PopMatters Best of 2008

Looks like PopMatters have started their Best Music of 2008 features, starting off with the Best Singles. I've got blurbies in there for Cut Copy and Britney. Check them out. It's an interesting list. Not one I can say I agree with much of, though their pick for number one single did match mine this year.

Check it Out Here

I will have a few more pieces for the rest of the week, so continue to check out the picks as the week goes on.

1968 is Undead

Hello folks,
I'm back from honeymoon and yes, I'm officially married now. It feels good. Also, I'd like to point out that I hate the Phillies fans who were screaming and honking outside my window until 3AM last night.

In lighter news, let's talk about death.

Marco Lanzagorta has assembled a collection of 30 fantastic essays prepped for the 40th anniversary of George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (including an intro by the man himself) and not only is this a fascinating compendium, but yours truly has an essay in it, published in today's segment.

1968 is Undead touches on the ways that we are "haunted" by the 1960s, even today (and this essay was written before Bill Ayers, a Weather Underground member turned college professor, became such a central figure behind John McCain's campaign).

Here's the rest of the feature. When you get a chance, you really should go through a check out a few or all of them.

Some Things Just Can't Stay Buried

I've got a feature article over at PopMatters about the bloke pictured above. Who he is and why not knowing who he was mattered.

You can read it here: Some Things Just Can't Stay Buried



Univers Zero


I also have a review on the rerelease of the incredible French Chamber prog group Univers Zero's debut LP. It's probably not as overall solid or conceptually taught as the followup, Heresie, but this stuff sounds amazingly forward-thinking in the age of Zorn.

Donnie Dreado

There's a really interesting article from a few days back over at PopMatters about the ways in which Lost is one of the first episodic dramas to operate off of a kind of video game interface, like an extended RPG with consistently new levels, new clues, new bad guys, new challenges, food bars, etc. This is something that all the video game adaptations Hollywood has churned out have never attempted, and is probably the main reason for their failure. I'm not the most devoted fan of the show (its occasional inertia and inability to resolve anything often makes me think I'm wasting my time), but I also see parallels to comic book thinking too. The flashbacks and dys-chronology, the intercrossing storylines, and particularly the "commentary" episodes, which showcase each episode's own self-referentiality.

Another interesting, though totally tangent analogy I came across was on The Bug's new album. The few bars of Tears For Fears's "Mad World" that Warrior Queen intones at the end of "Insane" would certainly make any one who has been alive during the last decade think of Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko (and hopefully not the embarassing director's cut nor the unsolicited sequel being planned). You wouldn't immediately think of the film in terms of representations of the dub/ dubstep/ soundboy music scene, but there are some interesting shared traits; the apocalypticism, the vague connection to sci-fi, the allusions to divine/jah intervention, the rudeboy figure of Donnie- part punk/ part-avenger/ part-time romantic, the mess of pills (though the director's cut crudely reveals them to be placebos) and warped hallucinations, the obsession with the terminal. The feeling of dread alone could make it the tonal equivalent of a dark Kode9 or Digital Mystikz track. In fact, I now nominate it to be what Scarface is to gangsta rap, a cross-subcultural distillation of one's delusions of grandeur.

Detour-nment

PopMatters has a running feature going on this week called "Detours" that explores some of the more prestigious abortions and oddities from amainstream artists. It's worth checking out if you're interested in such arcane histories, liminal phases, or the like. I have a brief spot on Devo's E-Z Listening Disc. Probably should have contributed more, but I was falling behind on reviews and pretty busy with other stuff. There's definitely a couple they missed. (of course the features not over, but I know what they're publishing).

