There hasn't been any band like Eels that have been an important part of my life since entering it at the turn of the century. Sure, "Novocaine For The Soul" was a song I requested a lot on my local radio station in my early teens, but it was earlier this decade when Souljacker was released, and E dawned the cover with a grizzly beard that gave the unabomber a run for his money. At the same time, I obtained my copy of their epic Electro-Shock Blues, an album to this day that still holds the specialist of places in my heart. It has always been my go to in times of endless grief and sadness with the few deaths I've had to implore the last few years, and it always will be: "Dead of Winter" being the cornerstone of ultimate loss.
With those two albums, I could always see myself in E's lyrics. And a few months ago, I was given my copy of his latest, Hombre Lobo, and the beard from the Souljacker days hath returneth, along with my pension for living vicariously though his pain. Subtitled 12 Songs of Desire, E has decided to live through the character of the Dog Faced Boy that Souljacker's lead song is about, down to that gnarly beard. The songs are rough, brash and loud at times; chunky guitars and overmastering fill the speakers during the rocous "Tremendous Dynamite" and the opening "Prizefighter". And facing off are the songs that follow; in a near album-length loud/quiet/loud dynamic from song to song, the first half follows this sequence to a T. After the prize is the quiet and wanting "The Look You Give That Guy," before the gritty bastard child of anything off of 2005's Blinking Lights & Other Revelations' "Lilac Breeze" finds E with a rather humorous tongue when he states 'Birds do it / Bees do it / I wanna do it / The Only thing we to do is get down to it.'
And after the bombast of "Dynamite" comes the mournful "The Longing." Right up there with "Winter" in the Saddest Eels Song category, E woefully strums his guitar as he tries to just move on, to get her out of his head, to detach her venom and poison that has seeped in to his brain. He hasn't sounded this frail and desperate, whether he's singing as a charcter or as himself, since Electro-Shock; especially in the way he delivers to us what he misses: "Her smell, her touch / Her Smile, her laugh."
No two Eels records are ever the same really, but to compare it sonically to anything before this, you could say Lobo is a dirtier, and grittier sounding Shootenanny. Catchy straightforward guitar licks and other rhythms are covered in dirt, stomped out like our protaganist's heart has been on a song like "What's A Fella Gotta Do". "All The Beautiful Things" is the furthest this album gets from the sound achieved on the other 11 tracks with a cleaner sound as E is aware of how he is great and how she knows he is great, yet she won't accept him just yet.
Blinking Lights was named Album of the Year by me in 2005. Whether Hombre Lobo will take the cake this year remains to be seen, but what can be seen is that E has once again made an album that his fans will love and appreciate, as he branches out in to making a record unlike Blinking Lights, and another dozen songs that I will forever and always be able to identify myself with.
Alcohol has been known to influence the decisions of many people, decisions both good and bad over decades of time. It distorts the perception's of people's realities and enables them to do smart things and not so smart things. It will also help you realize what some of the better things in life are so then, even when sober, you are then a fan of certain cacophonous sounds.
How alcohol influenced my boredom and then total admiration for Japandroids.
It was maybe a month ago now and it was a bright and sunny Sunday afternoon. I had a late night and I didn't sleep much. When I finally got around to putting on Post-Nothing around 3PM, I immediately was bored by it. It might have just been that the grating guitars and high tinned sounds of the cymbals crashing (or could we even say, eating the guitars - boo ya!) putting much emphasis on my headache, but I just wasn't feeling it. The last song, "I Quit Girls", I thought that was an alright one, but the other seven songs just kind of didn't do it for me.
A co-worker, he told me about the band right before Pitchfork put them on the map with that Best New Music thumb up their ass. He said he could see me totally getting in to it. And after a second go around I had stood with him on the side that it's better together listening to it as a whole album; one song out of context standing alone doesn't work so well.
