I am jealous of any artist that can just jump right in and start, as i often need a push or gimmick to get myself started. I think a lot of people are like this. My wife is a painter, but she often starts off drawing crude stick figures to get herself going before moving on to the more complex areas. I love these stick figures as they show how her mind works, but to bring this analogy to port, i wouldnt pay $12.99 for them.

Bravo to Stevens for getting so much material from each state. But the original album was just at the limit of too much, so this pushes it over the edge. The final tally is two and a half hours of music. That is too much on this subject (full disclosure: I own the 3.5 hour cd set of the Lord Of The Rings soundtrack, so my footing here may be a little too slippery). Dahlen acknowledges this is is lesser product of a greater work, yet the rating is still a healthy 7.2. I would place it more in the 4 or 5 range and sit quietly waiting for the next proper album: Dang, Its Delaware.

Eagles of Death Metal / Death by Sexy / Rating: 7.3

2006-07-12T08:16:00.000-04:00

“Where Queens of the Stone Age have always explored the dark and dirty, the excess and the evil, the nicotine, valium, vicodin, marijuana, and ecstasy, the Eagles of Death Metal crank up a cock-rock sound that's free of any danger or seriousness.”

I’m no expert on the subject but if you are going to make a record that almost exclusively is designed for strippers to pole and lap dance to, flimsy glam rock won’t do. (And I know I am not alone in this thinking.)

First of all you can’t even dry hump to anything with production this flaccid. I mean who likes limp cock-rock? (Maybe Pitchfork since they offered EODM a 7.3 rating?)

Secondly the silhouette of something meaty, naughty, and worthy of a serious grind is there but a full figured romp and stomp is never totally revealed. (What a tease!) Blame the less than virile song writing or the mildy macho mixing job but the end result no matter what is sad case of e-ROCK-tile dysfunction.

Thirdly and lastly it’s a damn shame. Eagles of Death Metal teeter (like double D cups supported by 6 inch heels) on the verge of the kind of sexy silly swagger mastered by T. Rex and The Cramps (with a dash of Rocket from the Crypt) but EODM’s songs never peak equally. This collection of barely legal psychobilly smokes like a dime bag of oregano and that doesn’t spell party, it spells amateur hour (37 minutes to be exact) and a 6.0 rating.

CONTEST NOW CLOSED

2006-07-11T09:59:00.000-04:00

About once a month we here at Tuning Fork try to share the wealth and offer up a few promo cds to our nice readers. To win all you need to do is:

A) Check the comments section to see if anybody claimed the cd you want to win first.
B) If the cd you want has yet to be requested leave a comment saying your first name and the cd you want. This will let others know the cd has a new home.
C) Email us at tuningforkmedia@hotmail.com your name / address / and cd you want.

You can only win one cd per contest and only if you haven't won a cd from us in the past two months. It is as easy as that. There is no creepy catch. I don't email spam in the future or mail you adult catalogs three months from now. You get a cd (sometimes more cds if I have some extra stuff sitting around) and a DIY fold / cut / and fill out Tuningfork membership card that has zero meaning to about 99.9 % of the world but that .1 % who are record inter-web geeks too will totally be barely impressed. Awesome right?

The goods up for grabs:

Peeping Tom - S/T - Ipecac - cardboard sleeve promo WE HAVE A WINNER

The Lovely Feathers - Hind Hind Legs - Equator Records WE HAVE A WINNER

Six Organs of Admittance - The Sun Awakens - Drag City - WE HAVE A WINNER

Built to Spill - You in Reverse - WB - WE HAVE A WINNER

Wax Tailor - Tales of the... - Decon - WE HAVE A WINNER

Belle & Sebastian - LateNightTales - Azull -WE HAVE A WINNER

Witch - s/t - Tee Pee - not full art cd - WE HAVE A WINNER

Starlight Mints - Drowaton - Barsuk - not full art cd - WE HAVE A WINNER

Vetiver - To Find Me Gone - DiCristina - Not full art cd - WE HAVE A WINNER

Matmos - The Rose has Teeth - Matador - not full art cd - WE HAVE A WINNER

Good luck and yes I will mail cds to people living out of the USA. Non-American indie music fans deserve presents too!!! PS: Selling your prize to a local store makes you a bad bad person. If you don't like the music please pass it onto a friend who might.

Double Your Pleasure

2006-07-11T00:17:00.000-04:00

At noon today (Tuesday, June 11th / Eastern timezone) we will be giving away TEN... you heard me... TEN different cds to our lucky readers. This means you are twice as likely to win something this time!

Check back then and bonne chance,
Pitch Perfect

Enough With The Adverbs

2006-07-10T12:37:00.000-04:00

"It's also strikingly beautiful and thuddingly boring in maddeningly equal measure."

Look, Pitchfork writers. You're not in a contest with the movie critics who gets quoted in newspaper ads to see who can squeeze in more -- and more clever -- adverbs into a single sentence. Enough already. There are 11 words in the above sentence, and three of them are end in -ly. A 3/11 ratio is just too high. Nobody should break 20%. Ever.

Proxy Error

2006-07-10T10:52:00.000-04:00

Okay tech people, please explain to me why half of the reviews on Pitcfork lately say this when I try to open them:

The proxy server received an invalid response from an upstream server.The proxy server could not handle the request GET /article/record_review/37216/Thom_Yorke_The_Eraser.

Reason: Error reading from remote server

Some people might think just because I run a blog and stuff that I might know a little about this computer business but I don't. Ironically I lack patience for computers almost entirely and the recent outbreak of PFM error messages are enough to make me want to avoid their site all together. Hmmm, on second thought those Pitchforkers might be onto something there.....

My Bloody Valentine / Loveless / Rating: 10.5

2006-07-09T16:46:00.000-04:00

“Holy shit this is the best record of my life. I will never be able to listen to anything without hearing echoes of this opus in my now fixated to the point of musical-fetish pornography ears. I imagine myself decades from now attempting to review other records, at a loss for more appropriate comparisons, gushing about the album that once was, these glory days of shoegaze, echo haze, and MXR phase. I’ll whisper to the world MBV. And Kevin Sheilds will shed softly a soft tear. “

Yeah alright, I get it. This record seems pretty original. I’ve been listening to it for a few weeks despite my initial misgivings about all the hype that has surrounded its release. Everyone is describing it in such stratospherically stilted terms, praising its neo-pop pioneering, lush soundscaping, and soft contrasting violence juxtaposition of pushed guitars and breathy vocal delivery that I just couldn’t strain my ears past the critics’ din to hear the din that is this record. So now I’ve finally wrapped my head around this music and I must admit I’m just the slightest bit disappointed.
I mean, I understood what was going on with Isn’t Anything. The pop elements were there, though sharpened with a dagger edge of punk, and the words were discernibly visceral, in fact memorable. They were doing the spacey echo-plex thing but I could still here the blueprint of melodic structure, conceptually rich lyricism and instrumentation beneath the somewhat lo-fi fuzzed up guitar and vocal treatments. On Loveless, however, I feel like I’m being purposely impaired, blocked even, from hearing any of these elements. I want to turn down the gain, dry out the mix a bit, and get a little more click, clack, gutteral delivery out of Shields, and about half as much breath out of Belinda Butcher’s near-whisper on the likes of “Touched” and “Blown a Wish.” All this might be easier to forgive if there were other melodic elements to steer our listening experience away from the wash of at times pointless musings in one direction or another but they simply aren’t there. We are set adrift, in most cases, right from the start of each tune on a listless journey across an ocean of fluffy guitar synth, cotton candy vague words and anticeptic rhythmic drones without a map or final destination and the trips seem to leave us floating out in the middle of nothing, longing just to fall asleep. Which is precisely what I did.
I hate to start a trend of name-dropping here but it seems like the MBV crew might have made nod or two in the direction of current media-darlings Asobi Seksu who’s recent release Citrus earned an appropriately astounding 8.3 from PFM. These guys are doing a similar thing but with so much more clarity and focus. When they do gentle, they really captivate with pin-drop precision, holding your attention to every pillowy word that floats from singer Yuki Chikudate’s languid lips. When it comes time for sonic assault, they do it with the acumen of great war generals, launching attacks from each drum stroke, crush of strings, and synth wails. Hell, they even display well-honed pop sensibility when it comes to mixing in Phil Spectoresque sparkle, hook, and shine. Basically, if My Bloody Valentine expects to compete in this emerging genre of richly textural guitar and closely blended mushed-up pop they might consider mining this Asobi Seksu record for the kind of musical conducting and symphonic accuracy it takes to pull off such atmospherically ambitious music before attempting their next release.
In the end I guess I can’t dismiss this record entirely but I must say I’ll be looking forward to a third release from this band in hopes for something with a little more explicitly defined direction. The talent appears to be there but without the necessary follow through, Loveless is simply a soundtrack for dreamless sleep.

Asobi Seksu / Citrus / Rating: 8.3

"Contrary to what you may see written about them, Asobi Seksu aren't gazing at their shoes on their second album-- they're looking skyward the whole time. Yes, the guitar overload, massive reverb, and deceptively sweet vocals are all there, but this New York quartet is anything but a My Bloody Valentine retread."

Credit where credit is due: Dear Joe Tangari, thanks for the above statement in your review. I must, however, offer the following...

Moment of Clarity: Stop fucking name dropping My Bloody Valentine. NOTHING sounds like THAT band or THAT record excepting of course THAT band and THAT record. Undeniably, Asobi Seksu sounds like a lot of bands (not a plus) and if you want to get down to it there are certainly more accurate comparisons. Here’s an exercise for you:
Break out this record and listen to the track “New Years” (track 3 for you internet piracy folks). Then, listen to the song "99 Luftballons" by Nena and imagine M83 covering the song with a guest appearance by the singer from the Concretes. Then, listen to the rest of Citrus and find yourself wondering why you never thought to make a Garage Band mash-up of the Cocteau Twins vs. The Smiths vs. Joy Division (surely they'd post it on Puritan Blister). Yeah, that would sound pretty cool. There’s a guy at Columbia that came up with a program that could make an infinite number of songs out of one uploaded audio track by dividing it up according to it’s own time/tempo elements and randomly rearranging it. Looks like this band only had to run the program 12 times with 12 pre-pitchfork-approved tracks. The point on influences is not lost. They’re great. They’re unavoidable. But, ultimately, a band with so many of them worn on so many sleeves is simply not worth more than a handful of listens.

One last word for plagiarism patrol: swing on over to the Tiny Mix Tapes review of this record for a near identical discussion of “just how perfect Sean McCabe's cover art is.” This is either a case of “who posted that drivel first?” or “…minds think alike.” Either way. Cover art does not a record make. Ciao.

Brightblack Morning Light/S-T/8.2Bardo Pond/Ticket Crystals/6.2

2006-07-06T21:11:00.000-04:00

The repetitions feel like minimalism, but it unfurls like the sleepiest loner psych.

Bardo Pond have always been at their best when they allow themselves to collapse into their non-linear, highly improvised drone rock rather than put too much focus on compositional structure.

The past week on the East Coast has been hot and rainy. The week before the fourth was a mix of hot, humid days with intermittent downpours. The inescapable perspiration, prickly heat, and the long days drag along until a storm comes in, dropping the air temperature and breaking the still heat with a torrent of water and the rumble of thunder. A week or so ago, I wondered if this would be the summer of twee, but after last week’s heat and a quick stock of recent releases, I think 2006 is looking to be a summer of psychedelic rock.