Off the top of my head:

Elton John- Visions of Love (his lone eurodisco album)

Amon Duul II- Only Human (their only eurodisco album)

Sun Ra and The Blues Project- Batman and Robin (remarkable for how tepid and commercial a Sun Ra project could be)

Prince- Batman Soundtrack (remarkable for how tepid and lame a Prince project could be and confounding as to why Tim Burton would choose Prince of all people for freiking Batman)

Neil Young- Arc (composed entirely of feedback and instrumental fragments from years of touring)

Moby- Animal Rights (the ill-advised, though not entirely career-killing foray into an odd mixture of post-hardcore and ambient)

The Beastie Boys- Aglio E Olio (their ill-advised, though not entirely career killing reforay into hardcore)

Daryl Hall- Sacred Songs (to be the first in a trilogy of Robert Fripp-produced albums, which later included one of the untitled Peter Gabriel albums and Fripp's own Exposure. Hall amazingly pulls off a madcap Bowie here before he sailed off into smooth pop stylings with longtime partner John Oates).

Also, a nice addition to my one published item would be an album any spudboy would be remiss not to check out at least once; Devo 2.0. Devo repositioned Kids Incorporated style, being sung by pre-teens for modern audiences. This apparently sells really well too. I could think of nothing more inappropriate or properly devo in and of itself.


Think of any other ones?


I've also got another review at PopMatters of Vibert/Simmonds's Rodulate, an odd artifact of tail-eating nostalgia, odd mainly because IDM seems to be the odd electronic genre that mostly sounds now as it probably did when it was released.

Adventures in Shoplifting

A rather starry-eyed look back at the golden years of Napster, when everything seemed new and fresh. Life was simple. Music was free. Kids swapped MP3s like baseball cards while State department members overlooked ominously titled memos about impending attacks on the United States. Years later, guess which of those activities has gone unpenalized?

Ghost, Devils, and the Spectre of the Music Industry

Sorry for my lack of activity on this here blog. I've been distracted by a number of things, not the least of which being Guitar Hero, one of the last things I'd imagine I'd fall prey to (as anybody who knows my feelings on the deification of the guitar can attest). It really is rather addicting. I'm late to the game on this one and I may never be able to play it on "hard", but it's enjoyable nonetheless.

I've got a few new things for you to read if you're so inclined though/

Over at Edge, I've got a review of Cut Copy's new disc In Ghost Colours, which I was surprisingly smitten with. The review is admittedly a tad hyperbolic, which is grounds for crucifixion in the critical complex, but I felt it the only way (or perhaps just the easiest) to express the pure glee encoded within the polypantoned synths. If Interpol are today's Joy Division, Cut Copy are today's New Order, except more pristine and shiny that N.O. even at their poppiest.

You'll notice I neglected to use the word Blog House in the bulk of the review. This is no accident. I accept neologism and sub-stratification as part of the process of dancing about architecture, but can't we come up with a term less...ugly? It's the 21st Century and the only options for the kids are Blog House and Funky House? Aren't we in the music community supposed to be the exception to the Orwellian sociolingual assault perpetrated by the mass media/ culture industry? Come on, guys. At least call it Cosmic House or Discotech or some other clever portmonteau I'm too miffed right now to think of?

And while we're at it, why haven't they invented a genre with a curse word in it? That'd be true defiance. Sure, call your band Fuck Buttons or The Fucking Champs or what have you. It'll only guarantee you perpetual undergroundness. But start a movement with a swear word, and they have to acknowledge you (like when the music press refused to print the Sex Pistols's name when their album went to number one on the UK charts). Why not rename the scumtronics of RRR, Hospital, Groundfault, etc. "Shithouse" instead the dated and somewhat irrelevant tag "Noise"? It's what patron godfather Merzbow's name literally translates to anyhow.


