Who the hell is Pat Green? And why do people think he’s so evil? Well, visualize the term “frat boy country rock”, and draw your own conclusions.
Jack Ingram was one of the youngest frat boy country rockers during the early 90s, attracting an audience his own age while he was a student at SMU.
But Ingram grew up, and his major label debut in 1997, Livin’ and Dyin’, kept one foot in his country rock present and another in his singer-songwriter future. It was, as they say in music critic parlance, mature.
The next five years was where I stopped paying attention.
Ingram switched labels, then got sucked into a whole “country renegade” marketing blitz which paired him up with the brothers Robison (Charlie and Bruce). The guy who did Hey You, Ingram’s 1999 album, didn’t sound like the guy who did Livin’ and Dyin’, and in the wake of it all, Pat Green happened.
So it’s no surprise Ingram would rise from it all with an album that suits its title.
Electric doesn’t merely describe the axegrinding wielded by the likes of Austin’s Jon Dee Graham and David Grissom. Ingram’s rough drawl sounds as charged as his songwriting.
Billed as a song cycle, Electric holds together incredibly well musically. Themed lyrics are pretty much icing on the proverbial cake — you don’t need to pay attention to the words to hear the songs speak for themselves.
Although the album’s opener, “Keep On’ Keeping On”, spells out what’s to follow, “What Makes You Say” is where it all comes together. A simple but majestic tune, “What Makes You Say” feels almost minimal even when it employs a larger than life arrangement.
(Odd to think of it, but the track almost sounds like “Polomerria” by female Japanese rocker Cocco.)
Although Ingram can honky tonk hard, he’s best when he’s delivering straight-forward rock. “Fool” starts off as a meditative ballad, then kicks out in the chrous. “One Thing” is pretty much a rock song with some slide guitars in the mix.
Co-producer Mike McCarthy, who also helmed … And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead’s excellent Source Codes and Tags, provides Ingram some sonic touches traditionally frowned on by Music Row.
The most daring track, “Pete, Jesus, And Me”, is almost like a sonic history of Guided By Voices — lo-fi at the start, huge and slick by the end.
Electric goes far beyond the expectations of a “frat boy country rock” label. Guess that means folks ought to come up with something else to describe him, and let Pat Green inherit that mantle.
That’s not to say the Guided By Voices figurehead has ditched his faux-British singing and affinity for Who-like riffage for rehashed classicisms and 500 multi-tracked choruses of his own voice.
But like Enya on a good day, Pollard can write the same song over and over again and make it sound new everytime. On a bad day, though, that same song written over and over again sounds like, well, that same song written over and over again.
Universal Truths and Cycles marks a return to Guided By Voices’ middle period, when the band was far more ambitious than a four-track recorder could capture but not rich enough to pay for a full 24-track studio.
It’s a more stream-of-consciousness sound, where one track full of majesty and pomp follows a sparse track of nothing more than acoustic guitar and voice, which is then followed by a track that’s little more than a sound check caught on tape, followed by a track that alternates between bursts of guitar and jangly arpeggios, followed by, etc., et al, ad infinium …
Critics love this more diverse, more unpredictable sound because it’s (1.) not mainstream; (2.) well-written; (3.) just plain cool.
Bah.
Scattered is as scattered does, and Universal Truths and Cycles, while being skillfully written, doesn’t possess the clarity of the band’s most recent work. Even though Pollard does his best to give his songs plenty of texture, they eventually bleed into one another uncomfortably.
Sure, that mixed tape feel might attract some folks, but for listeners who like continuity in their album purchases, Universal Truths and Cycles is no place to look.
Thankfully, the album retains the fidelity of Isolated Drills and Do the Collapse, and to its credit, Universal Truths and Cycles comes across as a bit burnished. Gloss fit the band well, but so does a rough edge.
Just so long as Pollard doesn’t attempt to record these larger scales songs on an eight-track the way Under the Bushes, Under the Stars was made.
Still, comparing Guided By Voices to Enya isn’t so much of a knock. Even if the reclusive Irish singer has spent the last 15 years recording the same album six times, it’s a gorgeous album.
