Category Archives: Review

Jun 18 2013
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Pop, Review, Twee

Review: Camera Obscura – Desire Lines

Camera Obscura - Desire Lines
Camera Obscura – Desire Lines. 4AD, 2013.

Several years ago, a friend told me that I had to check out Camera Obscura. I believe he said, “You like Belle & Sebastian, right? Well, Camera Obscura do Belle & Sebastian better than Belle & Sebastian!” With that glowing recommendation, I picked up the then-newly-released Let’s Get Out of This Country and fell in love.

Two albums later, and I would no longer say that Camera Obscura are doing Belle & Sebastian. On Desire Lines, Tracyanne Campbell and co. have more than come into their own. Gone is much of the twee preciousness that brightened the surprisingly sad LGOoTC. Desire Lines still has that kind of late 1950s-early 1960s aesthetic that the band’s always had, but there’s a maturity here that goes beyond what the band had found on My Maudlin Career.

Not to overdo the Belle and Sebastian comparison, but while B&S became kind of, well, bland as they made more mature music (see: Write About Love), Camera Obscura seem to have found the right balance of melancholy pop melodies, nostalgia, and sophistication while still holding on to their identity. Even at their poppiest, such as on “Do it Again,” there’s nothing corny or cringeworthy on Desire Lines. The whole thing’s pretty solid.

As such, it’s hard to pick favorite tracks, though the aforementioned “Do it Again” would almost certainly be one of them. Other highlights would probably be the pensive “Fifth in Line to the Throne,” the (only) Belle & Sebastian-esque “This is Love(Feels Alright)” (though it might be more accurate to say that the newer B&S songs are Camera Obscura-esque), and the title track. Overall, though, Desire Lines probably works best as an album, with each track feeding off the emotion of the last.

With Desire Lines, Camera Obscura have either placed themselves as the genre-definer of twee-pop, or they have completely left it and are going their own thing. I haven’t decided which.

Desire Lines by Camera Obscura is available wherever money can be exchanged for music.

-jason

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Jun 14 2013
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Electronic, Review

Review: Boards of Canada – Tomorrow’s Harvest

Boards of Canada Tomorrow's Harvest

Tomorrow’s Harvest is Boards of Canada’s first new LP in 8 years. Things have changed.

Boards of Canada’s classic albums sound like they wouldn’t have been out place scoring late 70s-early 80s public television documentaries about science and nature. That’s what I always liked about them. It’s a sound that distilled the last days of Space Age optimism. I’ll always listen to the music on The Campfire Headphase and Music Has the Right to Children feeling a sense of nostalgic positivity.

Where that stuff is the dawn and the potential a new day holds, Tomorrow’s Harvest is the fear of being caught out on the streets after dark. This is basically John Carpenter’s Boards of Canada. It’s not literally as sparse as the music he composed for his movies but it really has the same late 70s early 80s movie score sound. Those signature Boards of Canada tones are almost entirely gone here.

So here is my thing with this, two thing really. The first is that this album doesn’t represent what I liked about Boards of Canada’s sound. Sure I should challenge my expectations or whatever, but I’m having a hard time doing that because of the second thing. This particular type of quasi-soundtrack album has been quite a bit now and albums that tape this particular vein of influence have been done quite a bit better. For being so heavily evocative of a film soundtrack, it really falls short in comparison to Symmetry’s Theme for an Imaginary Film. Tomorrow’s Harvest lacks narrative momentum. At no point after repeated plays did any of the tracks jump out and grab me, making Tomorrow’s Harvest the type of “score” that serves only as background music.  Giving this one official rating of “Ok because it’s Boards of Canada but honestly not really that into it.”

Get it from Bleep.

- Jayson

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May 31 2013
18 Comments
Metal, Review

Review: Cowards – Shooting Pills And Blanks

Cowards - Shooting Pills And Blanks

Throatruiner Records releases all kinda sounds alike, but I end up liking them all.

Shooting Pills and Blanks is sludgy noise a la Unsane, mixed in with some vaguely Jake Bannon-y vocals, hardcore, indistinct general black metal overtones and the MP3s themselves are tagged in the ‘violence’ genre. I think that kind of thing will either pique your interest or make you throw up in your mouth some – very little in between. I am into enough to want to write a review of it where I tell you that you should press play on it. The thing Cowards do with their influences sounds cohesive and fits in well with the rest of the label’s roster. As this album hits it’s stride, the hardcore part of the mix largely supersedes the rest of the influences to the point where the CD would have a “for fans of Converge” sticker. At this point the French and Swiss hardcore scenes are much more interesting than the American one, at least to me. I could probably paste in some previously written line about ‘furious, manic intensity” (I know I’ve used that) but yes, Cowards do that and I’m still into it. When Shooting Blanks And Pills hits the peaks of ‘violence’ sound or the depths of the sludge influences the album is at it’s most worthwhile.

