Sunday, January 22nd, 2006
Sunday Cleaning – Volume 21
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David Thomas Broughton / The Complete Guide To Insufficiency (Plug Research)
So it took a fairly glowing Pitchfork review to a) remind me that I had a copy of this record, and b) that it had been curious enough at first listen to merit a revisit. Stretching five songs out over forty minutes, Insufficiency is not a casual listen – most of the record is just Broughton’s mournful voice and his creaking, grumpy acoustic guitar with bits of drum machine and looping pedal providing accents. The whole record was recorded in one take in an English church, and remarkably, that’s exactly the vibe that the album recreates, except I was thinking it sounded not so much like the church as the mausoleum. Broughton’s voice recall’s Antony (of the Johnsons) in timbre and emotional rawness, but placed in a folk context rather than cabaret, sounds completely different. But they’re similar in another way – I didn’t think I’d ever listen to the Antony & The Johnson’s album nearly as much as I have, and the same may well be said about The Complete Guide To Insufficiency. |
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Lying In States / Wildfire On The Lake (Flameshovel)
And at the other end of the stylistic spectrum is Chicago’s Lying In States. They’re an unabashed rock act, all in-your-face alt.rock aggression and modern punk energy, and quite frankly annoyed me the first time I put it in the CD player – it was like modern rock radio had somehow managed to infiltrate my insular little musical world. Thankfully, over the course of the record the angry young man-ness is mitigated somewhat by some more dynamic numbers and even some nice boy-girl harmonies. Because, y’see, they may be angsty but they’re also sensitive. File under: whatever. MP3: Lying In States – “Turn” |
np – Devandra Banhart / Cripple Crow
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1/24/06 12:25 pm
I really like the Lying in States album. A nice surprise since I tend not to care too much about most Flameshovel releases.