Sunday, December 28th, 2008
Portishead, The Last Shadow Puppets, Chairlift
I’m going to close out 2008’s Sunday Cleaning series with quick reviews of three albums that have already received dollops of ink pretty much everywhere else. But I feel like writing about them, just a bit.
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Portishead / Third (Island)
I believe that there is a crucial decibel level at which the first Portishead record in eleven years moves from subtle, inscrutable and sinister to all-out terrifying. For most of this year, whenever I put Third on, I apparently kept the volume knob in the former range and as such, didn’t get much out of it rather than a general sense of unease and the impression that they’d managed somehow to become even more downcast and averse to music conventions in their decade away. But after putting it on loud, as I did for the first time a couple weeks ago, “subtle” is pretty much the last word I would ever use to describe it. It’s like an aural death grip, skeletal, insistent and unrelenting, Beth Gibbons whispering seductive nightmares in your ears – terrible but still beautiful. It took me a while, but I get it now.
Video: Portishead – “The Rip”
Video: Portishead – “Machine Gun”
Video: Portishead – “Magic Doors”
MySpace: Portishead |
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The Last Shadow Puppets / The Age Of The Understatement (Domino)
Being no particular fan of the Arctic Monkeys and not knowing who The Rascals are, the default sales pitch for The Last Shadow Puppets wouldn’t have worked too well on me. But even without the backstory, the absurdly lush retrorchestral (my word!) pop they delivered would have gotten my attention. At first, I was a bit suspicious that the opulence of the dressings were meant to distract from the lightweightness of the songwriting – it sounded great but perhaps there wasn’t any substance there. But with time and repeated listens – it kept drawing me back – I found that that was either simply not the case, or I just didn’t care anymore.
Video: The Last Shadow Puppets – “The Age Of The Understatement”
Video: The Last Shadow Puppets – “My Mistakes Were Made For You”
Video: The Last Shadow Puppets – “Standing Next To Me”
MySpace: The Last Shadow Puppets |
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Chairlift / Does You Inspire You (Kanine)
The debut album from the latest iPod commercial lottery winner is sleek and slinky, though probably too playful and innocent to qualify as seductive. Built mainly on a blueprint of hazy, ’80s-drenched synth-pop, it occasionally forays into country or soul terrain but is kept centered by the remarkable vocals of Caroline Polachek, which are never sound out of place no matter what musical accouterments surround them. Inspire is consistently listenable throughout, but the high points – the Nano-shilling “Bruises” and the additively nonsensical “Evident Utensil” – do stand considerably above the rest.
Clash has a feature on Chairlift.
MP3: Chairlift – “Evident Utensil”
Video: Chairlift – “Planet Health”
MySpace: Chairlift |
Saturday, December 27th, 2008
Frank Yang2009 is almost upon us, and Ottawa’s Amos The Transparent has big plans. In a MySpace blog post, they promise “new tracks, and new ep, new blogs, new webisodes, a new myspace page”, but first they’ll be a-rolling down the 401 for a show in Toronto.
They’ll be kicking off the 2009 series of Two-Way Monologues in style, ably supported by Whale Tooth and Bellewoods, and I’ve got a super-deluxe prize pack to give away for the show, consisting of a pair of passes and a CD from each act. It’s like Christmas has come, um, late.
To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to see (through) Amos The Transparent” in the subject line and your full name in the body. Contest will close at midnight, December 30 and even if you don’t win, come out for what’s likely to be your best post-New Year’s hangover option. Cover is $7 at the door. And in the meantime, grok the show poster and enjoy a Christmas carol from the band. Again, no longer timely but that’s my fault, not theirs.
MP3: Amos The Transparent – “Title Track”
MP3: Amos The Transparent – “White Christmas”
MySpace: Amos The Transparent
Friday, December 26th, 2008
Wilco to release live concert DVD in Ashes Of American Flags
WilcoJust before everything shut down for the holidays, a dispatch arrived from Wilco HQ detailing some of the band’s plans for the new year. Some of it was already known, in particular that work has begun on album number seven and is targeted for a Spring release.
