Friday, June 5, 2009
Housekeeping The Triumphant Return of "This Week in the Music Section"
Posted by Eric Grandy on Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 5:25 PM
In which we give you a guided tour of this week's music section! FUN!
On your right, you'll notice cranky old awesome robot rocker the Juan Maclean:
The Juan MacLean's new album, The Future Will Come, begins with romantic dissolution and ends in domestic bliss; in between, there are robots. These robots fight, flirt, fuck, and eventually, against all logical odds, fall in love. They are voiced by John MacLean and Nancy Whang, the Juan MacLean's principal players for this album. They are, like all androids, both less than human and in some ways stronger than human, although mostly they're just a metaphor for how cold and mechanical being human can sometimes feel.
Next, twee library lurkers Camera Obscura and the "long, proud tradition" of libraries in indie-pop:
Still, what got me thinking was the song's first line: "Spent a week in a dusty library/Waiting for some words to jump at me." "French Navy" isn't about a library—it's about singer Tracyanne Campbell's pining for her enlisted beau—but opening its story among the stacks is part of a long, proud indie-pop tradition. After all, few things besides indie-pop are as bookish, non-macho, detail-oriented, earnest, and geeky as the public library. Not even Rem Koolhaas can make the library altogether cool—not that anyone who loves libraries altogether cares. And few musical styles invite the kind of obsessive filing and categorizing that indie-pop does, with its emphasis on 7-inch singles and collectible label catalogues.
Then there's ambient techno bliss-maker the Field:
Of course, the line that separates mesmerizing from monotonous is slim. Discerning between the two is what separates electronic-music stars from mediocrities, and the Field succeeds more often than not. Sometimes it seems as if Willner's songs are too overwhelmingly pleasurable, as he keeps pouring on the bliss for 10 to 15 minutes at a time, like some kind of reverse sadist.Willner laughs and explains, "Well, that's how I like the music that I listen to myself. But I agree, it's a thin line and sometimes I take it too far. I like to push the limits, but then I do love repetitive stuff, so if you don't, the Field will be shit."
Newish weirdo ripping band Brain Fruit:
The surprise highlight of the night, though, was discovering Brain Fruit, a new trio featuring Jon Carr of Bow + Arrow that sound like a homegrown counterattack to Battles. One instrumental song was all aggressively jazzy drumming, strobing guitar drones, and glittering synth arpeggio. Another song featured militantly barked vocals over fast funk bass and stabs of guitar skronk, which all seemed to accelerate (at one point the band all stopped and Carr spat out to drummer Garrett Moore, "Okay? No? Ready? Hurry up!" before the song resumed, in what I think was all part of the act) until a terminal wash of feedback drowned everything out. Their next scheduled show is July 5 at the Comet. Highly recommended, even if there might not be crowd-surfing.
GMK's Songs For Bloggers:
Seattle now has its first real entry in the blog-rap category: GMK's new EP, appropriately (and ever self-consciously) titled Songs for Bloggers. Clocking in at just under 30 minutes, this quick-moving concept record explores the nooks and crannies of Al Gore's creation—some of you call it the internets—finding the quirks and nuances of "human interaction" that happen in the space between the ones and zeroes. Striving to find some kind of connection, our hero clicks, drags, IMs, and Gchats through the disinformation superhighway in short, spacey vignettes occasionally punctuated by a chorus of anonymous side chatter, evoking the kind of robust discourse often found in YouTube video comments ("This is not the same dude from White Van Music!"). The effect is spacious yet claustrophobic, curious yet self-absorbed—the audio equivalent of traversing the infinite digital terrain from your dirty-ass room. It's an engaging, fun listen, both as shallow and as deep as virtual life can be.
Some pointers for Decibel Festival from DEMF:
...hold as many performances outdoors as possible. Movement 2009 benefited from pleasant, sunny weather; generally, people inherently enjoy themselves more outdoors than they do in dark clubs. Decibel held outdoor gigs for the first time in 2008, at Volunteer Park and in Havana's parking lot, and those were many attendees' favorite experiences of the festival. Horton and company should strive to host even more sets alfresco. Moving the event to earlier in September or even to August could ensure better temps for such a scenario.