So too with Guided By Voices. Pollard may write the same song over and over, but what he’s writing is brilliant, succinct pop. It doesn’t hurt to put Universal Truths and Cycles on the stereo.
Let’s just hope the next time out, a little more editing and a tad more time will find Pollard writing on his good days than his bad.
There isn’t anything Musicwhore.org can tell you that you haven’t already heard from Rolling Stone or Mojo or Q or Spin.
All the pre-release hype was pretty much true — Murray Street is the most pop-sounding Sonic Youth album since Daydream Nation/Goo/Dirty.
Of course, I’m in no position to really say how accurate that is. I buy Sonic Youth albums on a case-by-case basis, and the only ones in my collection are, not surprisingly, Daydream Nation and Goo. (I also have Goodbye 20th Century, only because the idea of a rock band interpreting modern classical works merges two interests near and dear to me.)
That bias disclosed, the only issue for me is whether Murray Street would fit alongside said SY albums on my CD shelf — and it does.
Oddly enough, Murray Street is probably one of Sonic Youth’s least dressed up albums.
The aural pyrotechnics with which the band has long been associated seem to have been bypassed for a more unadultered sound.
That’s just a long way of saying the band doesn’t use very many pedals.
Sure, when the music reaches a point where the momentum builds — like during the chorus of “The Empty Page” or the middle section of “Karen Revisited” — distortion comes out in full force, but for the most part, they’re not the business of the day.
An intriguing development, really — the addition of Jim O’Rourke as a full-time member should have meant the triple guitar threat of Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon and Steve Shelley would yield more effects.
Instead, Murray Street comes across as somewhat genteel, the interplay between guitarists more textured. Genteel — when was that adjective ever used to describe Sonic Youth?
The seven-track album, however, clocks in at an epic 45 minutes, which means there’s a lot of noodling going on in Murray Street’s long-winded tracks. The minimalist dissonances more akin to the quartet’s dalliances with the avant garde still have sway over the band, and hence, the album.
“Karen Revisited”, the album’s longest track at 11 minutes, cycles through all kinds of textures previously explored by the Youth. But those first few minutes before the song transforms into a timbral exercise have some decent enough melodies.
If you don’t make it past the album’s first three tracks, you might be fooled into thinking Murray Street is entirely Thurston Moore’s vocal show. The usually prevalent Kim Gordon doesn’t contribute her familiar warble till the album’s end, while Steve Shelley anchors its middle tracks.
So yes, there’s nothing this review can contribute that hasn’t already been stated. Murray Street combines Sonic Youth’s latter-day harmonic sophsitication with its more melodic yearnings.
It’s smart enough for a patrician but made for a plebian.
It’s fascinating to see all manner of opinion about the Flaming Lips’ Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots before arriving at my own.
Mainstream and independent media (magazines, fanzines and the like) are pretty much a Greek chorus of accolades, stating variations on the same theme — not as mind-blowing as The Soft Bulletin but certainly the best of the year!
Fans and listeners, however, are more direct — where are the electric guitars? We want guitars!
I only discovered the Flaming Lips with The Soft Bulletin, so personally, I don’t mind the electro-orchestral direction Wayne Coyne and company pursue on Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.
Hands down, Yoshimi is so far the year’s most beauteous album. Coyne has polished his vocal performance, sanding away the rough edges and leaving an emotive rasp.
And while all the electronic effects, pseudo-orchestral arrangements and dramatic segues produce some gorgeous results, the acoustic guitars chiming throughout the album gives it a human anchor.
But there might be some credence to fan criticism of Yoshimi. The album pretty much sticks to a medium tempo range, no rocking beats, no overt ballads. And strip away all the effects from these songs, what would you get? Something pretty dark, it seems.
Yoshimi should be given credit, though, for following the creative path forged by The Soft Bulletin without retreading its terrain. This album isn’t a sequel, but if both albums were turned into movies, they’d make a great double feature.
In other words, if you really liked The Soft Bulletin, then you might … blah, blah, blah …
If anything, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots would have sounded incredible with a live orchestra performing the parts assigned to synthesizers. Include all the man-made effects and the rock beats, and it’s the modular soundtrack to Robotech all over again. (Best. Score. Ever.)