But they also let out a bit of new news, namely that they’ll be releasing their first official concert DVD in the new year. You may recall that the shows that went into the Kicking Television live set were supposed to be taped for a companion DVD but that was scratched because of dissatisfaction with the quality of things. Well they enlisted the talents of Brendan Canty and Christoph Green of Trixie Films, producers of the Burn To Shine video series and the Sunken Treasure Jeff Tweedy live DVD, to accompany them on their Winter 2008 tour and this time, the fruits of their labours have been deemed fit to release.
And so a DVD release entitled Ashes Of American Flags will hit stores sometime in February or March of next year. More details and previews coming in the new year, and it’s worth noting that the shows recorded for this set came immediately after the band’s five-night stand at the Riviera in Chicago where they explored every nook and cranny of the Wilco catalog – check out the set lists of a couple of the shows that will be part of the DVD, and get excited.
And Jeff’s son Spencer has a blog and, well, it’s more interesting than this one.
MP3: Wilco – “Ashes Of American Flags” (live on Austin City Limits)
Spin declares Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold as their “voice of the year”.
Wireless Bollinger interviews Death Cab For Cutie.
Sterogum is offering the first download from Malajube’s new album Labyrinthes, out February 10.
WOXY is offering a double-CD’s worth of free downloads comprising the best of their Lounge Act studio sessions, featuring acts such as Ra Ra Riot, The Kills, Okkervil River and Lightspeed Champion.
The Washington Post talks to Thao Nguyen, whom they declare one of their “best of 2008”.
Nickel Eye, aka Nikolai Fraiture, aka the bassist from The Strokes, brings his solo project to the El Mocambo on January 20. Low Vs Diamond accompany. Fraiture discusses the project with Billboard.
Dig For Fire has a video feature/interview with Florence Welch of Florence & The Machine.
Though The Long Blondes called it a day back in October, they still had a final farewell gift for their fans in the form of a Christmas song.
MP3: The Long Blondes – “Christmas Is Cancelled”
Frightened Rabbit contemplate various contemporary Christmas songs for The Guardian.
Wednesday, December 24th, 2008
A Christmas mix
I Can Has Cheezburger?One thing I don’t understand is how all the songs and celebrations about how great Winter is are all tied to Christmas, and as such are over and done with just FOUR DAYS into the season. Leaving those of us in the northern climes, at least, with another three months of utter meteorological desolation and no pop cultural respite. What, I ask you, is up with that?
Anyway.
I’m on holiday for the next week and a half as of this afternoon – my first “Christmas vacation” in many, many years. I’m quite excited. I have big plans. I’m cleaning the apartment. Exciting. And so I’ll leave you with a hodge-podge of Christmas tunes I’ve collected over the years… most of which I’ve posted in years past, but hey – it’s only once a year and I don’t really make a habit of actively seeking out Christmas songs anyway. To be honest, they kinda bug me. Bah, humbug.
Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate, happy statutory holiday to those of you who don’t.
MP3: Neil Halstead – “The Man In The Santa Suit”
MP3: Raveonettes – “Come On Santa”
MP3: Jenn Grant – “O Holy Night”
MP3: Richard Hawley – “Silent Night”
MP3: Cocteau Twins – “Winter Wonderland”
MP3: George & Antony – “Happy Christmas (War Is Over)”
MP3: Asobi Seksu – “Merry Christmas (I Don’t Wanna Fight)
MP3: Velocity Girl – “Merry X-Mas, I Love You”
MP3: Ivy – “Christmas Time Is Here”
Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008
Howling Bells and other anticipated 2009 releases
Ian WhentCruising back over some of my past late-December posts, I found this one from 2006 wherein I made an appendix to the year-end list and enumerated some of the records that I thought had been unjustly ignored. And interesting, three of the four are getting ready to take another shot at getting some attention in 2009.