- Jayson

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May 27 2013
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Electronic, Review

Review: Daft Punk – Random Access Memories

Daft Punk - Random Access Memories
Daft Punk – Random Access Memories. Columbia Records, 2013.

True story: A couple of weeks ago, this song came on the radio. I immediately said, “This…isn’t good. Like, the lyrics are stupid, and they sound like they want to be Daft Punk, only if Pharrell Williams were singing.” I probably don’t have to finish this story; you know where it’s going.

However, the internet has been blowing up over people loving the shit out of Daft Punk’s newest album, Random Access Memories, so I figured I should give it a try. I mean, I was a fan of their 2001 album Discovery, though that might have been more to do with the album’s extended music video, Interstella 5555. So, I put this one on, and…

It’s not bad. I mean, besides “Get Lucky,” there’s nothing on the album that irritates me. Random Access Memories is kind of a mellow disco album. But that’s the thing: I don’t like disco, and I know none of these dudes who are proclaiming this album to be a masterpiece are disco fans, so what gives?

Anyway, as I said, it’s certainly not a bad album. “Giorgio by Moroder” is a nice experiment in taking an interview and setting it to disco. “Instant Crush,” featuring vocals by Julian Casablancas (The Strokes), is a sort of post-disco, eighties-ish song that I dig alright. Pharrell Williams’ 1st track on the album, “Lose Yourself to Dance,” is better than “Get Lucky.” These are all good songs, but none of them are great, and none of them inspire me to go out and buy the album.

Overall, if you like disco, you’ll like this album. And if you like Daft Punk, you probably like disco, whether you know it or not. Go get some damn Bee-Gees or something; I don’t know what to tell you.

Daft Punk – Random Access Memories is available literally everywhere. In the world.

-jason

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May 17 2013
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Review

Review: Carpenter Brut – Carpenter Brut EP

Carpenter Brut

Carpenter Brut put this album out back in December of 2012, but I just found out about it.

Meanwhile, this week the new Daft Punk leaked and people online were just going nuts to hear it. It was a huge deal to a lot of people. Then it got put on iTunes and literally in the time it took me to walk to the end of the block and back, everyone had turned on it because well, it’s a disco album. After work I checked out two of the streaming tracks. Here is my micro review of Daft Punk’s newest whatever it’s called, it’s like mom disco. It’s that kind of whack 1984 disco-is-dead-but-hasn’t-stopped-moving disco that your mom listened to on FM radio while taking you to daycare. That is basically my indictment of it, it’s disco, but it’s just not funky.

After checking that out, I found myself listening to the Carpenter Brut EP for the the first time because someone I follow on Twitter linked to it. In extremely sharp contrast, the Carpenter Brut EP is funky. A thing of retro synths it’s a weird combination of self-conscious and sexy. This is on one hand, a nerd album. The 80′s synth sounds have more to do with the music you’d hear coming from C64 or NES games than any kind of nascent New Wave what have you. The Carpenter part is also very literally a homage to John Carpenter movies, with song titles derived from and samples taken from the same. (Including that one Prince of Darkness sample. You hear that allll the time, but I have never met anyone that’s actually seen that movie.) Despite that, because of that maybe, this album really, really goes hard. Here’s where the disco comparison comes in. It’s been a really, really long time since anything has made me want to get up and move as much as the Carpenter Brut EP. It’s just impossibly kinetic. Seriously, every time I put this on, I have visions of the office or wherever I am just bursting into the contrived “going wild dance party” but really meaning it because how could you not when this is playing? It’s not disco, but it makes you want to dance like it was.

- Jayson

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May 13 2013
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Pop, Review, Rock

Review: John Vanderslice – John Vanderslice Plays Diamond Dogs

John Vanderslice Plays Diamond Dogs
John Vanderslice – John Vanderslice Plays Diamond Dogs. Self-released, 2013.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I put some money towards John Vanderslice’s Kickstarter campaign for his upcoming album, Dagger Beach. One of the rewards I got was a digital copy of his upcoming, limited-edition John Vanderslice Plays Diamond Dogs, a track-by-track cover of Bowie’s 1974 album.