Kurt Schwitter's Merzbau

Getting even further off-track, I was browsing through the DVD of The Signal for an upcoming article for PopMatters and noticed something interesting in the bonus features. During the 20 minute or so psychedelic visual presentation of the standalone signal broadcast used in the film, there's an uncredited noise track playing in the background (likely performed by the film's composer Ben Lovett). It got me thinking; has there ever been a narrative film that truly incorporates noise music into its soundtrack? The Boredoms did Ichi the Killer, but it was far from noise. There's been abrasive, atonal, or free-jazz work like Ligeti in 2001, Ornette Coleman in Naked Lunch, and the various artists who've score old avant-silents like Page of Madness. But has there ever been just pure feedback-addled, tone-shifting, fuzzed-out noise on the soundtrack? I understand how composers and music coordinators generally try not to have music audio compete with the action on screen (except in big Hollywood flicks or Elfman-orchestrated scores), making it a difficult genre of music to incorporate. But imagine the possibilities of that kind of sonic device, especially within a horror context? With killer cell phones and internet snuff sites and such, is death by audio such a far-fetched conceit for a skilled horror director to take on? Imagine how fun and atmospheric the potential Lynch/Splet-like sonic universe as a whole would be adopting a POV of the deafened and defenseless subjects?

Perhaps this is the closest example of noise being incorporated into a mainstream flick:


Back to the future, or rather forward to the rewind, I've also got a review of the newest by Black Devil Disco Club, the weakest in his canon but by no means a bad album. In my research, I discovered a few things:

1) Though Italo-Disco is all the rage these days, it's earliest influence did not exactly produce the most stellar material. Though the sound samples on this page have long since passed into the Internet cemetery, do a preliminary search through Youtube of the songs mentioned and you'll find a host of cringe-worthy arpeggiated Limburger. It's not all bad, but you have to wade through a pride day's parade worth of crap to find the glorious pink flag material.



2) Bernard Fevre's pre-Black Devil output, no longer available commercially (save for a lone track on one of Luke Vibert's Nuggets comps), is phenomenal and rivals the Disco Club album in terms of quality and significance (especially with regards to a Radiophonic obsessed Mordant Music/Ghost Box aesthetic). These OOP discs can be attained relatively easily on Soulseek. Perhaps the best is Cosmos 2043, a spacey blast of textural electronics which precedes early records by Cluster and Deuter (who put out a couple great albums in his pre-New Age, post Krautrock phase). It also includes "Earth Message", the track which comprises the bulk of The Chemical Brothers's "Got Glint?". There are still those who doubt the Black Devil album's chronological authenticity, but listening to these albums it's not hard to bridge the technological gap. Many of the Fevre solo tunes could be dance smashes of today by simply adding a disco beat to them (don't get any ideas Norman Cook), which would seem the logical link for a saavy Frenchman getting on in the late 70's.


Lastly, I published the first part of a mini-essay (a little hastily written I apologize) on the music industry's obliviousness at PopMatters on the Sound Affects. Please feel free to share your thoughts on this or anything else.

-Timh

Estelle- Shine

Over at PopMatters, I've got a review of Estelle's Shine. Unfortunately, it's not laced with 12 "American Boy" singles as I anticipated, but it's still pretty damn good in an age of really shitty R&B.

A point the article didn't get to, but bears mentioning: "More Than Friends" is a smooth lament that a lifelong buddy has not taken their relationship to the next level. Specifically, Estelle asks "Why must we pretend?/ Why can't we be more than friends?" My guess? Perhaps, it's because later on in the song she tells him he's a "bitch" who "sound like shit like you're taking a piss". After such endearing words, who wouldn't want to take things further?

Unrelated, I have long since stopped my old blog and am rather embarrassed by much of the shit that still lingers on it. I had planned on taking it down for good, so I made my final post. I shit you not when I say this is completely unplanned: According to the blogger counter, the final post on the site is post #555. Freaking weird.

Barry Adamson- Back to the Cat

I've got a review of the new psychosexual canvas by the former Magazine bassist/ Bad Seed Barry Adamson posted over at PopMatters.

Check it out.

Album blowout!