Brightblack Morning Light may have connections to the freak-folk scene, but their self-titled Matador debut has a strong electric vibe. Stosuy sees a connection in their music to the Royal Trux, but really Brightblack Morning Light has soaked in a strong R&B vibe, making me think of Funkadelic and Shuggie Otis records played at a full speed too slow. The first track (and MP3 single) “Everybody Daylight” has drowsy vocals over a slow Rhodes piano groove, hand claps and funk drum line. It wonderfully combines soul and stoner rock. “Friend of Time” starts with percussion then rolls into boogie-woogie piano and slide guitar then vocals then a trombone solo. While Brightblack Morning Light may hand with Devendra and Joanna, they’re far more blues than folk. Their instrumentation also is more rock than folk; it’d take a mighty long power cord to drag that Rhodes and guitar amp next to a campfire.

Brightblack Morning Light carries out this vibe flawlessly. However, the ten tracks on the record quickly blend into each other. I actually started listening to the album on vinyl, playing two or three songs a side. Once I got all of the tracks on my digi-music-thingy, I found it hard to make it through all of them. The band is like a basketball player that flawlessly sinks a three point shot from the same place on the court again and again. The first time you see the ball drop through the net, you’re in awe. Seeing it happen three or four more times, your chin drops. But after an hour of watching the same shot made over and over, you wish for a slam-dunk or even a lay up. That sameness makes it hard for me to feel the same 8.1 that Stosuy feels. Brightblack Morning Light does what they do very well, but I’d shave a full point off the record for a lack of variety. Their record captures the slow, droning heat and humidity of a summer day but with no thunderstorm or rain to cut the heat.

On the other hand, Bardo Pond’s latest Ticket Crystals captures a thunderstorm and the quiet afterwards. The opening cut Destroying Angel starts with a few chords strummed on an acoustic guitar then bursts out in thunderclaps of distorted guitar. For folks who prefer the gentleness of Brightblack Morning Light’s vibe, Bardo Pond’s music is a much harsher buzz. However, I like my psychedelia with plenty of overdrive. I found the long tracks had enough storm and stillness to justify the length.

The tricky thing for me is slapping a number on Ticket Crystals. I like it better than Brightblack Morning Light’s record, but find it on par with their past releases. The previous albums rated around a 7, but this record feels a little more than that to me. I guess a 7.2ish would do okay. In any event, Bardo Pond delivers a summer storm of psychedelic music that rumbles, crashes and drones. For a sumer thunderstorm of rock, I recommend Ticket Crystals, through a few tracks from Brightblack Morning Light here and there will help you mellow out.

This just in: Celtic Frost on tour w/ 1349, Sahg, Goatwhore, and Sunno))),

2006-07-06T15:54:00.000-04:00

Check out this sweet press release I just got:

"Celtic Frost are very proud to announce the following support billing for the group's fall 2006 North American tour:

For the first leg of the tour, from September 12 (Springfield,Virginia) to October 2, 2006 (Portland, Oregon), Celtic Frost will be joined by renown Norwegian black metal shooting stars 1349 as well as Norwegian doom supergroup Sahg (featuring some of the most distinguished musicians of Norway's effervescent metal scene, namely members of Manngard and 2005 Norwegian Grammy award winners Audrey Horne as well as former Gorgoroth members King and Kvitrafn). These will be the first North American shows for both 1349 and Sahg.

From October 3 (San Francisco, California) to the end of the tour, on November 11, 2006 (Johnson City, New York), Celtic Frost will be supported by eminent American black/death metal group Goatwhore.

Moreover, Celtic Frost are very proud to be able to announce the addition of American drone/doom stars sunn O))) to the billing for the shows from October 3 (San Francisco, California) to October 9 (Las Vegas, Nevada).

CELTIC FROST w/ SUNN O))) & GOATWHORE

October 3, 2006 San Francisco, California // Fillmore October 4, 2006 San Diego, California // House of Blues October 5, 2006 Anaheim, California // House of Blues October 7, 2006 Los Angeles, California // House of Blues October 8, 2006 Phoenix, Arizona // Marquee Theater October 9, 2006 Las Vegas, Nevada // House of Blues"

Sound Team / Movie Monster / Rating: 3.7

2006-07-05T23:51:00.000-04:00

Hooray for guest reviews!!!!!

______________________________________________________

WORST REVIEW OF THE YEAR
written by Joaquin Stick

"Sound Team's first proper full-length Movie Monster tries hard to straddle between blockbuster and cult classic, flashing a dizzying array of instant-cred reference points like so much major-label bling and piling on rube-dazzling special effects."

In the review of Sound Team's Capitol Records debut, Marc Hogan gives a strong critique of the band's calculated influences and backroom strategizing. Like the blog frenzy surrounding Samuel L. Jackson's upcoming pièce de résistance, Snakes On A Plane, Hogan considers the band's internet buzz to be undeserved because they're merely a work of artifice. Lacking originality, they utilize "Wall-of-the-Edge guitars" and "blurry soundscapes" and a "hipster roll call of influences" to make you think they're good - or more importantly, cool.

Damn you Sound Team.

And damn your hipster roll call of influences that make us think you're good.

Except, of course, that all of this is absolute conjecture. There were no interviews. No candid morning talk show tell-alls. Marc Hogan based his entire review, not on evidence, but on what he imagined were the motivations of these six strangers from Austin when making music. And, in fact, he's not imagining some random set of motivations, he's laying his own extremely self-conscious worldview onto a band's completely unknowable intentions. Who knows if they studied pitchformula.com's findings and attempted to outsmart you? Who knows how many oblique strategies The Arcade Fire schemed up for Funeral? (obviously, with their attire, weeping violins and funeral invitation-style cd insert, a lot more.)

Speaking of The Arcade Fire, when discussing Win Butler's reasons for having Sound Team as support, Hogan presented blog gossip as fact to support his opinion, and I literally shit my pants. This hearsay is akin to me giving credence to one Gorilla vs. Bear commenter who claims Hogan had a "nasty and public spell of diarrhea" once at a party.

So, if we remove all the conjecture and isolate the actual review of the music, we're down to seven words:

"...a shortage of, like, actual decent songs."

Now that's a perfectly respectable opinion to hold. Expand on how these songs aren't decent. Examine their strengths and weaknesses.

Apparently, Hogan didn't trust his critical skills enough to use them, and instead engaged in a 500+ word personal attack on the band. Was it to boost his word-based paycheck? (And, speaking of money, is there a correlation between low-quality reviews and Pitchfork's abysmal rates?)

Let's see, we've got: -"adenoidal overemoting" -"marble-mouthed" (yeah marbles!)-The singer's "strangled Walkmen/Creed croak" and "screamo-wails"-They "hack together Yankee Kid A Foxtrot nonsense lyrics"

Wow, these guys just can't seem to do a thing right, can they?

Hogan's ridicule of a lyric mentioning Kafka ("Kafka on the shore...") actually ends up working against him, for it reveals his lazy, superficial approach to criticism. Kafka On The Shore is a book by Pitchperfect-fave Murakami. Now, as to the line's meaning, or any of Matt Oliver's songs, I can't make much sense out of it. Consequently, there aren't many emotionally-affecting moments coming from the lyrics. There are enough quotable ones to tell he's got talent, though: "Came home from work and your house was missing, Told ourselves but we weren't listening" (Born To Please), "You never died, But we had your funeral anyway" (You've Never Lived A Day), "Woke up one day I was seven years older" (Handful Of Billions).

Obvious hip flashword-bands and nonsense observations reveal a lack of actual critical listening. Loveless - Yeah, he went there. And I guess the title track's "ghostly harmonies [that resemble] a subpar TV on the Radio outtake" were pretty fucking ghostly, because a second listen revealed that there aren't any harmonies in the song!

He namedrops Clap Your Hands Say Yeah with the slight observation that both they and Sound Team start their albums with short songs; except, Sound Team is less-credible for sounding "With Or Without You"-like, versus the hipper "carny busk" of CYHSY. He also takes a moment to namedrop Tapes 'n Tapes because they both have a song that mentions a place. (?!) But, Sound Team's hip Portland reference is less credible than T 'n T's "endearing" Harvard Square/Good Will Hunting reference, which is actually hip because it's not hip. I'm just gonna go ahead and type hip one more time.

A few comparisons are right on. The best description of Movie Monster is Krautrock/Eno-inspired instrumentation, a forkful of Spoon, a spoonful of The Walkmen and maybe a small barrel of Hall & Oates vocals. Hogan's version: "there's the hipster roll call of influences: Stereolab and Low-era Bowie (and thus, Krautrock motorik)." Hmmm - such an odd, all-pervasive awareness of 'cool'.

Of course, the popular trends right now don't have much to do with those influences. If you look at the most popular bands of the moment, a large group of them fall into the loose movement of freak-folk (Devendra, Joanna, Beirut, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Arcade Fire), freak-pop (Animal Collective, Architecture In Helsinki, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Fiery Furnaces, Sufjan) or the all-encompassing Shambolica (Tapes 'n Tapes, Sunset Rubdown, Wolf Parade, Flaming Lips, Islands). It seems to be some sort of reaction against the reigning electro and post-punk/new wave revivals of the first half of the decade. Warmth versus cold. Thesis/Antithesis. Sixties versus eighties. Possibly a yearning for an idealized past in the midst of a harsh, Bushy present. I don't know - I ain't no psychologist.

So, one has to wonder where this animosity towards Sound Team comes from. Is Hogan just a mean fellow? I don't think so. In fact, he lets slip the source of all this contempt in one of his passing shots: "...flashing a dizzying array of instant-cred reference points like so much major-label bling." And two paragraphs later, "[the last song] unveils the Bono-sized ambitions lurking beneath the album's more fashionable style-shifting." Marc Hogan's resorting to the biggest copout-cliché in all of music journalism: major label = sellout.

Unfortunately, Sound Team have found themselves in a big Capitol Records-shaped pickle. Although they're on a major label, they aren't getting the benefits that can usually off-set the dreaded indie 'backlash'. No ads. Limited distribution. Some stores familiar with their Work EP had no idea Movie Monster was already out. No PR campaign. Less blog activity because being on a major kinda means you don't need breaking or discovering, plus, again, many people had no idea it was already out. An $18.98 retail price. Capitol has been on a signing binge, which has left many of their indie bands languishing in this kind of purgatory.

I'm willing to keep an open mind, but it'll be hard to write a worse review this year. I actually want to see someone try. There are also bigger ramifications for Pitchfork if it keeps allowing this lack of rigor to color its pages. It has the potential to be an esteemed publication like Allmusic or Rolling Stone a few decades ago, but at present it's only popular because it's popular - like all those major label bands they despise.

And as for the bigger ramifications for Mr. Hogan, it's not that he can't write a good review (see Cloud Cult's Advice From The Happy Hippopotamus review). But, I think the best conclusion can be found by quoting, well...you, Marc Hogan. The writing can drastically improve by resisting "a music scene fraught with carefully cultivated, ultimately unrevealing, laughably insecure projections of 'cool'."

Final ratings: review: 0.1 / album: 8.0 (sorry I forgot to post this with the review the 1st time!)

Muse / Black Holes and Revelations / Rating: 4.2

2006-07-05T13:06:00.000-04:00

"This is the bands most autopiloted effort yet, a hacked-up last-gen rehash of said space jams, only now with greater emphasis on glitz and glam. Somehow Muse, always loveably lame, have managed to take a turn for the lamer."

Call me crazy, I know I am the last to comment on spelling and the likes but shouldn't it read "band's most ..."? You know with the 's?

Anyhow....

I have never done this before but the emails / comments keep coming in. To be honest I am in no position to write something about Muse because I don't know the band's history very well nor do I have this record to give it a listen. I am too broke to pick it up so if somebody who does know the band wants to take a stab at a guest post, please do. Just email us at tuningforkmedia@hotmail .com.