The Aphonia Festival:
Tacoma-based noisemakers L.A. Lungs, who play Friday, use a whole slew of keyboards, pedals, and other odd gear to fry up acidic drones as dark and polluted as the windbags stuck in downtown gridlock that their name suggests. The duo's delay-soaked trances are deeply rooted in the weirdo chemistry of couple Afterthought Lung (Nathan Markiewicz) and Leeward Lung (Lori Peterson), and damned if their live show won't hypnotize you, jaw to the floor. Prepare for a different brand of sonic bliss in the same spot the following night, when the haunting ambiences of Paintings for Animals will wash over you like waves at a heavenly deserted beach. The range of beautiful and beastly sounds on display at the Aphonia Festival is a testament to the label's diverse discography, and it should make for a weekend of shows your ears won't soon forget.
A look back at Source: Music of the Avant Garde:
It remains the bravest and boldest music magazine of all time. From 1969 to 1973, Source: Music of the Avant Garde did what no other publication has done before or since: publish radical scores and recordings in a sumptuous, deluxe package that dared to flout, expand, and piss on preeminent notions of music, notation, and performance.
Plus: It's a Hit, Up & Comings, Party Crasher, and as always our complete, searchable Music Calendar.
Tonight / History What to Wear to Mayhem?
Posted by Kelly O on Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 4:44 PM
Is anyone else wondering what they should wear to Mayhem tonight? I mean, I know it's 25 years later, and the band doesn't look like THIS, they look like THIS... but it's still real-deal Norwegian black metal, right? They're still a band who once hospitalized a fan with a flying sheep's head... a band that once had a singer named Per Yngve Ohlin, aka "Dead"...
...who killed himself by first slitting his wrists, then shooting himself in the forehead with a shotgun, only to be discovered by a bandmate who photographed his corpse with a cheap disposable camera (after, uh, re-arranging a few things, and taking a few skull fragments to make necklaces), then one of these same cheap disposable camera photos would be later "stolen" and end up on bootleg copy of Mayhem's Dawn of the Black Hearts album.
Shoo. I guess it's safe to say I should wear black.
Photo of Dead from the Until the Light Takes Us presskit.
Upcoming Detroit Techno in the House: Punisher @ Baltic Sat.
Posted by Dave Segal on Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 4:32 PM
Everything I've heard online and from reports from people I respect point to tomorrow night’s live set from Detroit DJ/producer Punisher (Michelle Herrmann) being a must-see. She brings it cerebral, visceral, and minimal, and it's all generated with glorious analog gear. Punisher has released 12s on Sean Deason’s Matrix label and has co-run Seismic Records with Vapourspace’s Mark Gage.
Local techno connoisseurs Kristina Childs (Krakt) and Travis Baron (Knightriders) open.
Baltic Room, 1207 Pine St, 625-4444, 9 pm-2 am, $10 before 10:30 pm/$15 after, Sat. June 6.
Album / Teh Internets Master Musicians of Bukkake Lap Up UK Press Love
Posted by Dave Segal on Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 3:47 PM
Over on his excellent Head Heritage site, rocker (remember Teardrop Explodes?)/music scribe (remember Krautrocksampler? Want to sell me your copy?) Julian Cope lays down some glowing verbiage on Seattle's Master Musicians of Bukkake's latest brain bomb, TOTEM 1.
Cope writes:
Imagine the massed ranks of OSOREZAN-period Geino Yamashirogumi being joined on a permanently rotating stage by the Breton bombardists of the Kevrenn Alré, the dear dancing biddies of Osaka’s Bon-odori, the power trio-period Ash Ra Tempel and Yoko Ono. Record them as they pass by repeatedly and this album may be a close approximation of your results.
Exactly what I was thinking.
Also, UK zine Terrorizer interviewed MMOB member Randall Dunn. Dunn was recently in Turkey doing important musical research and networking, which could yield extraordinary results. More details as they become known.