At some point in the past week or two, "Rockers East Vancouver," it became a early contender for a summer anthem. The way the drums marched in before the guitars blast out of left field. It was catchy and hooky without a lead part - that's right kids, it's all rhythm. Like the great duos of No Age and Local H before them, the 'roids are just two dudes who hail from Vancouver, making blistering loud rock. But what's put them ahead of No Age (for me, at least. You, faithful reader, might just think I'm wrong) is that it's immediately catchier. Like with most things I tend to like lately (see: Abe Vigoda), I like a good hunt, a good challenge where I am forced to look for the melodies buried underneath murky production and huge drums and back and forth vocal delivery.
Brian and David, that's the names of the Japandroids, they used to dream and never worried about dying. Their main concerns were those sunshine girls, people! They are two guys who might just wear their hearts on their sleeves. Maybe, in a sense, Post-Nothing is some sort of concept record that should be called Love, Canadian via-LA SoundStyle. As you go through the album they sing of french kissing French girls ("Wet Hair") and use the endearing phrase "x-o-x-o-x!" ("Heart Sweats") before it all ends in the drones and defeat of the above mentioned "I Quit Girls". They also sing of doing all the other angsty teen things like getting laid, getting paid and getting drunk, which brings me back to how this story started...
Like when I finally understood and got in to Animal Collective, I was having a few beers at the time when I put this record back on for its final shot. Three Miller High Life's in and I was sold; the record immediately was on repeat for the entire weekend while sober. I'm not trying to promote alcoholism, nor do I have a drinking problem, it's just that sometimes something comes along, a variable, and influences your opinion on things and helps you grasp the concept and understand everything better. The moral of the story, boys and girls, is that some things are attractive even when the beer goggles come off.
You know a record is good when after having one song on repeat all day, you eventually start drifting away towards other songs to only come back to that first one and it still holds up good. And with every new favorite song you realize that it is no longer about ranking a song as a favorite but ranking an entire collection, a scrapbook of portraits, an entire album as one of your favorites of the year and if not all-time. And when the songs are just chock full of imagery and optimism in both lyric and chord, you too can start to feel better about your own life, especially when each song starts to hold just as much meaning to your own young life as it does to its writer. And 31 minutes the record ends and you just go back to the beginning. One revolution down, and a lifetime to go.
Michael Benjamin Lerner, he is Telekinesis on record. Along with some guy named Chris Walla, they went in to a studio in their native Seattle and pieced together a strange and happy tale of innocence and love one song by one song at a time. It is one of most honest, one of the happiest records I have heard in a long time. Lerner keeps talking of Japan, and not just in the first single "Tokyo", but in the bookings of a flight to a foreign land in "Awkward Kisser" to moments later being whisked away to said "Foreign Room". He is a man obsessed with a land like I and am sure many others have been obsessed with girls they always wanted to be with but never got to be with. I say that because for all of his musings of the far away land, he has never been. Not even once.
"Awkward Kisser" was that song I mentioned at the very first sentence, the song that was on repeat for an entire day. Outside of its immediate hooks and beat that you think you'd be better hearing at a sock hop then a modern day club, it's just so short, all of 105 seconds long. Like the great Bob Pollard before him, he is able to capture an entire moment in the formula of verse-chorus-verse-chorus and end scene. And that chorus is so perfect to me: Lerner's vocals and bass drum freshly full of reverb sounding epic and glorious. The melody ever so catchy as he declares the simple line "And when I woke up / you were by my side". I could play that part on repeat for hours and sure that's just the hopeless romantic in me coming out but it does sound dreamy all-in-all.
With this self-titled debut, Lerner has made not only an album that could be about his everyday escapes and daydreams in some kind of Orwellian Brazil type of way, but an album each and every one of its listeners can identify themselves with. After many repeated listens when I started to pay attention to his words, I realized he wrote in a way more people need to just forward and up front. No metaphors, no allegories, no hidden meanings. Blunt. Honest. Real. It's that album that for me we'll always carry a special place in my heart because of the people (er, person) in my life and how it just reminds me of them and how it is an album that will resonate with many people in that demograpic of "I remember the first time I heard/played/saw Telekinesis!" How I can place myself in their kitchen as I played it for them for the very first time and how when the closing number "I Saw Lightning" came on I, too, became honest and blunt. I told them this song, just Lerner barring his soul stripped to his voice and an acoustic guitar, was a dedication from me and that the words pretty much summed up the way I felt about them.