I am looking for an intelligent and thoughtful criticism of the Pitchfork review. I don't want to hear PFM's Muse review sucks and then have nothing to actually back up why.

Thanks,
Pitch Perfect

Om / Conference of the Birds / Rating: 7.3

2006-07-04T22:21:00.000-04:00

“If the duo had found a way to continue the corked, opiate energy of "At Giza", Conference of the Birds would be totally brilliant; instead, it's got one great song plus one that makes me forget a little that I'd reached nirvana a few moments earlier.”

Agreed. I also second the Pitchfork rating as well.

Thank you PFM writer B. Stosuy for giving me the night off!

___________________________________________________________________

Just for fun here is my ode to the Coolfer 4 word review and Om:

Stoner robots make rock.

Get Your Download on America (and Canadians, etc)

2006-07-04T14:04:00.000-04:00

Scuttling about the Interweb this afternoon, I discovered that long favorite MP3 site Epitonic is back. I started grabbing legit MP3s from Epitonic back in the late 20th Century; Epitonic provided the content for many a CD-R that has since succumbed to "the rot". About two years ago, Epitonic stopped updating their site and appeared to be dead - the site still accepted traffic but nothing had been updated.

The new look to Epitonic is bold and high tech with a new design by E.A.D. (who apparently really dig blocks). Also, according to their message boards, the site is still in a sort of "live Beta". However, I'm glad to see one of the first MP3 sites that turned me on to some great music back in the mix.

My only advice to them would be to make the site bookmarkable and linkable. (Warning: Techy Bits) The current design uses a very sophisticated system of frame and iframes. While visually appealing, it makes it nigh impossible for folks (ie, bloggers like us) to link directly to artist and album pages.

Happy Fourth O' July

2006-07-04T01:01:00.000-04:00

It's my blog and gosh darn it I will avoid posting on holidays if I want to.

To entertain yourselves until Wed go to your iTunes store and check out the Celebrity Playlist section. (Second box from the bottom on the left hand side) If I knew how to hyperink this I would but anyhow check out Anderson Cooper's picks. You can read what the man has to say about Yo La Tengo, +/-, Seu Jorge, Elliott Smith, Pavement, The Clash and more.

Look out Jon Stewart, there's a new indie rock loving TV news anchor in town.

Your Pal,
Pitch Perfect

The White Birch / Come Up For Air / Rating 9.0

2006-07-02T23:43:00.000-04:00

The White Birch
Come Up For Air
[Rune Grammofon; 2006 / Glitterhouse; 2005]
Import: Norway
Out Now on CD and LP
Rating: 9.0

No two loves are ever identical. In fact I can’t think of a time one love of mine ever remotely matched up to another and even if the intensity came close there has been and always will be a few degrees of difference between them. Imagine creating orange out of a palette of paints and then trying to recreate that EXACT orange again and again and again. This is nearly an impossible task unless computers and machines are involved and while on some days I feel like a robot, I assure you I am human who cannot twin anything.

It is these varying shades of each emotion that keeps everything, every single day feeling fresh and interesting to me. At age 34 (me in the present tense) I have semi-recently fallen in love with a person and I can also tell you with absolute certainty that this whole experience of falling head over heels (which has happened in my life before) feels wonderfully and totally new. It is miraculous to feel new things, to have your insides throw an emotional surprise party every now and then …especially as an adult who doesn’t feel like a child in awe of much of anything anymore.

I can also tell you as a record collector, I am a hopeless romantic. I seek a new record to adopt and wildly adore every day. Not because I want to recreate Bjork’s Vespertine or Swirlies’ They Spent Their Wild Youthful Days again but rather I want to feel a sensation given by a simple slab of wax that for some invisible reason causes my insides to swell towards something I might describe as bliss.

I love The White Birch yet it is not the same love I hold for any other of the bleeding heart balladeers nor does this love match the sensation I get when listening to the other best of 2006 releases.

This particular band is a bit of mystery. I don’t own any of their earlier records and to be honest, I don’t remember hearing them before. I seriously can’t remember for the life of me why I ordered this LP from Rough Trade. It arrived last week and since its appearance on my doorstep, it has risen to the position of one of my favorite records of the year. Keeping this in mind I don’t have a press kit and only this evening did I bother to look up details on the band. Ironically I don’t really care to know anything about The White Birch because damn it I am in love and don’t want anything to possibly spoil it.

My mind is very much set on this feeling so you can tell me they are a trio from Norway on their fourth record, that they are named after Codeine’s last record or that every review likens them to Kings of Convenience and Sigur Ros and it wouldn’t change a thing. “Come Up for Air” gives me the feeling of a piece of ice inside me being melted track by delicate track. This nearly chemical reaction won’t shift; no matter how their stats read or how they photograph. It actually feels unbelievably special to be in love with a body of music and have almost nothing else to judge the band for other than their beautiful songs.

I was originally going to make a sweeping comparison to the way Yo La Tengo’s I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One resonates with me but the funny part, where I was certain The White Birch also has a male/female vocal dynamic yet it appears (my LP has no liner notes, just art and song titles) looking at their picture, The White Birch has no female member. Oops. The falsetto bits sound like Georgia Tengo, the lead vocals like Ira Tengo but more importantly this is more about how both bands puzzle piece into me as listener having an emotional / human response to the music. I want to thank them both for reminding me why I collect records and for conducting a form of electricity that I am willing to bet could jumpstart the most bitter and jaded music fan’s heart…mine included.

I don’t believe Pitchfork has reviewed this yet but I really love this record so much that I can’t help but talk about it now. My subject header ruins the rating surprise but in case you need me to reconfirm it, Come Up for Air still earns a 9.0.

Hell on Wheels

2006-06-30T03:07:00.000-04:00

In the place of something remotely clever or Pitchfork related is one tired and very shaken Pitch Perfect. I am relieved to have made it home in one piece and at this point my priority number one is to go to bed. Dialing 911 twice in one night really takes a lot out of a girl.

The evening began with a leisure car u-turning at top speed Dukes of Hazzard style on a two lane highway for what I can only guess was an incredible determination to not miss his exit. Facing traffic head on was apparently not an issue to this stunt driver. No one was hurt but seriously, what the hell?

Playing in my car at the time was The Telescopes cd As Approved by the Committee.

911 # 1

My return trip home began with a Jeep stopped at a light in front of me suddenly throwing their car in reverse and smashing into my car. There was minor bumper damage done to my car, no one was hurt but what was more infuriating was the elder drunk driver calling me Dear and his male friend / co-worker pulling up to the accident and making fun of me for taking down all the insurance information because I am a woman over reacting to a few little scratches which are in fact deep scrapes no less inflicted by a man who has no business being behind the wheel of a vehicle. The police took over 45 minutes to respond so needless to say by the time they called us back looking for the accident, both cars were long gone. I should also mention while this was all going on a car full of men drove by and shouted at me something about not being bad looking for a white girl. Um, thanks.

Playing in my car at the time was the Luiz Eca - Y La Familia Sagrada cd.

911 # 2

Not more than 10 minutes later, now on the highway returning back home, we (me and my fella) watched a car pinball bounce at light speed against the right guardrail twice only to shoot across all three lanes of traffic to the cement divide and scrape against it. We pulled over, dialed 911 looked to the left where the car was stopped to view in horror that A) there appeared to be a violent altercation happening inside the car (we only saw the passenger’s back as he faced the driver and flailed his hands in either panic or rage and B) that the car decided to remain in motion and head towards us, across the three lanes of traffic again. We sped off fearing for our lives and headed towards to the nearest exit because the last thing I wanted to do was share the road with this car no less be hit directly by it. Somehow our 911 call was dropped (stupid cell phones) so we have no idea how this story ends other than us eventually getting back on the road again. We never saw the car again or any sign of police activity so I can’t tell you anything more than that was a terrifying and surreal experience.

The final leg of our journey was a little less dramatic but watching a fresh massive deer carcass be struck by multiple cars offered the kind of blood and guts vision I really really really didn’t need to see.

We drove home in silence listening to Som Imaginario’s – S/T cd and that leads us safely to the here and now.

It is nearly 3 AM and I need to step away from my computer and crawl into bed. I don’t have a review in me tonight. I am very sorry…but at least now you know why.

Melvins / Houdini Live 2005: A Live History of Gluttony and Lust / Rating: 5.7

2006-06-29T01:56:00.000-04:00

“But while it is a little interesting to hear the band revisit some of these songs, ultimately these louder, slightly faster versions pale in comparison to the originals, leaving A Live History of Gluttony and Lust far from essential.”

I had to ask (especially as a once upon a time huge fan of the Melvins), was this faux live Melvins record remotely necessary? Reading the below quote from Buzz helped to put the recording into perspective but it still didn’t spell out essential for me and it took only one listen to the record to prove it. A band can explain a record to death; give it great purpose and meaning in an interview but when the music is left alone to speak for itself, Houdini Live 2005 fails to amaze.

Message from Buzz:

"…We figured it was our duty to put this out as a live record since we went to the trouble of RE-LEARNING all of the songs, a third of which we never ever intended to play live. Figuring out HOW to play some of them was problematic but it worked out beautifully. The shows in London and Dublin went great. Unfortunately we didn't hit upon the idea of the live record until after the shows were over. This was a dilemma that could only be remedied by recording another show, and that wasn't easily done. Not only did we have a limited amount of time, locating a suitable venue and assembling the recording equipment was a BITCH. In the end, we couldn't find a venue that would work on such short notice so we rented a warehouse in Vernon, just south of LA, set up the gear and rehearsed all afternoon for our invitation only performance that evening. Then after running through the show twice, we took the tapes to the studio, picked out the best songs of the two sets, mixed them and mastered them onto this CD. DONE! In the exact same order we played them. "

In theory this re-recording of Houdini makes sense but when you start adding up the details, the record’s power and meaning begins to shrink.

This isn’t the real deal audio scrap book recording of their set as it unfolded live at the festival in front of thousands. Instead it is a stiff re-creation minus all the one of a kind energy one would normally get from a band playing in front of an audience.

This is an after thought recording session and it shows but who can blame a band for wanting to cash in on the grueling process of re-learning an entire record from front to back. When the band tells us one third of this material was not meant to be played live, they mean it.

Mixing the best parts from two rehearsal room sets is cheating. This also challenges the idea of what a “live” recording actually means. Not only is this not the actual recording from the All Tomorrow’s show, this isn’t a live (in front of a crowd) performance either.

Sorry Buzz but this is a compiled practice space recording that when pieced together happens to recreate Houdini but not in the original track listing order. Calling it Live 2005 (even though it does rhyme) is false advertising.

Worst of all, this rearranged and extended lackluster “live” version of a classic record doesn’t come close to the cement shower this band pummels their audience with in normal live setting. It's safe to say 99.5% of all Melvins fans will also prefer the original recording of Houdini over this one. I am barely willing to call this new cd a worthy companion piece to the og.

I won’t mess with the Pitchfork rating but I will suggest to any band who likes to put out a record every 6 months that maybe a few of their releases should be a fan club only thing. Think limited. Think only available at the merch table on tour. Make it a download only record or maybe even a limited mail order thing from your web page. Just because you can make art and record it doesn’t mean every stitch of it needs to be shared with the world.

Assuming your fans will dish out money for every little thing you decide to shit out will eventually work against you (besides revealing the size of your ego) but then again the best part about the Melvins is I know they know this and they still don’t give a fuck. Some people might thrive on hate but this band has learned to make a living from it. More power to them, I guess.

Melvins - Fucking you loudly and often since 1984 … because they can.