Album 4 Real-To-Real
Posted by Dean Fawkes on Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 3:25 PM
Stop. We'll talk. Press record.
We all know that the Manic Street Preachers started in the late '80s, androgynous and angry, and full of art-stunts, like a Welsh KLF or The Stooges chasing the dragon of we'll-change-everything.
We also admit that, before their debut, when asked by the press if they were serious, guitarist Richey James Edwards did in fact razor "4 Real" into his forearm.
A few albums later, the band released The Holy Bible. Scorched by post-punk ideals, but poisonously modernist and bolstered by militaristic imagery and samples of J.G. Ballard, it's an album, a horror of emotion, that's stood as a highlight of end-of-millennium Britain and features one of the best song titles ever made, "Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart."
It's true, too, that in 1995, Richey Edwards, who was behind most of The Manics' lyrics, disappeared, Ian Curtis-like, just before the band's U.S. tour and has never been seen since. A presumed suicide.
But you should know the band also recovered without him and found themselves with a series of their most successful if often watered-down albums of their career. The Manics were now a different band, but still quite a good one, and their following fractured as much as it grew.
Which brings us to last month, when, as you might not have heard, the band put out their ninth album, Journal For Plague Lovers. The sleeve of the album resembles the one for The Holy Bible. There are no singles. They lyrics are all by Richey Edwards.
"I see," we said.
And, "Get fucked."
We're now aware — just listen — that days before he disappeared, Richey Edwards had left the other band members a number of things, some of which were notebooks of lyrics. Which is how we got here. Why we have this obviously awful and ugly last grab for an aging band's lapsed-fan credibility. Has an exploited musical corpse ever worked out? We all have our examples. With this, it seems like an admission of defeat for The Manics' different direction, too, even after 2007's Send Away The Tigers, which validated their creative life without Richey like nothing else they've ever done.
And here we are. Telling you this.
And telling you that we kind of like it.
Let's be honest, nothing in Journal For Plague Lovers stands out for weeks. A lot of effort for not that much. But it's one of those albums that keeps well. The songs weave in and out of your days, like a lot of growers, latching onto unexpected places of your sub-brain. And after a while, you feel like making excuses for the whole thing and catch yourself humming lines like "We missed the sex revolution when we failed the physical" and "Riderless horses on Chomsky's Camelot / Bruises on my hands from digging my nails out".
The best is "This Joke Sport Severed". At first sparse and clenched in acoustic, it slides into a small but warm volley of hollering drums and a strings-backed bit of a soar. It's really two songs in one and a convincing mixture of Manics old and new. "Jackie Collins Existential Question Time" is another title to remember, too. "William's Last Words," meanwhile, is probably the closest we'll get to a goodbye.
A remix album also comes out in a fortnight, featuring the likes of Underworld, Andrew Weatherall, New Young Pony Club, British Sea Power, and Four Tet, which actually doesn't sound that bad.
Richey Edwards always had a unique way with words, writing some of the most wonderfully ridiculous phrases and difficult sentence-structures meant for music. Almost as if it was all a dare. Hearing what the band could make out of Richey's lyrics has always been one of the best things about The Manics, like watching someone try to wrap an eel around wet bread, so we'd be lying if we said there wasn't a real satisfaction to experience it at least another time.
Now, don't worry, while we'll be glad to sign something, some statement, that says the lyrics are more minimal and less distraught this time — which almost makes you wonder — they're still vague enough and endlessly arguable. New puzzles of songwriting.
The Manics often make it hard to be a fan, even a casual one. Still, they managed to pull this off, resurrecting an old glory and an old friend without embarrassing absolutely everyone.
It's an odd victory. We confess. But we're sticking to it.
Okay?
Video Well This Is Cute
Posted by Megan Seling on Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 2:53 PM
Love Is All - "Last Choice"
I think I like the video a little more than the song (the voice takes a little getting used to), but now after watching this I want to go home and have craft night!