I wanna care for you when you are all alone Sit inside our house and unplug all our phones Watching raindrops stream down on our windowsill Let's be in love
At least I've got this record to be in love with, yes?
There's something about a haunting piano that always does it for me. It has to be in a minor key, a sequence of notes emitting from the ivory that is just as awkward as it is melancholy. The wind blows with the whistles that emit from the prior "Prologue" that lead in to this piano that fades in ever so slowly yet almost all at once on "Kettering". It's there in the forefront, surrounded by the foggy ambiance before Peter Silberman's vocal comes to the bedside of a dying friend, confidant, lover. With every line delivered, Silberman sounds like he's licking his lips to let people know his fragile voice is emitting something.
The song is as sad as the bio that goes with Hospice, the second full length from The Antlers. Silberman locked himself in his room essentially, emerging with home demos of skeletons in the closet that make up the ten track opus. But this song is so strong and the image on the album's cover above, the hand of a committed patient and what is to be believed their closest kin, seems to fit right in with this song and the album's theme. When reading over the lyrics it sounds like they tried to help, that bedside friend, tried to save them, but came up short. Instead they sat there; they could have left at any time but instead they stayed through every painstaking moment, taking on all the pain they could.
Oh, yes, the rest of the album is good, too, but this song is just painstakingly beautiful.
I'll first go on record by saying I went in to this record turned off. We were in a van, driving along I-84 through Connecticut from NYC back to Boston one weekend. We were graced with one of those fancy watermarked copies of Living Thing, the brand spanking new album from everyone's three favorite Swedes Peter, Bjorn & John. Our van driver said "Issac said this one's different - there's next to no guitars on it." We put it in, a beeping tone goes off like someone opened the door to the van. John starts singing amidst breaks of hand claps and doo-doo's. Our jaws had dropped, with the collective look that could be summarized by one sentence:
What the fuck is this?
There were no guitars there. There were no guitars in the second song, "It Don't Move Me", either. Instead of some chords being strummed, it's all drum beats piano loops and exotic sounding moments of percussion, something I would soon realize was rather prevalent with every future listen. I remember the record starting to pick up by the time the first single, "Nothing To Worry About" came on. Guitars finally entered when Bjorn sang "I'm Losing My Mind", but by the time we got to the final quarter of the album we were all lost. We didn't know what we just heard. Was it a joke, was it an album made on a dare?
With me being me, I was automatically excited. Like it reads in their new bio, most people probably don't know that is their fifth album, following up last year's vinyl/digital only Seaside Rock instrumental opus. Most ignorant Americans probably figure this is their second album. They've been making songs since 1998, people!
I gave it a break, but came back week's later. "The Feeling" still irks me, but as a whole I guess it just is the right song to start it off with, to give the new feeling and vibe that you're about to go on a different journey. I feel like Peter doesn't sing so much, but if you do a breakdown of the songs he still sings lead on seven of the dozen.
The shining section, the suite that ties the room together is right in the middle, from American single ("Worry") to the even better European single ("Lay It Down"). In between there, the first prominent guitars show up on "Mind"; a trippy nod to 60s pop that might almost fit on Writer's Block. After that comes the not-so-far from Graceland/could be on Made In The Dark title track, a song doused in every new element the band is embracing. The clanging empty bottles or whatever they are juxtaposed with Bjorn panning the statement 'It's a living thing,' with a near schizophrenic breakdown in the chorus. "I Want You!", like "Mind", is as close as it's gonna get to pre-Living Thing PB&J.
After "Lay It Down" the album almost becomes forgettable, just making it's way to the end, yet it still has its moments and worth listening to. "4 Out of 5" is full-on last song at the club at 3 AM with a fat bear and docile vocals from Bjorn. And the album comes down with the synth echos of "Last Night", a moment John says that sure could change the past, as random beats come swooping in from the darkest corners like "In The Air Tonight". Maybe Phil Collins is in the room?