Here's a few recently published reviews:

Me on the compilationMusicians For Minneapolis: 57 Songs for the I-35W Bridge Disaster Effort


Me on Aussie synthpoppers Theatre of Disco's self-titled debut

Me on madchesterian Voyager One's Afterhours in the Afterlife

Cloudland Canyon- Lie in Light, Lights- Lights

In celebration of all things related to illumination, I have 2 new articles posted and ready to read.

The first is Cloudland Canyon's second long player, entitled Lie in Light,a swelling mass of spaceship vibrations and sundry fuzzed-out magma.

The second is by yet another new Language of Stone band, the self-titled debut by Brooklyn's Lights, a band that takes a different approach to the same esoteric material that has become LOS's haute couture.

As a thematic sidebar to Cloudland Canyon's excellent new album, I've provided below a list of my top picks for 2008 so far. I should also point out that I've been a bit disappointed by the music so far this year. Perhaps we've hit a bit of a slow season, but rarely has anything (particularly in the pop vein- verse, chorus, verse, vocal, et. al) really shaken me. I find myself more often than not continually popping in Burial's mindblowing Untrue from late last year, which has yet to get old. I guess it's hard to live up to that. Also, I haven't gotten around to the new M83 yet, so...


The Best of 2008 So Far...

Rod Modell- Incense & Blacklight (plop)
Read my review here

Cloudland Canyon- Lie in Light (kranky)
See above

Belong- Colorloss Record (St. Ives)
A phenomonally exotic EP of "covers". Their source material is so far removed that they're barely recognizable and the songs are so obscure that only the most devout psych fans will have heard of them (FTR-I hadn't). Yet, there's an arcane beauty to the lingering dusk of the album's Gas-like distance. Like the originals, they're only heard fading from memory, as if each successive listen is your last. Cue in some allusion to William Basinski here, sure. But the difference is that Belong's faded photo album is lit by the neon of parking lots, not just twilight. Perhaps the best album so far this year.

Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, John Tchicai, Roswell Rudd, Gary Peacock, Sonny Murray- New York Eye & Ear Control (ESP-Disk)
Technically a reissue. With the names and record label attached to this one, I hardly feel like I have to explain. Recorded for a soundtrack to an avant-garde film, it's hard to imagine any editor's hand being able to keep up with the mad alchemical science going on here.


The Advisory Circle- Other Channels (ghost box)
Another fantastic new surrealistic pastiche of library music on Ghost Box with sounds ranging from concréte sound experiments to fictional child safety adverts. It works surprisingly well for such a seemingly random conceived obscurant collage.


Ricardo Villalobos- Enfants (sei es drum)
Recommened by the Wire Blog, this is strangely entrancing slice of minimalism, with Go Team style schoolyard chanting and a very simple piano riff. It's amazing how lost you can get inside of it for 17 minutes.


Orion Rigel Dommisse- What I Want From You is Sweet (language of stone)
Didn't even know when I requested this album that she's originally from New Paltz! And used to play shows Simon Thrasher, who has yet to put out that "dream" compilation I submitted a track to over two years ago, threw for her. She's even got a song about him called "Simon Sent For Me" which name checks Forcefieldsforever.
Read my Review Here



Fleet Foxes- Sun Giant EP (sub pop)
Stately and polite, a band the B&S-bashing Steven Wells would surely hate, Fleet Foxes should be applauded for merely fine songwriting and pitch-perfect production. The lead singer sounds more than a bit like Carl Broemel of My Morning Jacket, but with a country-folk-pop bent that reaches beyond Neil Young. And four-part harmonies. A lot of people are gonna hate this band...

Willits and Sakamoto- Ocean Fire (12K)
Read my review here


Looking Ahead...

Estelle- "American Boy" (Atlantic)
Her album Shine drops soon and I can not get enough of this single. Now, this doesn't necessarily mean anything (I like Kylie's new singles too, but apparently the rest of the album is crap). And I'm probably one of the only people who doesn't really understand the appeal of Kayne, but he doesn't bother me here. Perfect pop bliss in 4 minutes