PS: Why the hell can’t this band keep a bass player around for more than a tour or a recording session?

Amy Millan / Honey From the Tombs / Rating: 5.9

2006-06-28T08:56:00.000-04:00

“Without the grit to make her twanging strums stick, Millan merely regurgitates country-folk's most obvious characteristics.”

Déjà vu. Weren’t we just talking about Canada or something? At least Pitchfork got the review AND rating right this time. I know some of you might be tempted to check out the record because you are a Broken Social Scene or Stars fan plus she does look pretty darn cute on the cover...but everything the PFM review said is true so the moral of the story is stay clear of this record.

The only thing I care to add to “second-rate whiskey'n'tears-fueled backwoods banalities” is that they neglected to mention Honey From The Tombs is not available domestically in the U.S. yet; in fact it doesn’t hit our streets until August 22nd.

From time to time Pitchfork reviews imports which is fine considering how the whole www. thing works but is it really so difficult to add the word IMPORT and what country it’s from between the label / year of release and the rating?

Amy Millan
Honey From the Tombs
[Arts & Crafts; 2006]
Import; Canada
Rating: 5.9

Now that wasn’t hard at all.

The Lovely Feathers / Hind Hind Legs / Rating: 7.6

2006-06-27T01:00:00.000-04:00

"The Lovely Feathers seem poised for success: They hail from the buzzing indie beehive of Montreal; they're labelmates with Islands on the newly formed Equator Records; hell, they even have a name derived from the animal kingdom and Marcel Dzama-esque illustrations on their album sleeve. But it isn't merely the contemporary cred signifiers that make Lovely Feathers a potential hype band; it's the music.”

Hypothetically speaking: F Canada. F Islands. F indie rock’s obsession with bird and animal names. If we are going to talk music or rather idea of quality music than F The Lovely Feathers and definitely F Pitchfork’s review too.

Sub par bands, even if they are poised to move onto something better next time around do not deserve a 7.6 rating and if you have listened to more than 100 records in your lifetime, you too would hear this record and think maybe a 5. Maybe.

Jangle-funk taking on the identity of a third rate Make-Up minus more than a few IQ points hardly deserves the time for a review. Wacky whiney over dramatic pseudo post punk certainly doesn’t warrant your hard earned dollars or earn the privilege of taking up space in your iTunes library or cd shelf.

If you don’t value your time or money then go ahead, splurge.

Sorry to be so harsh but I am a busy woman who hates to have my time wasted with yet another mediocre record. I want the best for my friends and friends let me tell you… The Lovely Feathers are not it. In fact the best thing I heard all day was the Nacho Libre soundtrack (just watched the movie) and ironically it doesn’t seem to be available on cd.

Wikipedia however does have some hot gossip on the story behind the music in this film. Danny Elfman verse Beck? Yeah you want to read this and while the movie itself isn’t so genius, the music is. Apparently for now at least you won’t be able to hear it any other way other than seeing Nacho Libre for yourself.

Use the money you saved from not buying The Lovely Feathers cd and treat yourself to a movie ticket.

Mogwai / Mr. Beast / Rating : 6.8

2006-06-26T00:06:00.000-04:00

Ladies and Gentlemen please join me in welcoming the newewst addition to the Tuning Fork staff (drum roll please) Outerupt (applaud here). His test review / practice run was so darn impressive that not only did it warrant me posting it ASAP but earned him a permanent place at the TFM table.

Welcome to the family my good man.

"The longest song on Mr. Beast, Mogwai’s fifth studio album, runs 5:46.
The entire LP clocks under 45 minutes. Ordinarily, this isn’t the kind of thing you’d bother pointing out in a record review, but…"

But… But what? If it’s not normally worth mentioning, why pray tell, mention it to me now What’s that? Oh, I see. You aim to criticize Mogwai’s most recent release for being all too brief. I understand. You were so enthralled with the record, really feeling its highs and lows, enjoying the subtle undulations between the glassy melodies and grit-toothed riffage of "Glasgow Mega-Snake", the jackhammer knocks on the drums and playful syncopation of "Folk Death 95," the nuanced interplay of synth and acoustic elements and soaring crescendos of "Friend of the Night," that eerie-soft-bass vocal delivery unfolding under layers of instrumentation in "Travel is Dangerous," and the destructive barn-burning of "We’re No Here" had you feeling pains in places you hadn’t felt since you were 12. And just when you had completely lost yourself in the record, tears just starting to well up, it came to an all too abrupt end. Well, I’d say that’s a reasonable criticism. I mean, who doesn’t get a little upset at the end of a great movie when all the conflicts have been only slightly resolved and the screen goes black and white with the rolling credits, or when a sandwich with just the right amount of mayo, a perfectly ripe tomato, crisp lettuce and freshly sliced roast beef comes down to the final delicious bite? And this record is no different right? You’re left empty, longing for more… Oh no wait… you just want to make some trivial and misguided point about how you like Mogwai when they play tunes that drone on longer than the average Mahler symphony or Bush II state of the union address. You want me to believe that on some art-crit level of objectivity that Mogwai are better when they "let their music breathe, ebb, flow and stretch…" What is this some girly mid-seventies fanzine review of a Lynyrd Skynyrd solo? And since when does PFM like overlong songs? Didn’t Doug Martsch just get lambasted for his noodling on Built to Spill’s recent You in Reverse? (Hmm… yeah they gave that a 6.8 too… weird)? And last, but most crucially, what Mogwai records have you been listening to? I’m unfamiliar with a wealth of releases from this band that extend past the 10-minute mark. In fact, just for fun, lets collect up a few REAL points about this band and it’s history of long players:

1. In the entire career catalog of 5 full-length studio albums from these guys only 3 out of 49 songs has ever exceeded 10 minutes. That’s a little over 6% and not a lot of material to work with for a band that garnered a 9.6 from Pitchfork for their debut album Young Team.
2. While 2 out of those 3 songs are from Young Team, the average song length on that record is still around 6 and a half minutes despite those
2 long tracks taking up around 43% of the record.
3. The average song length for all of the four albums preceding Mr.
Beast is about 5:23.
4. The album with the greatest number of songs over 8 minutes is Come on Die Young, which is the lowest scoring Mogwai release on Pitchfork (6.1).
5. Rock Action scored an 8.0 on Pitchfork and clocks in at 38.5 minutes and has but two songs over 8 minutes and none over 10.

Moment of clarity: This record builds upon the many achievements this band has made since its initial release in 1997, condensing and expanding themes where necessary and presenting ideas with elegance and clarity. If anything, you might fault Mr. Beast for being more polished than earlier releases but hey, what’s so wrong with polish when it sounds this good? And it comes with a DVD. SWEET!

El Perro Del Mar/El Perro Del Mar/8.1

2006-06-22T22:58:00.000-04:00

These songs are so intent and intense in their misery that it's almost a little funny-- tragedy amplified into comedy.

Rebecca: This is so bad it's almost good.
Enid: This is so bad it's gone past good and back to bad again.

Those two viewpoints pretty much sum up how listeners are going to feel about El Perro Del Mar. Some listeners will find the combination of retro instrumental tracks and simple sentimental lyrics heartwarming. I find myself in a different camp who find the off key singing grating and the minimalism of the songs uninviting. If you’re looking for something retro and charming, I’d steer you in many other directions.

With new releases by Camera Obscura, Tilly and the Wall and Pipettes, how did 2006 become the Summer of Twee? I don’t mind retro flavored pop, but I tend to partake only on occasion. It’s like Bubble Tea – I enjoy the novelty and the flavor, but don’t drink it on a daily basis (even though I live in walking distance of such an establishment). I also appreciate that influence of 60’s girl groups on the current batch of these artists– the combination of Brill building songwriters, revolutionary production gurus and gifted singers created timeless pop. Artists who try to fill those shoes have to bring at least some combination of those talents to the table. Camera Obscura have songwriting on their side. The Pipettes have the attitude. Tilly and the Wall…well, they have a tap dancer. El Perro Del Mar has some momentarily great production, but the songwriting and singing don’t measure up.

Too many of the songs seems to consist of Assbring cooing the same lyrics over and over and over. On the opening track “Candy”, she squeezes what little flavor exists in the line “I’m going for to get me some candy” while delivering the last part of the line out of pitch (though somehow, the background vocals are spot on). Maybe this is what Ashlee Simpson would sound like unprocessed, but I still wouldn’t want to hear these vocals (though the idea of a clandestine Ashlee Simpson twee project intrigues me). Some folks may find her girlish voice charming; for most of the tracks, it’s hard for me to hear. Besides, if I want to hear teenage girls singing, I can listen to the real deal on Smoosh’s latest.

There are a couple of tracks that work for me, “Coming Down The Hill” and “It’s All Good”. "Coming Down the Hill" has stronger vocal and the repetition of the lyrics sound more like a soul tune than improvised lyrics. "It’s All Good" picks up the temp and again overcomes the simple lyrics with style and sass. Duesner picked up on the appeal of the final track “Here Comes That Feeling” and I have to agree that that cut hooked me as well. However, three tracks are a single, not an LP. Enjoying these tracks as a digital download may be the best way to go (and if you find these tracks too sweet and cloying, stay away from the rest).

Maybe liking El Perro Del Mar is some shibboleth for true hipsterism; it’s on the hard to find Memphis Industries label and sounds like an quirky find after an afternoon of crate diving. If so, fail me as a simple music fan who prefers better songwriting and stronger vocals. El Perro Del Mar’s strange combination of retro charm and intense despair begs for the invention of new genres – Twee-Doom? Twee-Violence? Dark-Twee? However, this invention of micro-genres feels a lot like giving out ribbons at an elementary school track meet – Best Sportsmanship goes to Antwon Belling, Best Dark-Twee song goes to Sarah Assbring. The CD doesn’t quite succeed in any way music typically works, so you have to create new criteria for good music to enjoy it. If you’re looking for something different, El Perro Del Mar is different – however, not necessarily in an appealing way. I’d give this record something in upper fives and advise fans looking to satisfy their sweet tooth to look elsewhere.

I blame the heat.

2006-06-22T13:08:00.000-04:00

Hey Mr. Columbus, MS can you please email me or leave a comment here and let me know if you got my mix cd. I can't remember if I mailed yours out before you sent along yours. Crap. Sorry about that.

thanks,
Pitch Perfect

Helium videos

2006-06-22T11:51:00.000-04:00

It doesn't always have to be about Pitchfork. I haven't done a REWIND in ages so here you go.

* Mary Timony (post Autoclave - pre solo-ish artist singing about D & D themes).
* Ash Bowie of Polvo was also a member.
* They had a definite Pixies/Breeders/Sonic Youth thing happening. (Well it was the early to mid 90's)
* Love their records and had no idea there were any videos for the band until today.
* YAY!
* The quality is pretty terrible so consider yourself warned.
* The music is worth all the grain and 120 minutes logos.
* "Pat's Trick" is my favorite song of the video bunch.

Raising the Fawn / The Maginot Line / Rating: 7.6

2006-06-21T15:40:00.000-04:00

“Where Broken Social Scene's narcotic-pop floats effortlessly skyward, Raising the Fawn strive for the same heights through a painstaking, brick-by-brick effort: guitars short out, harmonies crack, and calloused fingers grind fretboards with each abrupt chord change.”

At age 92 my grandmother pretty much does what she pleases. She refuses to go to the dentist to replace the missing front tooth in her bottom bridge, she refuses to leave the house for any reason, and refuses to wear her hearing aids which according to her she “hates to fiddle with” as they are too small for her less than nimble fingers to insert into her ear.