If I could write one thing, and this post was only allowed to be one sentence long, it would be something about how I applaud them for making an album they want to. This isn't Writer's Block II, no one is whistling in between verses traded off by a boy and a girl. This is a band who deserves to be awarded for their artistic merit, making this stark/dark 80s pop record. This is like when The Rosebuds took a step off the path and succeeded with Night of the Furies, going down that dark and ominous path to come out with something different yet accessible. Most people are going to pan this like their ill-fated SXSW gigs last week, but maybe people will go in with an open mind and a good set of headphones to take it all in.
Rarely ever in life to find a compilation to be so perfect in every way, especially a comp like this one. It's kind of like a mix, based on the theme of a mood, arranged in a near perfect order, intricately tied together. The curators of said mix/comp, the Brothers Dessner of The National, teamed up with the Red Hot Foundation to put together Dark Was The Night, and the entire indie/hipster scene is swooning over the comp. The duets (Feist with Ben Gibbard! AND Grizzly Bear!), new songs from our favorites (Arcade Fire, The Decemberists, Bon Iver) and even that recluse Sufjan came out to play.
Every song is like a hit single in its own way or can easily be placed in the soundtrack of one's life. For me, Yo La Tengo's cover of Snapper's "Gentle Hour" and Bon Iver's "Brackett, WI" are the perfect wander in the snow late at night in the city songs. You can people watch to Feist and Ben together on "Train Song" sounds like a cold fall afternoon, crisp be the air and the leaves. Yeasayer's "Tightrope" being dusk on a summer's night, on your best friend's patio, on your ex lover's balcony.
You know how people listen to an album, and every time they listen they find something new they love about it, whether it's a song in general or a select track's middle section or chorus? Comps can be different in that with each time you listen, you don't just find a new song to enjoy, but a new artist to explore and then even more music to add to your collection. For me, "Tightrope" was so catchy that I've finally taken the time to sit with Yeasayer's All Hour Cymbalsand I find it quite good. Maybe with a few more spins I'll finally be in to Antony or Sufjan?
Snowy weekends like this past one were made for albums like this. Someday I'll be able to give myself the credit of discovering a band and making them big one year, but not for this one. As much as I would love to take the claim, it was not I who just happened on to them. I mean, I did stumble upon their awesomeness, it was just a message board I frequent that tons of other people do, too.
They're in the red on the blogdar meter, blogdar being that radar that us bloggers have, that sixth sense about bands that will explode. If these guys aren't the it band at CMJ this coming fall, I'll be in total shock and surprise. I will turn over my blogger license, cut it up in to several pieces.
Think Pavement. Think if Malkmus got the crew back together to make something of grand, epic proportions. Using strings at times and more exotic things like toy pianos and - was that glasses full of water - Cymbals Eat Gutiars even kind of channel Arcade Fire in some sick post-rock/post-hardcore kind of way. Like I mention Luna once did with "Math Wiz", grandiose opener "And The Hazy Sea" just starts already enveloped. Joseph Ferocious screams doo-wop styles over loud guitars, calaminous drums and an overall fracas that is equal parts catchy as it is dissonant. By the time you are in "Indiana", with its massive horn section and upright piano gallloping along, you'd think you've traded in dank club for wild west saloon, until the hemorraging guitars compete with the tickled ivories. "Wild Phoenix" shares this same sentiments, again utilizing the brass, while the centerpiece "Share" is all over the place for most of its seven minute duration. And lest we forget "Cold Spring", a song with a breakdown reminiscent of the best parts of The Lonesome Crowded West.
Did I mention these guys aren't even signed yet? At least not to my knowledge they aren't. But I know that if they catch on to others like they have already caught on to me and other blogs, 2009 will be the year all instruments are in a cannibalistic battle with one another.
Mike Archibald checks in with the record he finds himself having on repeat lately...