Love Is All play Neumo's June 8th with Still Flyin and Tacocat. Their EP, Last Choice, will be out June 23rd.
Fashion Friday Night Fetch*: Chasing Amy
Posted by Gina Young on Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 2:23 PM
* In which we talk to people on the street about their clothes.
Gina Young: You're adorable. What do you do?
Amy Corwin: I'm the Assistant Fashion Designer and Fabric Coordinator for a major retailer downtown.
GY: Oh wait, so you work in fashion. That's kind of like cheating. Please tell me about these accessories you're wearing?
AC: Haha... Well I found the headband at Urban Outfitters. It was only 5 dollars because the glue was coming off, but I actually think it looks way better this way. I paid them less to do ME a favor. The shoes were Nordstrom Rack for 30 bucks. The top started ripping, so I used doublestick tape. It's not really noticeable, but they're messed up.
GY: Broken seems to be a central component of your look today. And yet it's totally working. What do you wear in this crazy hot weather we've been having?
AC: Really, really short shorts with looser fitting tops. I love that Daisy Dukes are back, but I don't want to look like Jessica Simpson— I like being totally big and oversized and blown out on top. And then just being all legs.
GY: All legs, huh? What does "all legs" do on Friday nights?
AC: Drink. Meet up with friends and go somewhere. The last weekend of June we're having a birthday party with an Oz theme. The guy that I'm dating does costumes. He enjoys dressing up; he's totally into it. He wears little horns like Pan.
GY: Um, do people ever tell you that you look like Kristin Allen-Zito from the Trucks?
AC: All the time! People always say, "Are you related?" That's okay with me— she's incredible!
Win It! Go to Tomorrow's Camera Obscura Show for Free!
Posted by Megan Seling on Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 1:45 PM
The first person to e-mail freetickets@thestranger.com with Camera Obscura in the subject line will get on the guest list (with a +1!) for tomorrow's show at Showbox at the Market.
UPDATE: The tickets have been won! You can still buy tickets, though. They're available here.
Michaelangelo Matos says this about their new song "French Navy": "Everything about the track sparkles: sharp opening one-two floor tom, brisk Motown beat, obsessive orchestration, vocal melody to die for, the whole thing as twee as a basket of kittens but with enough real-world resonance to apply to adult life."
Camera Obscura - "French Navy"
The Lonely Forest and Agent Ribbons open and the show is all ages.
Good luck!
Tonight / Love Tonight: Handsome Furs!
Posted by Eric Grandy on Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 12:26 PM
So stoked for this show tonight! Husband/wife duo Handsome Furs' latest album, Face Control, is just unassailably awesome, and I predict their live show will match. Mortal Enemy Blogger Andrew Matson has posted a pretty great interview with Handsome Furs frontman Dan Boeckner; the best bit:
I understand the significance, based on reading from the internet, of the Face Control title, but is there any special significance to the line that references it from "Hotel Arbat Blues"?Yeah, it's kinda dorky, but, we were in Moscow and we had been face controlled at a buffet.
You were not handsome enough to eat at a buffet?
No. And it was in the middle of the day. And I just thought, 'This is a culture where the capitalism has gone haywire. Totally out of control. This is hypercapitalism, the idea that there's a status involved in being able to scoop some greasy perogis out of a steam table.'
There's also a lot about drum machine and synth sounds!
Handsome Furs play Neumos tonight with Cinnamon Band and Feral Children, 8pm, $15, 21+.
Love / Business / RIP And Then There Were None
Posted by Grant Brissey on Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 11:54 AM
Sad news came in the form of an anonymous tip this morning, and a call to Cellophane Square manager Steve Romano confirmed that the venerable University District record store will close its doors forever by the end of the month. "We've foreseen this coming for a while, but we made a pact to ride it out until the end," says Romano, an employee of 13 years. "It was really the economy—at the beginning of this year, the downfall was more precipitous than anyone expected, including the owners."
When the landlord wouldn't negotiate terms for the space, Romano says, they basically knew things would soon come to an end. "We could keep trying to nickle and dime it, or give up the fight."