What this all means is to see Irma- you need to come to her. You need to sit close by her chair and you need to yell to be heard. Unless you are talking about marriage, death, diseases / hospitals, or buns in the ovens, she doesn’t appear to really be paying attention to whatever you are shouting about and no matter what you say your conversational pauses are met with a pat on the hand followed by a “That’s nice”.

Her short term memory no longer exists so one also must expect to repeat everything you told her at least three times and you will be force fed ice tea and baked goods until your body can take no more. This has been the routine for several years now and while I have grown accustomed to it and love these visits, I find her attitude contagious.

My ears, my listening skills more specifically feel 90 something. I can’t say I have heard it all but it takes A LOT to get my attention these days and the mundane music, the average, even the slightly above average don’t register on my radar anymore. Even after repeat listens I am not hearing anything I care to remember... so Irma, I feel your pain.

My two hour drive to grandmother’s house (4 hours total travel time) allowed me more than ample time alone with Raising the Fawn’s The Maginot Line. Over 5 listens later I turned off my car stereo to finish the ride in silence. I would rather hear the shushing of wind over my car than the kind of record I have heard a million times before. Something pleasant enough, something totally unchallenging, something another million bands do better, and something a million other bands do worse. Temperamental rock (ooooh it is quiet and ahhhhhh now it is loud) with a vocalist who has a great range but has no idea what to do with it is the record equivalent of a cul-de-sac. My patience for this musical middle ground is dead and while I am sure there are plenty people who are content with the unexceptional, I am no longer one of them. I am not impressed or swayed by the Raising the Fawn’s Broken Social Scene connection and neither should you. The Maginot Line barely deserves a 5 (take that Pitchfork) and just to be polite, a “That’s nice”.

Smog / Rock Bottom Riser EP / Rating: 7.4

2006-06-21T08:42:00.000-04:00

“Callahan's songs feel worn-in and effortless; his voice coasting across guitars so languid they sound wet, and his focus has turned from damnation to redemption.”

It is such a genuine pleasure to say Pitchfork’s Smog review has not one paragraph, not even one sentence I care to argue about. In fact this means I don’t have to dedicate more than a few more minutes towards this post and I now have the free time to read a few chapters in "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle".

Thanks PFM!

My only question is if the review reads as positive as I think it does, why the slightly above average rating of 7.4? The Smog fan of more than 15 years in me loves Rock Bottom Riser more most of the music Bill C. has produced over the past 9 years and the short attention span adult / single ( 7”ers especially) obsessed record collector in me is pleased as punch*. With a statement that grand comes a grand rating of an 8.4.

* I like trivia (shocking I know) so I looked up the history of the phrase pleased as punch. The slap-stick puppet play of Punch and Judy + alliteration = classic British slang and some cultural experts say P and J inspired the violent humor found in modern day cartoons.

Sunset Rubdown / Shut Up I Am Dreaming / Rating: 8.6

2006-06-20T08:42:00.000-04:00

“As the Wolf Parade juggernaut gathers steam, the quintet's charismatic keyboardist, Spencer Krug, somehow found time to follow his recent self-titled Sunset Rubdown EP with Shut Up I Am Dreaming, a collection of his strongest, most fully realized non-Wolf Parade material to date.”

“Most fully realized” is the kind of review phrase I despise. As meaningful as the words can be it is a canned criticism I read or am told so regularly (especially coming from labels and publicity companies) that I now ignore this type of claim all together.

Six paragraphs of worship and praise for Sunset Rubdown later (to back up "most fully realized"), it just took one listen to think what a waste of time. Not the record, but all those bulked up compliments. I understand Pitchfork readers need a little more to go on than yup….this sure does sounds like Wolf Parade and their name should be also be a Bathwork’s tropical massage oil, but being the busy people we are, why drag it out.

Close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths. Clear your mind. Now allow your imagination to wander. I would like you to envision what Spencer Krug from Wolf Parade’s other band might sound like.

Yes! That’s it!

I don’t know most of you reading this personally but I bet whatever sounds you conjured up in your head mirror Shut Up I Am Dreaming almost exactly. The same but different should be Sunset’s Rubdown’s motto. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, especially if you like WP but I can’t offer a novella on the subject featuring glowing Pitchfork sentiments like” ostensible perfection”, “brilliant”, “inventive stitching”, “kick-ass axe-toting coda”, “weirdly pleasant and satisfying”, “This is rich stuff”, and “elegant wallop”.

Geesh Pitchfork, get a room already. Just kidding. I am happy to read that somebody is deeply in love with a 2006 record and I can only hope I too find that kind of passion this year for a new release. I don’t prey on other people’s dates so Pitchfork can have Sunset Rubdown. I don’t want to go steady with this band or even hold hands with them under the table. SR isn’t really my type so why try to force what is not meant to be. We can still be friends, right?

My parting question is this: why do so many band members create side projects that sound suspiciously like their other more popular band? I mean if you are going to go for an alternate identity why clone your artist self in the process?

I know some apples don’t fall far from its tree but some band apples apparently don’t want to leave the branch at all. Sunset Rubdown are the 6.8 of my eye and nothing more.

Thank you!

2006-06-19T15:39:00.000-04:00

The mixes, letters, and packages you good Tuning Fork readers have sent me in relation to my mix cd offer has been nothing short of spectacular.

Thank you for giving such good pen pal and your prizes are on the way!

Your pal,
Pitchy

Mistakes Happen and happen again.

2006-06-19T12:38:00.000-04:00

Check out this Information Leafblower post about a funny Pitchfork faux pas.

Note to reviewers who say they are fans of a band-if you are going to gush about artists you fancy, make sure you get their song titles correct or at least have a copy editor to double check your work.

As of 12:39 pm East Coast time this mistake in PFM's Luna review still stands.

It isn't "Billy Peru", it's "Bobby Peru" and thank you eagle eye Information Leafblower for pointing this out.

Fiery Furnaces / Bitter Tea / Rating: 7.6

2006-06-19T09:02:00.000-04:00

“There's no shortage of direct and heartfelt indie rock that talks about the passion, but nothing else going sounds like the Fiery Furnaces' carefully considered babble.”

Many of us have at least one roommate we cringe at the memory of. Not only do I have one (I will call her Marisol for this purpose) but to this day the thought of her still makes me shudder. I blame her for single handedly leading me to loathe all people who refer to themselves as a thespian and or budding actress.

To make matters worse my live-in thespian also had a booming voice that was always so loud it was as if she was eternally speaking to the last row of a playhouse. (That isn’t to say people actually attended any of the productions she “starred” in.)

Life with an “actress” felt a little like being trapped in a soap opera steeped daily in high doses of dramatics. There were the weeks she was “in character” which made the most simple every day tasks like super market shopping painful. I mean you try picking a cereal with a person trying out a French accent for the first time and dressed like farmer’s daughter. Then there were the teary eyed melt downs caused by stockings with a run in them, a coffee cart without soy milk, a full moon masked by clouds, or a shoe sale at a local dept store passing her by. And you don’t want to hear about the rehearsals in our living room where MORE people of her kind convened and tried to out act / art each other.

Ugh.

I lost a year of my life to this sort of crazed environment but I am grateful of one thing; she did not play in band. As far as I remember she couldn’t sing (thank God because I think musical home rehearsals would have killed me) nor did she play any instrument so her theatrics and self exploration were contained to a stage and poorly costumed and set designed by others.

I couldn’t imagine what life would have been like had Marisol owned a drum machine, a synth, or guitar no less had a supportive family member coaxing her to play music…but now I can. The Fiery Furnaces have become the thing my nightmares are made of; a DIY off off broadway musical duo with plenty of plot but no props other than deceivingly attractive album cover art. Some people might enjoy an overtly dramatic performance thrown at them in the comfort of their own personal space but this is where my Marisol flashbacks kick in. Wading through a long winded wordy recital in hopes of something that might resemble a hook or a climax leaves me too fidgety to enjoy myself. Just like sitting though one of Marisol’s endless performances (this time of a girl dreams of exotic and far away places) I find myself asking, is it over yet? Is the script the problem or is it the acting? Maybe a little of both?

I appreciate PFM’s ability to make sense of this record no less give it a decent rating but the drama-phobe in me isn’t such a patient listener and there are only so many songs featuring backwards sounding parts a person can take. An hour plus worth of material starts to feel like a job rather than a pleasurable listening experience and for that it earns FF a 6. There are only so many dramatic concept albums I can embrace in a year and I am afraid Scott Walker has already claimed that spot for 2006.

Deconstructing the typical pop format is something I celebrate because it takes guts to make art that challenges the listener as well as possibly alienating a fan base but it still doesn’t mean I have to like the music. It just means I like the ideas behind their music much more than the music itself.

There are unbelievably contagious vocal melodies and memorable lines to be discovered here and if they weren’t so obscured by their outlandish abstract musical theories, not only would my rating jump to an 8 but a wider audience would be offering a standing ovation.

A sneak preview of the new Pitchfork

2006-06-17T00:02:00.000-04:00

If you read Pitchfork everyday, then you probably noticed something a little different about their site this past Thursday. For about five hours Thursday, Pitchfork had a bunch of new design features. Their graphical look was the same, however, they added some new features to the home page, reviews and other parts of the site. I poked around, took stock of what was new (and some of it that wasn’t quite done yet) and made a little list. It’s a good thing that I did, because by 2 pm EDT, Pitchfork was back to their old design. Fortunately, the t-shirt ads from American Apparel didn’t go away.

Now, I don’t know when these new features will be back – that’s probably up to their programming company iheartsquares. However, this is what we can look forward to from Pitchfork 2006 XP.

The Good

Related reviews and news on review pages. At the bottom of each of the review pages that day were other reviews of records by that artist as well as any news stories. This will be great for us here at Tuningfork so we can go back to old reviews and berate PFM for any inconsistencies. Less persnickety readers will like learning more about artists’ back catalog as well as related news such as tour dates. In any event, it helps get the vast archive of reviews that Pitchfork has in front of more readers.

Audio and video links on reviews pages. At the bottom of several reviews were links to MP3s, audio streams or music videos for the records. With MP3 blogs becoming the way many folks find new music, Pitchfork needs to give its readers direct access to sample tracks. It’ll sure save me the trouble of having to go to the label site, then better propaganda, then a half dozen blogs to hear an artist who’s just been reviewed.

Search by artist, label, score and date. Freeform keyword search is okay, but some artists and titles just give you headaches if you use them in a search - just do a search for “Son”, the title of Juana Molina’s new album. The new search lets you search specifically by artist, album title, record label, score, date and reviewer. In just one click, I could pull up all of the reviews from this time a year ago. I was also able to pull up all of the records Nick Sylvester panned. The only drawback was that the “power search” was only the available from a review page or the list of reviews. Still, it made finding old reviews tremendously easy.

RSS Feeds! If you follow a lot of blogs in your day to day surfing, you probably already know about RSS (Really Simple Syndication) or you need to find out. Basically, RSS lets you use tools like the Personalized Google Homepage and My Yahoo to track the latest posts from multiple websites at one time. Blogs have been offering RSS for years. Now, if you use an RSS reader or software of some kind, you’ll be able to see the latest reviews and news without having to go directly to Pitchfork.

And if you don’t know what RSS is, you can learn more here.

The Bad

No release dates. People come to review sites to find out about music that they might want to buy. An essential part of buying music is knowing whether it has been released yet in your market. Compared to the features above, this would be easy to add. Pitchfork wouldn’t necessarily need to update the dates either – it’d just be good to know what the street dates are at the time of the review. Any related news at the bottom of the page could fill in readers on U.S. vs. U.K. release dates and so forth.