First, we’ve got the release of Radio Wars, the long-awaited (by me, anyways) second album from Aussies now based in the UK, Howling Bells. Their 2006 self-titled debut wrapped radio-ready rock in a widescreen dream-pop sweater, topped it off with some judicious twang and delivered it in Juanita Stein’s gorgeous croon. This is a woman who could sing the ingredients off a cereal box and make it sound sexy.
Needless to say, I have high expectations for record number two, the first taste of which the band are offering in the form of lead single “Into The Chaos”. It’s a bit too compact to be the grandiose return statement that I’d have liked, but the the way the punchy verses set up the swoony and woozy chorus is delicious. It’s being released as a 7″ and also as a free MP3 which you can get by signing up to their mailing list. Which you obviously should do.
The album was initially set for a February 9 release but that appears to have been pushed back to March 3, and even though they’re on a new label in Europe (Independiente versus Bell Union), there again appear to be no plans for a domestic North America release. Repeat talked to Juanita Stein back in September about a range of topics including their plans for album number two. And looking back at album number one for a moment, I had no idea they’d made so many videos from it.
Video: Howling Bells – “Low Happening”
Video: Howling Bells – “Setting Sun”
Video: Howling Bells – “Broken Bones”
Video: Howling Bells – “Blessed Night”
Video: Howling Bells – “Wishing Stone”
MySpace: Howling Bells
After a year marked mainly by solo projects, Trespassers William have regrouped and are planning to release album number four sometime in 2009. Details on the full-length are yet to emerge, but an EP entitled The Natural Order Of Things is due out in “late Winter”. They’re currently streaming a track off of it, “Sparrow”, on their MySpace and it manages to sound exactly like and unlike Trespassers William at the same time, which is really just what you want.
Far less promising in terms of concrete release details are The Radio Dept, who went from a hard release date of September 10 for album number three, Clinging To A Scheme, to a broad and vague target of sometime in 2009. Though I suppose I should be thankful we were at least able to get a single out of them this year.
MP3: The Radio Dept – “Freddie & The Trojan Horse”
There’s also a firm-ish release date for The Golden Spike, the debut from Leeds’ Sky Larkin – February 2. They’ve got a video full of shopping cart hijinks for their latest single, which Q made their track of the day and was released in the form of a wristwatch. Sort of. Not really.
Video: Sky Larkin – “Beeline”
I knew her as frontperson for Australian electronic-pop outfit Decoder Ring, but Lenka Kripac has since been putting together a surname-less solo career as Lenka. It’s pleasant and peppy pop stuff, and her voice still sounds sublime, but it doesn’t make me tingly the way that the title track off the last Decoder Ring album did… and still does. Lenka is hitting the road this Winter and will be at the Drake Underground on February 2, tickets $10.50. Decoder Ring are planning a new album for 2009.
MP3: Decoder Ring – “Fractions”
Video: Decoder Ring – “Fractions”
Video: Lenka – “The Show”
Video: Lenka – “Trouble Is A Friend”
Daytrotter has a session and Clash an interview with Noah & The Whale. I find it interesting in all the recent sessions with the band I’ve heard, they seem to be recasting all their songs in a decidedly different sonic space than the recorded versions on Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down – less shiny, more hazy. Either they’re moving in a different direction or they were completely stoned on their last North American tour.
They Shoot Music sessions up with The Futureheads.
Frightened Rabbit visit NPR’s World Cafe.
Spinner’s Interface has a session with Neil Halstead.
You can understand why I’ve been expecting Magnet, long one of my favourite music magazines, to go the way of Harp and No Depression and fold. After all – they used to be a bi-monthly but then went quarterly and have only put out two issues this year. Not really signs of life. But there’ll be at least one more issue – their Nick Cave-adorned 15th anniversary issue is out now, and more excitingly, they’ve updated their website to 21st century standards. Not only is it actually navigable, but they’re finally making content from the magazine available online (including RSS – paying attention, Blurt?). Of course, a cynic might suggest that they’re just preparing the groundwork to abandon the physical media realm, but for now I’m happy to not only have another website to poke around and waste time at, but a nice glossy magazine to accompany me on the subway. Okay Under The Radar, now it’s your turn to get your shit together.
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