Hercules and Love Affair made a call to polyester this past March with the release of their new self-titled album. The album is crammed full of tracks destined to make you move your body. Hercules and Love Affair is led by DJ Andy Butler, who tries to bring his own flair for disco to the modern electronic world.
This album is comprised of many classic disco techniques that are the root of much of the electronic scene today. One song in particular, “Hercules Theme” screams South Beach; the track very well could have been placed in club scenes of Scarface. The beat is a tandem of drums and electronic bass that walks its way through the song, carried by a woozy female vocalist and a simple string arrangement that is reminiscent of Saturday Night Fever. It also features a flurry of horns paired with synth.
The opening cut off the album, “Time Will,” is very passionate and refined disco. Where “Hercules Theme” may be fun and lively, but “Time Will” is relaxing and more subdued. The track has lots of synth and an electronic foundation, but it is controlled by a very soulful vocalist. It might also be the catchiest song on the album, because of the track’s simple lyrics and its whispery melody. The beat still trots on this track as well, making it another example of how infectiously dancey this album is.
The album’s best track might be “You Belong,” with a beat that’s busy with bells and buzzing warps which keep a listener occupied and thoroughly entertained. The female vocalist on the song tames the beat with her gentle voice but still keeps the song alive and vibrant with style. This song is a must play on all upcoming DJ and party gigs you might be having in the coming months.
The album starts off with a ravaging bang but as time wends its way through, the listener’s interest slowly fizzles out. Perhaps it was too much disco for me to handle in one 52 minute block of music, but Hercules and Love Affair certainly felt top heavy. I felt the album was overall exceptionally fun and enjoyable, but the later cuts on the album just didn’t withstand the test of attention. Listening to tracks on Hercules and Love Affair as singles rather than as a whole album makes it more enjoyable. This album also has spectacular Byzantine-style artwork that made me want to purchase it in vinyl purely for a piece of domestic aesthetic.
I wouldn’t consider myself by any means a real disco fan but the Hercules and Love Affair was a fun flashback. This album has the ability to be influential for electronic artists as an example of new genres to sample from. Hercules and Love Affair is a very accurate replication of standard disco, new techniques are used to create those classic sounds for an album that may not reinvent the wheel, but one that is still enjoyable nonetheless.
I guess we can thank the fine folks at Pitchfork for this column.
I was bored over the weekend and they have the video up for "rr vs. d" for one-man band Au. I had been reading about their latest album, Verbs, a whole bunch so I thought I'll give it a try. So I put the video on, but don't really pay attention to it so much as I do the song and I was just floored. Starting out with these grand scales of piano just one after the other on top of each other, and then these hand claps usher in this choir of angelic voices. Had I died and gone to heaven? Friends hoop and holler between the choir's choice lines, syncopated handclaps and a random snare drum pans left, pans right. This has to be what people who take that fatal hit of LSD hear on the escalator up to the Great Gig in the Sky.
And it doesn't stop there. "Get it / 1, 2, 3" a fade and BOOM! A zany collection of horns and other assorted instruments come out of nowhere for the song's mid section. It's like you stepped of said escalator and are given nothing but the grandest of entries before you meet up with the Big Guy that Homer only saw now again from chest down. He had big feet.
And the lord comes to you, and he'll sing to you his praise as you go through the gate. And then it's over. 3:48 of pure heavenly bliss. It's .. mind blowing. It's .. worth repeated listens. I'd be happy knowing I could die and enter Heaven hearing this.
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There hasn't been any band like Eels that have been an important part of my life since entering it at the turn of the century. Sure, "Novocaine For The Soul" was a song I requested a lot on my local radio station in my early teens, but it was earlier this decade when Souljacker was released, and E dawned the cover with a grizzly beard that gave the unabomber a run for his money. At the same time, I obtained my copy of their epic Electro-Shock Blues, an album to this day that still holds the specialist of places in my heart. It has always been my go to in times of endless grief and sadness with the few deaths I've had to implore the last few years, and it always will be: "Dead of Winter" being the cornerstone of ultimate loss. 