No direct links to albums. The eMusic and Amp Camp links still go to search pages not album pages on those respective sites. For folks who want to buy a record after a review, this means two or three more clicks to find a record – or a visit to Insound or Amazon instead of Pitchfork’s partners. I’m not the only one to notice how effective direct album links are; Coolfer had a good article on them. If PFM can put album links in news articles, they should be able to put them on reviews. It’d be a great feature for Pitchfork, its advertisers and its readers.

No comments/letters. Back in the day, Pitchfork actually had a letters section. That has since disappeared and now communication is one-way – from Pitchfork to its readers. However, music fans are finding ways to talk back in comments sections of blogs as well as well as on social networking sites like Last.fm. Comments don’t just give the writers direct feedback but also give readers a reason to come back later in the day after reading the initial reviews. Based on their comments and e-mails, I think that many of PFM’s writers actually dig getting responses from their readers. If you want to see a comments section that works, check out the comments on Stylus magazines reviews.

The Ugly

So where did all of this new goodness go Thursday afternoon? Well, as I played with the new features, I quickly figured out that not everything was finished.

The RSS feed for reviews didn’t give me any stories. In fact, it didn’t even give me a valid RSS file.

Not all of the options for search worked. I could search reviews by artist and title, but the record label search didn’t work.

The site was dog slow. Pitchfork gets a serious amount of web traffic. As the day progressed, I noticed that even simple things like reading a new article were taking forever. My guess is that some of the new features were added without planning for the beating they’d take from Pitchfork’s daily traffic.

Now, my day job is writing software and I’ve worked on a big website. I won’t give Pitchfork’s technology partner iheartsquares a hard time; I imagine their code monkeys are fixing the issues right now. Also, I’ve seen rougher software releases from much bigger companies.

Overall, I look forward to using the new features once they’re ready for prime time. However, Pitchfork will need to add more if it wants to keep its spot as one of the most read music websites. Based on some of the features, it seems like Pitchfork is trying to compete with the growing popularity of music blogs. If Pitchfork has anything to worry about, it’s blogs – not because blogs (like us) may be critical of them, but because blogs are becoming a more trusted source of opinion for many music fans. Unlike the mid-nineties when Pitchfork started, anyone can start up a fairly full featured website for free in a manner of minutes. And if they don’t have the time to follow blogs, music fans can go to sites like Pandora or Last.fm and get recommendations for music based on their tastes. There are more places to get information about music than ever – which can be great for fans, but may make things a little rougher for Pitchfork in the future.

Added 6/19/2006: After a weekend of work, it looks like the new features on Pitchfork are a go. Hopefully PFM's programmers can sit back, enjoy a cool beverage and listen to some tunes - perhaps This Boy Is Exhausted?

Not Yet In The Budget: Spell Checker and "Intro to Punctuation" Course At Local Community College

2006-06-16T00:46:00.000-04:00

Yesterday somebody told me Pitchfork's review of the new Replacements greatest hits CD misspelled frontman Paul Westerberg's name. Had it in there as Westerburg. That's pretty lame considering any music critic worth his/her salt is supposed to know all about people like Westerberg, right? He's a critics' darling.

When I checked the page the review had the correct spelling. Maybe somebody fixed it.

Spelling mistakes are common, and I don't mind them...especially in blogs. Mistakes happen. But know how to freakin' spell the last names of the revered rockers, OK?

You know all these mainstream media articles about Pitchfork? I'd like one of them to cover the site's operational process. How does a review go from writer to HTML? What's the editorial process? Does anybody check for spelling and grammar? Is there an oversight committee that says, "Hmm...you know, I think there are too many bands name-dropped in this review. Let's drop the number from 15 to 11. And let's take out that unnecessary reference to My Bloody Valentine. We'll give My Bloody Valentine a rest this week."

Spelling issues are minor compared to the biggest technical problem with the site: The creative punctuation used by Pitchfork writers. If there's one thing I can't stand it's bad punctuation. How annoying. Can somebody at Pitchfork please pick up the AP Stylebook and The Associated Press Guide to Punctuation?

They've been very honest in why they review albums not available in the U.S. The reasoning is that the site has international readers, and they need to cater to them as much as their U.S. readers.

So is that why Pitchfork places its commas and periods where it does, to cater to its British readership? Note to Pitchfork: the commas and periods go INSIDE the quotation marks. You're Americans. Punctuate like Americans.

It wouldn't be so bad if not for the lack of consistency. If your punctuation is going to be incorrect, at least it should be consistent. I've seen punctuation styles vary within a single paragraph. One sentence has a comma outside a quotation mark, a few sentences later there's a period inside a quotation mark.

Let's take a look at today's review of Metallic Falcon's Desert Doughnuts. In the first paragraph there's the sentence,

Although the duo has termed their creations "soft metal," this open-ended descriptor is insufficient to prepare the listener for entrance into the Falcons' vast and cryptic hemisphere.

And in the third paragraph there's

This diffuse recording method lends an appropriate sense of wide-open grandeur to airy tracks like "Desert Cathedral" or "Misty Song", but it does leave one to wonder exactly how many background details might have gotten lost in the wash.

I think I see what Pitchfork is doing. They're differentiating between how they use quotation marks for terms and for song titles. The term gets a comma inside, the song title gets a comma outside.

This section pulled from a Camera Obscura album review doesn't fit that system. The commas and periods are all over the place! One lyric quotation gets a comma on the outside, the next gets a period on the inside.

And on the weepy, twanging "Dory Previn", Campbell is "sick of the sight of [her] old lover", eventually concluding that it's "time I let my love for him die."

Here's what every academic and style guide says is the only and correct way to punctuate: Periods and commas go inside quotation marks. Always. Semi-colons and exclamation marks and some others have different rules, but commas and periods are ALWAYS to be placed inside quotation marks.

The Black Angels / Passover / Rating: 7.2

2006-06-15T10:11:00.000-04:00

"Like seasoned trackers, these Texas-based psych-rockers gingerly place their steps directly in the petrified footprints left by the Velvet Underground and the slightly fresher ones of Spacemen 3, following the path without disturbing its flora and fauna."

Trust me when I say basically every review of The Black Angels’ Pass Over reads pretty much the same. I could hyper link 5 or 10 reviews to prove my point but I’ve already posted a review like that recently and I think we all understand that many a music journalist relies on press kits and safely stating the obvious rather than stepping out on a limb and offering a new perspective of a band or actually having a strong opinion...though in fairness Pitchfork (and Stylus) writers are occasionally exceptions to this rule.

Oh and forgive me Brian Howe, for some reason the reviews I pick (on) always seem to be his and it certainly has nothing to do with him personally. The records I know best or have in my possession seem to mirror the ones he writes about. Weird but anyhow….

It wasn’t until I began this blog that I wondered how other writers approached the records they review. I don’t mean in theme but literally how (and how often) they listened to the music they were trying to describe. I imagine that a great deal of these people listen to music on a closed course meaning in the safety of their own homes, a bubble so to speak. I think we all know any record can sound different on headphones or from day to day. Outside environments (car, parties, bar, store, friend’s home…) or shared among a group of people can further alter our experience with a record so as often as possible I take the records I review on test drives outside of my home.

Enter The Black Angels.

A few times a year I travel to the border of North Carolina and Virginia to VIR for the Historic Sports Car Races. For those of you not tapped into this vintage car community this is a 3.27 mile non oval racetrack where sports cars from the 50’s to the 70’s (all makes and models) spend three days racing against each other in groups broken down by engine power or country of origin.

I still don’t know a hell of a lot about cars but I can tell you after 4 years of attending these events, I am always inspired by the end of the last day to literally race back home to Richmond which is not only dangerous but as you can guess, totally illegal.(no thanks to the 55 mph signs for the first 70 miles heading back home.) What this return trip requires is music that will be a pace car of sorts, something that will tame my pedal to the metal tempo.

Pass Over in all its steady drone and paranoid tribal War Dance rhythm glory was the perfect choice.

What sounds like a supergroup combo of Clinic and The Warlocks (though they are most certainly not) and carries the motto of “Turn on, Tune in, Drone out.” hypnotized me into traveling at a more sedated safe speed yet was interesting enough to keep me awake / content.

It is also important to add that the second pair of ears in the passenger seat never once fell asleep, forwarded to the next track or hit the eject (reject) button.

To be honest I was a little worried this “trip” back home would be an audio disaster. As I mentioned before almost every review of this band props them up against the same few bands, one of which is quite possibly my least favorite bands of all time: the Doors.

PFM says: “It's a long, darkly iridescent screw, glittering feverishly, boring deeper and deeper into the weirdly giddy wartime terror associated with the Doors and Apocalypse Now.”

It’s true. The Jim Morrison vibe is undeniable but luckily that annoying bloated bellowing ghost of a shit poet haunts Pass Over only occasionally and seemed to only take on a stronger presence once I was back home again and listening to it in my office. I was going to rate The Black Angels higher than PFM’s 7.2 but I still can’t swallow that horse pill of a Doors tribute happening. It chokes up an otherwise impressive sinister psych-rock record so blame the hater in me- the low 7 rating stays.

Camera Obscura / Let's Get Out of This Country / Rating: 7.8

2006-06-14T06:30:00.000-04:00

“Though they haven't changed much in the span of three terrific albums, Camera Obscura no longer recall Belle & Sebastian; they only sound like themselves.”

So does sounding like themselves mean The Concretes are copying Camera Obscura or do both bands just happen to sound like kissing cousins? Each band formed around the same time (mid 90’s) and they certainly love to replicate radio friendly 60’s girl group -hey la hey la- pop accessorized by hand claps, strings, and the occasional horn.

Maybe I should pose this question to Finnish producer Jari Haapalainen as he has worked with both of the bands in question here. He could easily be the guilty party.

Honestly I don’t care who did it first.

I generally like both bands but Camera Obscura do a better job of this darling cavity causing brand of cuddle-core. The problem is that both bands suffer from a mid-tempo disease that traps their best songs in the middle of a slow dance marathon. Don’t let the lead C.O. single “Lloyd, I’m ready…” fool you”, 75% of the record is otherwise a trip to sleepy-ville.

But the day I sculpt my hair into a beehive and crave a good waltz with a boy in a cardigan, I know what record to throw on.

In the meantime I will replay to death the more upbeat numbers like “I Need All the Friends I Can Get”, “If Looks Could Kill”, that cute little number I mentioned in the paragraph above, and I still look forward to getting my slow dance on at their live show in a few weeks. (Goodness what ever shall I wear? Saddle shoes and a skirt below my knee?)

PFM does not offer a completely original take on the band (everybody in the press writes about the Belle and Sebastian connection) but I will say after reading about 7 other reviews of the same record, Pitchfork’s version is better than most.

I would give Howe’s review a 7.8 and Camera Obscura a 6.8.

twee-gaze-static-jingle-sonic-fuzz-pop

2006-06-13T13:30:00.000-04:00

Somehow my mix cd turned into a double disc but needless to say it is finally finished.

If you sent me a mix or a blank cdr already don't sweat it, I will include the second disc for you too.

For those of you who have already forgotten, I made a mix of all the stuff I have been listening to lately(see the subect title and the post about my favorites of 2006 so far) and you can either trade me a mix of your own for mine (doesn't have to be a double disc) or send me 2 blank cdrs to the PO box listed at the top left of this page.

I know it is old fashioned but I love a mix that comes with home spun art that I can actually hold in my hand (once upon a time tapes) and I love sending stuff via the post so sorry this isn't some i-pod thingy.

I'm just not that kind of girl.