The University District location was the last of what was once a chain of four stores around the Northwest, and it has employed many Seattle music-scene luminaries— Barrett Wilke (Kinski), Dann Gallucci (Murder City Devils, Modest Mouse, A Gun Called Tension), Kim Warnick (the Fastbacks), and The Stranger's own emeritus Sean Nelson.
The original four locations were bought during the dot-com boom by Djangos, an online CD retailer that "made nothing but terrible decisions and basically brought down almost every record store they bought," explained Romano.
He says that Everyday Music then bought Cellophane Square out of the Djangos bankruptcy and that they were "basically the coolest owners out of all three if you really want to know the truth."
Of the longtime employees, Romano says, "We're just a bunch of music dorks, and we had a great time while it lasted. We're all just fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants kinds of people. We'll figure out [what to do next]."
I'm going there to buy a record tomorrow.
This story has been updated since its original publication.
Love Jesus Fucking Christ, I Love Art Brut!
Posted by Eric Grandy on Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 11:02 AM
Yes, the new album, Art Brut vs. Satan is awesome and totally grew on me and I should never have said less than totally enthusiastic things about it (sometimes even critics get an off first impression). I am as in love with Art Brut as ever. I only just wish Eddie Argos didn't have such an incomprehensible British accent in interviews. Here is a live performance of "Good Weekend," a perfect song, by this band that I love:
Art Brut play Neumos on Saturday, June 13th as part of the Noise for the Needy benefit concert series, with Miike Snow, 8pm, $13, all-ages
Tonight Tonight in Music: Patrol's CD Release Party, Handsome Furs, Kids and Animals, Typewriters, If Bears Were Bees, Mayhem, Eternal Tapestry, Hopewell, and More!
Posted by Megan Seling on Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 9:26 AM
Hopewell - "Calcutta"
Voyager One, Hopewell, This Blinding Light
(Comet) While it's not Hopewell's most consistent record, Good Good Desperation, the Poughkeepsie psychedelic-rock quartet's sixth full-length, boasts some undeniably powerful passages. (There's a reason they just toured with My Bloody Valentine.) "Stranger" is a hallucinatory gallop of swirling organ, ocean-sized feedback, and pummeling toms. "Island" sounds like the work of a psychedelic big band rather than four dudes with standard rock instruments, and the title track is the delirious soundtrack to your next morning-time, life-altering revelation. Just how all this big sound will fit inside the Comet remains to be heard, but hell, if Dark Meat can fit in there, anyone can. GRANT BRISSEY
Eternal Tapesty (live)
Kinski, Eternal Tapestry, Purple Rhinestone Eagle
(Funhouse) Portland's Eternal Tapestry can sound like Loop at their most lackadaisical or Endless Boogie at their most cosmic; their psych rock is so downered, it comes out the other side as uplifting. They're on that Terrastock festival tip, brandishing passports for astral travel. Also, any band that draws frequent comparisons to Swedish trance rockers Pärson Sound demands inspection. If you don't know Kinski by now, you need to check out these Seattle mainstays, whose rock continues to bulk up even as it becomes catchier. Their latest inclinations find them enacting a swift breed of heavy metal with hooks and hairpin dynamics aplenty—plus, the occasional Oasis cover. DAVE SEGAL
Mayhem - "Freezing Moon"
Mayhem, Marduk, Cephalic Carnage, Cattle Decapitation
(Studio Seven) A quarter century ago, Mayhem spilled the seed for the beast known and feared as Norwegian black metal (experts mostly agree that it don't come no blacker than the Norwegian brand of it). Injecting a malevolent chaos into metal, Mayhem blasted all the hammy camp out of it and forced it to wear a perpetual grim and gruesome expression. As an outsider to the genre, I confess that Mayhem and their black-metal ilk mostly sound like copious vomiting in a war zone while a warped Wagner LP spins forlornly in the distance. But in a live setting, there's no denying the unifying power of nihilism, blasphemy, and gore worship translated into sound and channeled through massive amps. DAVE SEGAL