First of all, I know it’s kind of weird to review an album that was a Kickstarter reward. I don’t believe it’s getting an official release date. There were only 500 copies of the LP printed for this promotion, but Vanderslice still seems to have some left, so I imagine this will show up at his shows, and possibly on his website later, so I think it’s worthwhile to talk about it.

What Vanderslice has done on John Vanderslice Plays Diamond Dogs is re-imagine the entire album. When I say this, I don’t mean that he has taken the songs out of context, changed their tunes and words and what-have-you. In this regard, his album is very faithful to the original. However, Vanderslice has added his pop sensibilities to Bowie’s rock masterpiece.

Are any of these tracks going to replace the originals in my mind as the definitive versions of the songs? No, but I don’t think that’s what Vanderslice is going for, either. He explains on the Kickstarter page that this album was recorded in five days. While it certainly doesn’t sound rushed at all, it still seems more of an exercise in the urgency of recording on a time-budget, rather than and intense exploration and re-interpretation of a classic.

If you’re familiar with JV’s work, you can probably imagine what John Vanderslice Plays Diamond Dogs sounds like: It’s kind of mellow, with lots of guitar and synth. The production is an instrument here, as always with Vanderslice. The man knows exactly what sounds to push to the back and which ones to bring forward at exactly the right time. In fact, he’s one of the few artists whose production is obvious but not irritating. I tend to like my music unpolished, but Vanderslice never gets in his own way. Even his bleeps and bloops sound natural.

The highlights on the album are most likely so because they were the highlights of Bowie’s original, but Vanderslice’s lazy cover of Diamond Dogs, called “Diamanthunde,” manages to be as fun, if not as raucous as the original. His cover of “Rebel Rebel,” renamed as “Juvenile Success,” is soft and minimalist, and one of my favorite tracks is the trippy “Jump in the River Holding Hands,” a cover of “Sweet Thing.”

Overall, John Vanderslice’s cover of Bowie isn’t earth-shattering, and it’s definitely not as good as the original, but I don’t think that’s an insult. John Vanderslice has made a worthwhile covers album and makes these songs his own, which is what every artist covering any song should aspire to.

John Vanderslice Plays Diamond Dogs isn’t available in retail outlets, but keep a lookout at his shows and his website to get a copy while he still has them.

-jason

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May 10 2013
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Ambient, Post-rock, Review

Review: Sunwølf – Midnight Moon

Sunwølf - Midnight Moon

The UK’s Sunwølf are back with their sophomore album Midnight Moon.

While that Kinski-esque vibe remains, Midnight Moon is cool because it manages to achieve a sound best described as stonerdrone. Less ambient than their last outing, Sunwølf get to the riffage quickly and keep at it for the duration. As that Polygon Window album was titled Surfing on Sine Waves, Sunwølf have created a sound that is surfing on riffs. The first three tracks of Midnight Moon are not drone enough to be boring/for enthusiasts only, nor does it ever quite hit that “gonna drive my Camaro into the heart of the sun” level of groove. It maintains a slow, steady groove balanced right between

Later in the album, we do hit the point where the music is much more ambient. In these moments the music sounds quietly beautiful to the point where I started feeling a little reflective while listening. Compared to their first album, Midnight Moon isn’t as evocative of a specific locale or sense of place, but an emotional space. A lot of the rest of what I said about Beyond The Sun is true here, Midnight Moon is also lovely stuff. As good as the first one was, this sophomore effort demonstrates a huge artistic progression.

- Jayson

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May 06 2013
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Pop, Review

Review: The Blank Tapes – Vacation

The Blank Tapes - Vacation
The Blank Tapes – Vacation. Antenna Farm Records, 2013.

When I saw that The Blank Tapes newest release was called Vacation, I figured it would be pretty appropriate for my to review it right now. My girlfriend and I are just finishing our vacation, so I’m in a vacation sort of mood. You know: the right kind of mood for this kind of album.

When I say “this kind of album,” I really do mean the vacationy sort of album. The Blank Tapes really have put together an album that makes me want to sit on a beach with a beer in my hand and an umbrella over my head to protect me from the sun. Right from the opening track, “Uh-Oh,” there’s this kind of lazy, sunny, AM radio vibe, with just a little bit of Spoon mixed in to keep things current. It’s mellow, it’s relaxing, and it’s fun. These guys are good at what they do, but they don’t take themselves too seriously.