Your number one pen pal,
Pitch Perfect

Yes in fact, the sun has awoken...Six Organs of Admittance / The Sun Awakens / Rating: 8.0

2006-06-12T23:35:00.000-04:00

"That said, Chasny found himself a heavy fucking vibe and that led him to a transcendent but unrelenting place. If you've ever been intrigued by the sound of the sun imploding, this should be your cup of hemlock."

Spot on review by Mr. Stosuy

As a massive fan of Six Organs I'm not sure yet if I'd call this his best album, but fuck is it ever good.

However one of the reasons it may very well end up being my favorite is all about the context in which I really listened to it the first time.

Rewind to a few weeks ago. It's two days before I'm getting married. I get a copy of this record. Give it a few listens in the office, think it's pretty dope, but don't really have time to delve into it to heavily outside of playing "The Desert Is A Circle" about 15 times in a row having been blown away by the Morricone vibe of it.

The marriage happened over two days in a really nice a-frame chalet with a 35 foot wood cathedral ceiling. Great acoustics, great view of a lake, sweet pad all around. Saturday was a 'for the parents' vibed drunken evening with lots of dancing to what we coined "parent rock". Sunday night the parents and kids were told to go away so that me, the new wife, and all our friends could get down to a big old psychedelic party in the country. Copious amounts of free e's, mushrooms, weed, and booze were thrown into the middle of the room and things got busy on the dancefloor as most people partook in some multiple combo of above. 8 hours of dancehall, hip-hop, and techno later, the sun was starting to show itself on the horizon and somewhere in my drug addled state I thought... 'The Sun Awakens'... wait a minute... So with that I made the executive decision that we needed a music change and it was time to get our nod on to this new Six Organs record. And sure, part of this is the drugs talking, part of it was post-wedding bliss, part of it was the setting with a 35 foot window overlooking the lake, the acoustics of a 35 foot wood ceiling... but fuck me this record sounded great. Around the time that the 24 minute "River Of Transfiguration" took hold everybody stopped speaking until the last "ahh, ahh, ahhh, ohhh, ohhh, ohhh" trailed off. As the record ended and everyone got out of their personal zone, one of my friends looked over at me with huge spaced out eyes and said "they were building Egypt, and my cats were there", and all I could think was 'heavy...and fuck yeah, damn good album'.

There was also a certain sense of time passage involved with that listening. Almost a year ago to the day that I was getting married, me & the wife had actually split up about 6 hours before we were supposed to go see Six Organs Of Admittance play. I ended up going to the show anyway and being completely blown away, particularly by the end of the set in which after setting up various loops and noises on pedals, Chasny picked up a guitar, stepped to the mic, and launched into "Redefinition Of Being" (from "Nightly Trembling"). Hearing "Do you know me, la la la la la la la la la" reverberating through the church (what it is about me always listening to this dude with cathedral ceilings...) completely tore my head off and almost reduced me to tears. I'm no hippy (although if you don't know me, you'd be forgiven if you thought I was after reading this), but having 'The Sun Awakens' play at the wedding seemed to really bring things around full cycle.

So yeah. Dope record. Worth your money, and worthy of support.

And while we're at it.... upcoming Comets On Fire "Avatar" is a fucking blazer also in all it's Blue Cheer goodness. And somewhat unrelated, for psyche folk goodness in the same vein, I would also really recommend the Triple Burner album on Madrona records. Combo of Bruce Cawdron (ex-drummer from Godspeed You Black Emperor) and Harris Newman.

Let's hear it for stoner music. Something had to take the place of Spacemen 3 eventually for me to get high to.

Radio 4 / Enemies Like This / Rating: 3.6

2006-06-11T17:18:00.000-04:00

“Given what they've cranked out to date, maybe Radio 4 should worry less about their enemies, and more about the finished product.”

Pitchfork might dislike Radio 4 more than Joan of Arc or anything by Tim Kinsella. Who knew that was even possible?

For those who remember PFM’s last Radio 4 review written by the now infamous Nick Sylvestor, believe it or not this new review is a step up; not only in rating but in actual review content. The slanderous speak from what reads like an Ivy League campus bully is all par for the course and at this point if any of us find that troubling than we should probably abandon reading Pitchfork all together.

Put anything under a microscope and quite naturally cracks become canyons. As a person who takes a magnifying glass to Pitchfork’s review section daily I understand this concept better than most. Under scrutiny the most innocent sentence can be blown up into a smoking gun and in focusing in on a record, a lyric or a guitar part can be distorted into something resembling a crime rather than a piece of art. From a distance everything seems a little more flawless but how many things can survive a close up?

The answer: not many. Not Pitchfork, not Radio 4, not even *GULP* me. We can’t be perfect (don’t let my name fool you), it is nearly impossible so all we can ask of each other is to try our very best and go out on a limb and be true to ourselves AKA be as original as a thinking feeling creative human can be.

So onto the review already.

If you have taken a poetry class or an English lit class, you probably remember that certain words carry an instant positive or negative connotation and this particular review is a perfect case study of subtle coded slaps.

PFM strikes using phrases like:

"but when Anthony Roman opens his yap he consigns the band's good deeds to the remainder bin"
or
"Roman could use a foot in the ass…"
or
"Unfortunately, Enemies Like This features Roman front and center, weighing in on such topical chestnuts"
or
"Dig this big crux…"
or
"Frisky songs like..."

This particular use of language dilutes my respect for PFM’s opinions; no matter how well they are backed up with valid points. Pitchfork might be right as rain here but the manner in which the ideas are expressed are just too playground fisticuffs for my taste.

What it all boils down to is there are worse records out there (Rye I am looking in your direction) and while this isn’t my favorite Radio 4 release (the first one is) or even my favorite music from band leader Anthony Roman ( Viva la Garden Variety) I am rather convinced Enemies Like This is Radio 4 trying their hardest. You may not like the band, lyrically or musically but there was clearly an effort made to avoid the mistakes from their past and production wise this is hands down the best sounding record the band has ever made.

Let me get the rating issue out the way first and say I would give Enemies a 6.5 and if you know their music well or Roman’s history as a musician, Enemies Like This offers the best vocals (both pitch and melody) that he has EVER done to date. If I had a most improved award to give away, it would go to him (and Kaitlan from Rainer Maria). And sorry, I don’t hear any Winnie the Pooh character here as PFM sarcastically suggests.

Radio 4 hasn’t strayed far from the sound they started with (even with a new guitar player and the addition of extra percussion along the way) and while bands like the Clash (heck even Big Audio Dynamite), Gang Of Four, and name your favorite dub artist here- still apply to the band, they at least do it pretty darn well. I hate to hear a band trying too hard and if there is one thing I can fault the band for, it’s for sounding too manicured and forced. I miss the old Radio 4 who didn’t sound like they had been practicing for six straight months to get a set list of new material down pat. I personally don’t want perfect, I want natural spooning with spontaneity. I think we all can agree here and say music fans like a quality happy accident. (and no I don’t mean the Doughboys record) Happy accident meaning a band that happens to create something special rather than forcing something that is formulaic to what they think their audience might deem as excellent.

Musically I think friends of the band and foes alike can say Radio 4 reeks of their influence and it wouldn’t be much of a game to guess what bands / artists these guys like from year to year. I hold Radio 4 to the same expectation I have for all artists: just be yourselves. Failing as an original band earns more respect than failing as a veritable tribute band any day. My problem with PFM’s disdain for their sound is this;I could say the same thing about 90% of the most popular indie bands out here. Anybody who is reading this site (a review of a f'ing review) is probably a big enough music nerd to say the same thing. Clap Your Hands, Tapes N Tapes, Banhart…we all know who these artists are sweet on so why string just one band up for this very common thread of borrowing in music?

I have to admit I nearly spit out my soda pop when I heard “Too Much to Ask For” which at the start is the mirror image of APB’s “Shoot You Down”. (APB is one of my favorite post-punk dance bands ever) but I hear music all day that I can sing another song over it or that sounds suspiciously like other songs I have heard before.

Secondly I am a stickler for lyrics but once again Radio 4 doesn’t deeply offend me. If you know Roman's lyric history, few comparisons of his written work have ever been made to any literary greats and again there are so many bands whining on about nothing that it is hard to put down Radio 4 when at least they clearly have put some thought into what they are singing.

Sorry but if you listen to enough music you will be hard pressed to hear someone saying something new or different. Some people are just better at expressing ideas than others.

Taking a closer final listen to Radio 4 none of these flaws warrant a brutal critical attack of the band. I am willing to bet most reviews will fault the band for wearing out their angular welcome (that was soo 5 years ago) but will still offer an overall positive reaction to this record and I will join in that chorus.

Leave it to Pitchfork to rain on a parade when it should really read more like a sprinkle.

Chewing On Barkley : Gnarls Barkley / St. Elsewhere / Rating: 7.7

2006-06-08T20:44:00.000-04:00

"For the most part, it sounds like two guys playing around and having fun, sometimes more fun than the listener."

Ohh Gnarls Barkley...

How I kind of sort of want to like you.

Genre-crossing, fresh takes on old styles that don't reek of retro fetishism, eccentric shit finding it's way into the mainstream is usually the sort of thing I applaud loudly. But instead I'm left politely clapping and looking at my watch to see if the shows over soon and if the person who put me on the guest list is around to notice me sneaking out.

After repeat listens I kept wondering "this has some good parts, some great songs, some catchy hooks, but why don't I really love it?". And it really keeps coming down to the one half of the duo... Dangermouse.

For Cee-Lo's part it's all pretty excellent. Wavering between classic soul emotion, funk stylings, and straight up bizarre ranting, it suggests that this should work as say 2006's answer to "America Eats Its Young" or something

But then there's the beats and production. Why did it seem like a good idea to back this with something so dense yet so thin sounding and ultimately pretty shambolic. I mean really, if your going to undertake some crazy ass project like this and start drawing comparison to Hey Ya and getting hyped about being a fresh look on hip-hop and soul... why have your beats sound like an El-P record or something. Nothing against EL-P as clearly that's a success in that field, but you know I don't want to ever hear him and Al Green do a record together. This record should bump... and it doesn't really. Crusty sounding white kid hip-hop production certainly has its place and has produced some excellent results. I'm just saying this marriage doesn't do it for me (even though D.M isn't white... but you know what I mean, it has that 'sound'). How did this project come together? Do you think Cee-Lo is aware of the wealth of indie producers that could have murdered on this record, or was it just scratching the surface and thinking "we'll that's an interesting take on hip-hop" without realizing there's a whole wealth of producers way more on top of their game.

I don't know. I can appreciate that Crazy is a kind of dope pop song, some of the other tracks are pretty hot, and this is one of those records that younger people will buy and hopefully get them digging deeper into soul records and indie hip-hop (and the Violent Femmes apparently...), but I give it a resounding..."meh, whatever", and I'm sure that after a summer of having to hear Crazy be this years Sean Paul "Get Busy" car jam I'll really never feel the need to put this record on again.

Cee-Lo's contribution : 9
Dangermouse's beats : 3
Averaging out at ... 6

Mission Of Burma/The Obliterati/8.3

2006-06-08T08:10:00.000-04:00

Suffice it to say that this record is very, very good.

I spend a lot of time using the left side of my brain. It’s the side that gets exercised most in my day job – changing meeting notes into diagrams into computer software - but that side is inadequate at appreciating music. In fact, the cerebral lopsidedness of my work partly explains why music is such an important part of my life.

So the left side of my brain fires off all kinds of questions when thinking about Mission Of Burma’s latest album The Obliterati. Do critics praise this record out of homage of Mission of Burma as a critical touchstone? Have Mission of Burma been superseded in the wake of bands they’ve influenced? How does the latest record stack up to an essential album like Vs.? Every review I’ve read seems at least aware of these questions. If you know about Mission of Burma’s place in Rock history, these questions come up (and if you don’t know who Mission of Burma is, Michael Azerrad’s book Our Band Could Be Your Life isn’t a bad place to start).