In the end, it’s a matter of taste. Yoshimi stands heads above the rest when it comes to style and scope, and even if it’s too lush for some long-timers, it’s better than any nu metal poster boys or emo flavor of the week.
P.S. Although Yoshimi marks Dave Fridmann’s most ambitious production work this year, Number Girl’s Num-Heavymetallic sports his best behind-the-console twiddling.
Yoshimi critics are right — Fridmann can do a whole lot with a band who aren’t afraid to hammer their guitars.
The last time around, farida’s cafe decided to be direct about what it specializes in — introspective rock songs that aren’t afraid to get loud.
The band’s first album, Hear Nothing, started off with two tracks that epitomized that aesthetic, and while the Japanese quartet does a fine job with its specialty, quiet starts don’t make as much of a big impression as loud ones.
Besides, farida’s cafe sounds really good when it’s rocking out.
On its second album, mile a minute, farida’s cafe have done a flip — they start out with a big splash, then draw in as the album progresses.
It works to the band’s advantage, but it’s not the only thing which makes mile a minute a stronger album.
This new set of songs possess subtle touches which nudge them over the fine line from good to excellent — an odd meter on “Iine”, psychedelic horns on “Hanare Banare”, an accordion on “Loop”.
Rei Sekine once again delivers a fine performance in both English and Japanese, her voice every bit as powerful on the faster tracks as they are on the quieter ones.
But guitarist Andre Sakai is no slouch either. His solos on “Sanso” and “mile a minute” venture into some really dissonant territory, giving farida’s cafe songs some real bite.
Stronger songs, more flourishes, tight performances — mile a minute shows this young band has a lot of great potential.
Only one thing holds them back — a strong mix. Like its predecessor, mile a minute feels like it demands a punchier sound. The organs on the title track barely register, and the keyboard work on “Amber” gets buried.
Hopefully, farida’s cafe will reach a point where it can afford the bigger sound it deserves. For now, the group is doing a lot with what it has.
In a perfect world, Super Junky Monkey would still be recording and touring, and singer Takahashi Mutsumi would still be regaling audiences with her aggressive growl.
This is not a perfect world. Mutsumi died in 1999, and Super Junky Monkey split up.
In its brief five-year existence, Super Junky Monkey released two studio albums, a live album, two EPs and a number of videos, most of which is now out of print.
Thankfully, 3rd Stones, Ltd., Super Junky Monkey’s management, spun off its operations into a label, Condor Records, and released an EP of rarities, E*Kiss*O, and a best-of collection, Songs Are Our Universe.
Billboard Asia Bureau Chief Steve McClure summed it up best in the liner notes for Songs Are Our Universe — Super Junky Monkey is a band that demands attention.
The quartet’s songs were packed tight with a plethora of influences — rock, punk, funk, hip-hop. Although the band’s albums tended to sound homogenous, the songs themselves veered all over the place, threatening to fall apart at any moment but never doing so.
Super Junky Monkey could distill its sound into three-minute punches (“Nani”, “Zakuro no Hone”, “If”), then turn around and occupy an eight-minute epic space (“Popobar”, “Seven”). It could lay angry chants over funky rhythms (“Blah,Blah,Blah”), then deliver a singable melody over heavy, crunching thrash riffage (“R.P.G.”)
Through all the musical twists and turns, Super Junky Monkey remained a tight unit. Matsudaaaaah!’s octopus-like drumming locked in with Kawai Shinobu’s muscular bass, while Keiko’s frantic guitar picking filled in all the remaining spaces. Mutsumi’s masculine vocals belied her gender while weaving the whole package together.
Super Junky Monkey created music that would get even the quietest person in the audience flailing about in a mosh pit.
But Songs Are Our Universe doesn’t just stop at exhaustively documenting Super Junky Monkey’s aural legacy.
The two-disc collection also includes two videos of the group’s live performances, an overview of its touring activities (what I would’ve given to be at the show with eX-Girl!) and a compelte discography.
A lot of care went into this package, and it shows.