The Blank Tapes run the gamut from Beach Boys-style sixties rock (on “Coast to Coast”), Indie Pop (“Tamarind Seeds”), Lou Reed-inspired pop-rock (“Pearl”), to Latin jazz-pop (“Brasilia”), to early solo McCartney (“Holy Roller”). The real feat heat is that through all of this, they still manage to sound modern and relevant.

Overall, Vacation is a nice, breezy album that remembers yesteryear, rather than trying to recreate it.

Vacation by the Blank Tapes comes out on May 14th on Antenna Farm Records.

-jason

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May 01 2013
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Pop, Review

Review: John Vanderslice – Dagger Beach

John Vanderslice - Dagger Beach
John Vanderslice – Dagger Beach. Self-released, 2013.

Back in February, John Vanderslice started a Kickstarter campaign for his upcoming release, Dagger Beach. He was asking for $18,500, and the 1,224 people who backed it got him almost $80,000. In other words, when JV says he’s doing a thing, his loyal fanbase listens.

I’m one of those fans, backing him at the level to get me downloads of Dagger Beach, as well as his rarities album and his track-by-track cover of Bowie’s Diamond Dogs. I assumed two things about this project:

1) It would sound like a John Vanderslice album.
2) It would be great.

I was right on both counts.

According to the liner notes, Dagger Beach was written after John and his girlfriend broke up. He insists it’s not a break-up album, and I agree. Break-up albums are cold and wintery. This is an album of Spring, of rebirth. It’s an album in which the narrator, after having everything stripped from him that wasn’t him, sees himself for the first time in a while. The first track, “Raw Wood,” opens:

one day the paint will be stripped right off
your pretty veneer and you can bet for sure
raw wood never looked so good

Even though it’s an album about growth and rebirth, it isn’t without its bitterness. On the very next track, “Harlequin Press,” Vanderslice sings of a woman whom he helped edit a book, and who, I imagine, is a metaphor for his ex:

a year had passed, she showed up at my door
she rewrote the book and handed it over
she replaced the songbirds with pornographers,
the love scenes with brutal murders

The most surprising thing about the album, and really, it shouldn’t be a surprise as it is the natural evolution of his sound, is that I would no longer call him a powerpop artist. The music on Dagger Beach would almost be folky if Vanderslice didn’t love his production so much. He puts enough bleeps and bloops to nudge the overall sound to pop music, though if he ever released an accoustic-only version (as he did with Pixel Revolt when he released Suddenly It All Went Dark [Which you can download for free RIGHT HERE]), it would totally be a folk album. However, despite the folk nature of Dagger Beach, it is unmistakably a John Vanderslice album. He has managed to evolve without losing that which has always been the quintessential Vanderslice: those specific chord changes and those slice-of-life lyrics.

Overall, Dagger Beach is a solid album that is just as well written, produced, and performed as any of his work with a label, and is a solid case for the Kickstarter generation of music.

Dagger Beach is officially released June 11, 2013, and will be available in several formats from John Vanderslice’s Website.

-jason

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Apr 29 2013
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hip-hop, Review, Twitter

Review: Sankofa – Just Might Be

Sankofa Just Might Be

Sometimes you really only get into someone’s music at the end of their career. That’s the case with Sankofa’s Just Might Be album. This is adios, Sankofa is retiring to focus on being a dad.

Sankofa has been on my radar a bit, but Just Might Be is the first thing I’ve actually sat down with for a serious listen. The is a proper old school album, for my old school days anyway. Anyone that was a fan of the non-gangsta stuff that was going on from the mid-90s through the early 00s will be happy with Just Might Be. Sankofa is one of those rappers that values lyrical prowess and flow over all else. Most of the tracks here are slice-of-life type stories ranging from fun songs (the first two about swearing and sneakers are great) to darker stories about people’s screwed up lives. Through it all the quality remains consistent and high. For a 16 track album there’s no duds. Even the songs I don’t like as much suffer only in comparison with the better ones here. By way of comparison, Sankofa’s style reminds me both of Aesop Rock and Soul Khan to a degree. He’s quirky, but not annoyingly so like I tend to find Aesop. His strong delivery reminds me of Khan, but this isn’t a political album like most of his stuff tends to be. Really, you can hear that Sankofa is doing this for the love and that approach makes this a completely solid listening experience.

I’m writing this review the week of that Onion “people are legitimately worried about the future of hip-hop” article made the rounds. It’s funny, but honestly I’m not.

- Jayson

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