Fortunately, you do not need an in depth knowledge of Mission of Burma's history to appreciate this record. I managed to distract the left side of my brain enough with work to squelch those questions and actually listen to The Obliterati. And the vote from the dexter side of my brain? The Obliterati is one of the more interesting records out this year. The first few tracks of the record didn’t initially catch me – 2wice is okay, but leads into the better Spider’s Web. The third track then reveals the first of many delightful surprises on the record – a sizzling high-hat and bass beat that leads into Mission of Burma’s distinctive crunch. The little surprises – Mission of Burma but with something new – continue throughout the record. In particular, the tracks 13 and Man In Decline startled me. The first starts with just guitar, then strings then gradually builds – bringing in drums and bass in the second half of the track. Man in Decline on the other hand starts quietly for a few seconds, and then catapults mid-verse into the song. There’s even an instrumental, The Mute Speaks Out, that starts with a drone then goes into wall of feedback– reminiscent of Roger Miller’s solo records with electric piano or noisier Sonic Youth. That track is then followed by the quieter Is This Where?. It’s these surprises that kept me listening through the whole record and then starting over.

The other thing that brings me back to the record is Mission of Burma’s heft. There isn’t anything out this year that quite sounds like The Obliterati, although I can think of plenty of bands from three, five or ten years ago that would fit alongside tracks from this record. Mission of Burma’s music on this record is forceful and still intelligent, loud but capable of subtlety, passionate but still witty.

I can’t keep the left side of my brain quiet for long and after listening to The Obliterati many times, it pipes up with further analysis. Maybe Mission of Burma can remain so original because, unlike younger bands, they’re not overwhelmed by the influences of their record collection? Perhaps they can combine so many aspects in their music because they are not attempting to fit into a critical sub-genre. Yeah, I suppose I could torment our readers with answers to those musing or at least voice such musing at a bar to drive away fellow patrons and get some elbow room.

In the end, The Obliterati is a good record. You don’t need footnotes to appreciate it, just ears. The PFM rating and review is spot on. I was originally going to write “just a good record”, but fourteen compelling songs is no mean feat. And good records aren’t such a common thing.

Sorry

2006-06-07T22:52:00.000-04:00

It appears the Blogger.com site is having issues today. The page is either slow to load, doesn't load at all, and or won't allow you to read / leave comments. All I can say is sorry about that. It's beyond our control and from what I can tell, Blogger is working on fixing these problems.

If you don't see a new review posted tomorrow, now you know why.

Night,
Your pals @ TFM

PS: For those of you who know who some of us Tuning Fork types are, please refrain from leaving comments that might allude to our day jobs or our actual names. Not only could it get me / some of us fired, it goes against the whole idea of keeping our identities a secret. Thanks.

Primal Scream - Riot City Blues - 3.2

2006-06-06T18:30:00.000-04:00

It's as if Primal Scream have run completely out of ideas and so they've reverted to the detestable fallbacks of honking harmonicas and bar-band choogles, acting like college freshmen who just discovered blues.

Riot City Blues is a stinker. It makes Give Out But Don't Give Up look like an honest to Jon classic. In fact it sounds like that band of college freshman Breihan spoke of covering that earlier album with excruciating sincerity and minimal skill. Sadly the thing this album most reminded me of was a recent party I attended which featured a horrible band in the back yard, who played the most stilted blues rock you could imagine, and who had the unfortunate name, I shit you not, Whisky Business. Ugh.

Tom Breihan pretty much nails this one and kudos for that. I probably have a tendency to go a little mean when I don't like something, but Breihan isn't harsh here and seems to be in the same boat as me with this one. You can't help but lament for a band that has made some good music for a long time. Evil Heat made me suspicious, but Riot City Blues proves that Primal Scream is completely out of artistic capital. As I say this, keep in mind that I think that Primal Scream has made one great album that, defying all odds, has not aged as badly as it should have (Screamadelica) and two very good albums that I still listen to (Vanishing Point and XTRMNTR).

I don't take any joy in pronouncing this one dead on arrival but there is no denying that it is way below the career standards of Gillespie and Co. 19 years of making good to excellent music is nothing to scoff at and I tip my imaginary hat to them. But now seems like the time to hang the guitar on the wall and try your hand at producing or A&R or animal husbandry.

Blues rock is a tricky proposition to start with, but when it is so watered down and milquetoast as presented here I can't stomach it. More or less the Stones "perfected" this exact album 35 years ago with Sticky Fingers. So why try to remake it not just once, but twice?!? And to add insult to injury you already did a respectable job twelve years ago. This just feels like scraping the bottom of the barrel. Listen to 'Dolls' and tell me this is worth your time and money. No Way.

3.2 seems very kind to me. There is little or redeeming value here. If each percentage point represents one thing to like about a record I would put this one around the dreaded 1.0, and that is more or less based on the kid with snake cover.

Looking back at 2006 Part Two

2006-06-06T09:30:00.000-04:00

It wouldn't be right to call these my favorite records of 2006 because we still have the second half of the year to bump these record from my list BUT these are the records I've gone back to and listen to the most.

So far so good:

Envelopes - Demon - Brille ( will make my end of year top 10)

Broadcast - The Future Crayon - Warp (collection out I think in August)

Figurines - Skeleton - The Control Group

Love Is All - Nine Times The Same Song - Whats Your Rupture

Animal Collective - Grass EP - FatCat

The Ladies - They Mean Us - Temporary Residence

Scott Walker - The Drift - 4AD

Liars - The Other Side of Mt Heart Attack EP (especially the Single Mix)

Aereogramme - Seclusion - Sonic Unyon

Jesu - Silver EP - Hydra Head

Serena-Maneesh- S/T - Beggars Group / PLayLoudRecordings

Jose Gonzalez - Veneer - Mute

(The Sounds Of) Kaleidoscope - Night and Day

With so few records really winning me over this year I have spent a great amount of time with my record collection (as well as my friends') and rediscovering old favorites as well as checking out a few reissues; not all of which have come out this year but it has taken me that long to get back to them.

Rewind:

Bridget St. John - The reissues in Cherry Red Records (Beth Orton who?)

The Field Mice - the reissues on LTM

Anything Pale Saints

Anything AC Temple ( I'll be damned if I can find a good link to this band)

The 80's - 90's twee / shoegaze / or other goodness of : Meat Whiplash, Talulah Gosh, Marine Research, Slaughter Joe, Lorelei, The Wolfhounds, Orchids, Television Personalities, Veronica Lake, The Servants, The Weather Prophets, The Loft, Lovelies, Basement 5, A Witness, and The Clean

I was kinda sorta thinking if anybody wants a mixed cd of some of this older stuff I would be glad to trade a mix for a mix. Or you can send me a blank cdr and I will make you a little somethin' somethin'. Email me if you are interested or just mail me a cdr - email and PO Box are listed at the top left of this page.

Looking back at 2006

2006-06-05T10:22:00.000-04:00

I know we aren't half way through yet but when I started to feel like there were fewer than few records I have totally fallen head over heels for, I began to review my 2006 cd piles to hear just how right or wrong I was.

This will be a two part post. First the stuff that really dissapointed me and the cds I like enough to keep but suspect as best I will play them a few times a year.

The crash and burns least favorites of 2006:

Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Whirlwind Heat, First Nation, CSS, Arctic Monkeys, The Knife, Morningwood, Built to Spill, anything on Chicks on Speed Records and Rye Coalition.

Indifferent to:

Islands, Tapes ‘n Tapes, and Band of Horses.

The flings but not going steadies:

Clearlake - Amber- Domino
Dub Tractor - Hideout - Towerblock (shoegaze + dub = neat but repetitive)
Tunng - Mothers Daugter and Other Songs - Ace Fu
The Good Good - Furrows - Menlo Park (Don't think this is out yet)
Takagi Masakatsu - Journal for the People - cd+dvd - Carpark
Cibelle - The Shine of Dead Electric Leaves - Six Degrees Records
Human Television - Look At Who You Are Talking To - Gigantic Music
Rahim - Ideal Lives - Frenchkiss
Maximo Park - Missing Songs - Warp
Boris - Pink - Southern Lord
Moondog - S/T - Honest Jons (label site is under construction)
Loose Fur - Born Again in the USA - Drag City
Jason Collett - Idols of Exile - Arts and Crafts
Film School - S/T - Beggars Banquet
Electric President - S/T - Morr
Kokanko Sata - S/T - Honest Jons (label site is still under construction)
Liars - Drums Not Dead - Mute
Cat Power - The Greatest - Matador
Flin Flon - Dixie - Teenbeat
Robert Pollard- From A Compound Eye - Merge

Tomorrow I will post my favorite records of 2006 (so far).

Pushmebeegrrr asks:

2006-06-05T00:01:00.000-04:00

Dear Tuning Fork,

Pitchfork logo (founded in 1995)

Strike anywhere (formed in 99’ record art w/ arrows 2001)

Whose logo came first?

Number one fan,
Pushmebeegrrr

Aereogramme / Seclusion / Rating: 6.8

2006-06-02T09:41:00.000-04:00

“Intentionally or otherwise, Seclusion comes off more as a teaser for an upcoming full-length than a complete album. And if that was in fact the purpose of this disc, then mission accomplished, you blue-balling bastards.”

Anyone who has ever recorded music at a studio knows this trick. Once you have your first mix of any song, you listen to it (no matter how sick of hearing it you are) on as many different stereos as possible. The theory is each stereo will reveal something new and totally varied from the one before or after it. It may prove on one system that tracks need to be remixed, on another hi-fi –barely tweaked, and on yet another stereo- totally scratched and remixed. The idea is to find an audio average you, the rest of the band, and the producer/engineer can live with. Ultimately these best mixes become the final finished product. (post mastering)

The key to this process is making sure you listen to the songs on at least two crappy stereos like an ancient car stereo or a computer’s built in speaker. The rule is, if a song sounds great on a bad stereo, it will sound AMAZING on a good one. Beyond studio trickery and production value, a well written song will stand up to any stereo, high quality or not.

Aereogramme’s Seclusion has jumped from stereo to stereo; my car, living room, computer and walkman (no ipod for this gal) more specifically and while each stereo provides a slightly different listen, they all confirmed one thing.

Aereogramme’s music is stunning.

I have confessed before a past heavily rooted in late 80’s / early 90’s emo so when I say there is a desperation and beauty, something magnetic about this band that rivals Sunny Day Real Estate, I am not just throwing out a name for name's sake. Emo has become a dirty word but if there was a way to clean the slate, place it in a positive / correct context, this would be it.

All the traditional emo adjectives come to mind: dynamic, emotional(duh), tension filled, uncomfortably intimate at times… but what makes this band unique is the addition of metal in a non metal-core and delicate electronics. A Jeremy Enigk Molotov cocktail including later Radiohead and Isis (as PFM also suggests) is truly the best way I know how to explain Aereogramme’s aggressive tendencies partnered with cry yourself to sleep melodies.

The out of place blazing guitar solos on "Lightning Strikes the Postman" taints an otherwise pretty darn powerful and perfect EP.

The PFM review leaves me nothing to argue about in great detail but the rating. What can I say; while I have no balls to blue and I like a good tease. The Seclusion EP offers a taste worthy of an 8 and in turn I am holding onto the expectation that their next full length should earn at least an 8 or higher.

My only question is if this EP is two years old already, where the hell is that full length?