If Bears Were Bees - "In Dog We Trust"
If Bears Were Bees, Dylan Morrison, Generifus, Hurricane Lanterns, Novalis, Tony Kevin
(Q Cafe) If Bears Were Bees' lead singer, T. J. Grant, has the kind of nasal voice and lyric-heavy delivery most often connected with those annoying nerd-rock bands like They Might Be Giants or Ben Folds Five. It's hard to love that sort of thing, but when Grant really rears back and belts it out, that weird, ironic, smart-guy delivery gets delightfully lost in real emotion. It's probably amped up for theatrical purposes, but it's genuinely affecting. I defy you to listen to "Clean Getaway" and not get a little choked up. It's a ballad that you can imagine someone like Jack Logan really sinking his teeth into. That's something They Might Be Giants never managed to pull off, and that's why If Bears Were Bees' ironic quotation marks are so powerful: When they come down, you feel like you've been hit in the chest. PAUL CONSTANT
Typewriters, Mighty Tiger, Tim and the Time Machines
(Blue Moon) Hasn't there already been a band named Typewriters? And weren't they really good? And didn't they sound just like this band called Typewriters? It probably only seems like that, because this band is one of those weird musical mixes—a blend of Eastern-European oom-pah-pah beats and Violent Femmes—style quirky pop—that seems so obvious in retrospect. Typewriters come from a long, uncelebrated tradition of Seattle music exemplified by Presidents of the United States of America: It's poppy, and the musicians aren't afraid to do things like make weird, scat-like noises with their mouths to get a point across, but it feels like they're been making their music forever. In a really good way. PAUL CONSTANT
Kids and Animals, Ambulance, Piko Panda
(Piecora's) Of course I'm going to like Kids and Animals—the Seattle quartet have been known to perform with stuffed animals displayed onstage and, c'mon, that's just cute. The music's not bad, either—singer Lee Corley has a voice that's warm and familiar, but I can't put my finger on whom it reminds me of. While the more quaint pop songs are enjoyable, my favorite Kids and Animals songs are the ones that rock out a little, like "Family Meal on the Green Mile," which starts with a plunking piano and turns into a full-on guitar onslaught by the chorus. MEGAN SELING
Handsome Furs - "I'm Confused"
Handsome Furs, Cinnamon Band, Feral Children
(Neumos) Handsome Furs' new sophomore full-length, Face Control, is a startling, awesome album. Startling because while their debut, Plague Park, highlighted Dan Boeckner's quavering yet resolute voice and a certain brand of grim (North) Americana, it hardly hinted at the blood-pumping power displayed on Face Control. Boeckner and wife/bandmate Alexei Perry wed the former album's dour, sometimes folky rock to cold pulsing drum machines and increasingly electrified guitars, and the effect is frequently anthemic on an arena-ready scale. "Legal Tender" is raging, electronic, hand-clapping blues that sounds like a karaoke version of Bruce Springsteen in the best possible way. "All We Want, Baby, Is Everything" is the best Canadian appropriation of New Order's "Temptation" since the Weakerthans swiped its bridge for "Wellington's Wednesdays" (Handsome Furs instead reinterpret the verses.) ERIC GRANDY
Lesbian, Patrol, Bronze Fawn, Wildildlife
(Sunset) Tonight we celebrate the release of Patrol's second full-length, Zirconium, which is a must-hear for fans of Helmet, Tool, and/or Deftones. The most gripping song on the record is the turbulent "Summer of Violence," which is (at just under five minutes) also the shortest song on the record (there are at least three songs over 10 minutes long—you ADD suffers have been warned). Speaking of new albums, opener Bronze Fawn will probably be releasing something before the end of the year, too. They're currently in the studio with local super-producer Matt Bayles, who'll no doubt make their technically proficient and fluid instrumental tunes sound even more vivid. MEGAN SELING
Plus, Jens Lekman plays the Croc again, and Underage suggests L.A. Lungs. You can always find so much more In our calendar.
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