In a perfect world, Songs Are Our Universe would be spinning in the CD player of anyone who remotely likes hard and fast music. It would reach into the furthest reaches of society and shake listeners up like a martini.
This isn’t a perfect world. Amazon.com took three goddamn months to send my disc, even after my sister ordered it from my wish list a month before my birthday.
Help make this world a better place. Do what you can to own this collection.
Chances are you may not like Hajime Chitose’s singing if you don’t fit one of these criteria:
You dig Bulgarian women’s choirs.
You listen to traditional Japanese music.
You are an ethnomusicologist.
(All the power to you if you don’t fit any of these points but still like Hajime anyway.)
Trained in performing a form of traditional Japanese music called shimauta (“island songs”), Hajime embellishes her singing with short trills and employs a stratospheric falsetto that’s both heavenly and piercing. When she overdubs her voice, she can sound just like a Bulgarian women’s choir.
But rather than forge a career solely on traditional music — or even enka — Hajime is following a pop music course.
So what does a major label like Epic Records do with a traditionally-trained singer whose voice is overqualified for idol pop? Answer: compromise.
Hainumikaze, Hajime’s first full-length album, draws from a melting pot of different popular styles — the orchestral sweep of enka, folk-pop from the West, reggae and dub.
On paper, such a melding of disparate styles would usually spell disaster, but Hajime’s songwriting collaborators — Mamiya Takumi, Ueda Gen, Yamazaki Masayoshi — manage to balance everything nicely.
The laid back feel of “Wadatsumi no Ki” isn’t too far removed from the introspective minimalism of “37.6”. The soaring chorus of “Natsu no Utage” posseses the same earnestness of “Rinto Suru”. Even the chiming acoustic guitars of “Shinshi Raika” have the same Celtic feel as the lilting tempo of “Kimi wo Omou”.
Hajime’s voice, of course, ties it all together. Even though the songs on Hainumikaze are mostly mid-tempo, poignant ballads, they serve a perfect setting for Hajime’s incredible vocal range. Had she adopted a Western singing style, these songs would lose their bite, instantly becoming pastiche.
After a while, Hajime’s technique gives way to a humanity inherent in her performance. Like her Bulgarian cousins a continent away, Hajime could be singing about baking bread in the morning and make it sound like the most important act in the world.
But don’t think Hajime Chitose is easy to warm up to. It takes some work to get through her highly stylized technique and to reach that human center. The pay off is great when you get there.
If you really wanted to, you could get wrapped up in the stories David Bazan, the sole member of Pedro the Lion, paints on Control.
Go ahead — furrow your brow over how the devoutly Christian Bazan can write a song about infidelity, incorporate a pious chorus and title it “Rapture”.
She’s arching her back/She screams for more/Oh my sweet rapture/I hear Jesus calling me home
Wonder at how Bazan flings around the language of employment downsizing on the suggestively-titled “Penetration” and somehow refer to the music business.
If you aren’t moving units then you’re not worth the expense/If you really want to make it, you have to remember this/If this isn’t penetration, it isn’t worth a kiss
Or marvel at how Bazan can deliver sarcastic commentary about capitalistic pursuits with deadpan wit.
Thanks in part to Mother Nature/It will never rain again/It should do wonders for the GNP
Bazan certainly provides enough imagery to spell out the themes of his songs, and his prose-like verses read well outside the context of music.
But knowing the lyrics isn’t necessary to appreciate the album.
At its most basic level, Control is an excellent rock album, full of guitars and drums and hooks.
The dischordant chords which open “Rapture” are wound tightly with the song’s pounding drums. “Penetration” drowns in a medium-tempo, driving pulse. “Magazine” sports some really nice, full drumming, while “Second Best” wallows in high volume drones.
It’s all too easy to get lost in Bazan’s wonderfully textural arrangements. He knows when to let the guitars up, when to bring them back or when to keep them spare or thick all together.
As such, you could play Control time and again and never glance at the lyric sheet.
But then, you might also miss out on some really choice couplets. The lyrics for “Rejoice” in its entirety, for instance:
Wouldn’t it be so wonderful if everything were meaningless, but everything is so meaningful, and most everything turns to shit. Rejoice.
Yeah. What he said.
Control is full of biting but literate lyrics. It’s also an album full of well-written, nicely-arranged songs. Individually, they make an entertaining album good, and together, they make a smart album great.
In recent interviews, Damien Jurado admits his aim in making I Break Chairs was to get radio to play his songs. If it didn’t cost so much to buy his way onto a Clear Channel playlist, Jurado could have very well pulled it off.
Seattle-based Jurado is more known for writing slow, melancholy songs which get critics scurrying to their thesauruses to come up with all the same adjectives — minimal, spare, introspective, gentle.
I Break Chairs is none of those. In fact, the title of the album is pretty descriptive of its contents — the way the guitars crunch on this album could crush a few recliners.
“Paperwings” opens the album with a country-rock swagger reminiscent of Uncle Tupelo’s more rowdier moments. “Dancing” follows with a dischordant intro more at home on a Weezer album.
That’s not to say Jurado has been downloading Rivers Cuomo’s demos and studying them. Rather, he’s tapped into the same creative well-spring that informed the poppier moments of Caitlin Cary’s solo work.
“Inevitable” notches down the volume level with a simple pulse vaguely reminiscent of a blues grind, while “Air Show Disaster” features harmony vocal akin to the great man-woman pairings of country music — George and Tammy, Gram and Emmylou, Ryan and Caitlin.
But after “Never Ending Tide” transitions back to the louder regions of the volume knob, there’s no turning back — it’s straight-ahead rock all the way to the end.
Drummer Andy Myers does an exceptional job navigating through the various textures on the album. He imbues “Dancing” with it’s hard-edge crunch but steadily underscores the sparse arrangements of “Air Show Disaster”.
Fans enamoured by Jurado’s more introspective work may find this 180-degree creative turn off-putting. Many other reviewers have already voiced such opinions. First-time listeners (such as myself) will instead find a rocking album packed one end to the other with really great writing.
Regardless of their setting — loud or soft — Jurado’s songs are immediately likeable. He’s a great melodicist, and there’s no questioning the simplicity of his riffing. Even without the droning electric guitars and chiming glockenspiels, “Like Titanic” is, in the end, a good song.
Jurado set out to widen his audience with I Break Chairs, and even if radio neglects to rally for his music, the album is still a great starting-point for newcomers.
The last time around, Yuji Oniki made an album that had great songs and subtle arrangements — perhaps too subtle.
Of course, it didn’t help that Number Girl’s School Girl Distortional Addict dominated my playback machines at the time I ran across Oniki. Although Orange prompted a favorable initial reaction, it didn’t leave much of a lasting impression.
In late 2001, Oniki returned with Tvi, and while the California-based, Japanese-speaking songwriter still refuses to wield a heavy hand in his arrangements, this second album is noticeably stronger.
Oniki’s songs are still gorgeously written, drawing heavily from classic pop of the 60s and 70s. But this time, he’s added small but significant flourishes which make all the difference — horns on “Rails in Vain”, a nice interplay of flute, piano and guitar on “40 Seconds”, barely noticable slides on “Transport”.
Oniki has also gotten incredibly meticulous with his songs’ arrangements. Listen closely to any one of the tracks on Tvi, and something new pops out — a counterpart guitar line, a keyboard part playing off a horn line, backing vocals that mix into the texture of the song.
It’s the kind of lushness R.E.M. strove for in Reveal, but Oniki uses fewer musicians to achieve the same effect.
Oniki has brought himself a bit more forward in the mix, which is both a good and bad thing. Oniki’s fragile warble may put off listeners at first, but after a period of adjustment — two listens, tops — his voice sounds appropriate for his music. (That’s not to say other artists wouldn’t do just as great covering his songs.)
As a result, Tvi exudes a real confidence. Oniki no longer has to hide behind reverb and minimal arrangements as he did on Orange.
More importantly, Tvi succeeds where Orange probably wasn’t given a chance — to imbed itself into a listener’s subconscience. Personally, I’ve woken up quite a few mornings these past few weeks with a song from Tvi ringing my head. No prompting, no provocation.