Thursday, May 10th, 2012
Review of Beach House’s Bloom
Liz FlyntzIf we can regard Beach House literally as their namesake, which is to say as a holiday getaway, a reliably stolid place to escape from the real world, then the amount of adoration they’ve gotten for largely sticking to their skeletal formula through four albums now is understandable. Their fans don’t want them to reinvent themselves with each outing; they want that comforting blanket of Victoria Legrand’s narcoleptic vocals and whirring keyboard interwoven with Alex Scally’s languid slide guitar, and across their first two records – their 2006 self-titled debut and 2007’s Devotion – that’s almost exactly what they got, seasoned with some rudimentary percussion both electronic and organic.
The closest thing they’re ever likely to come to a revolution was with 2010’s Teen Dream, which managed to take a relatively huge leap forward with the production and songwriting, making interesting rhythms and pop hooks a front burner concern without compromising their core sound. A risk, perhaps, but one that paid off immensely in the form of their strongest and most critically and commercially successful work. So with that in mind, it’s not surprising that Bloom – out next Tuesday – opts to stay the course laid out by its predecessor. Surprises simply aren’t Beach House’s style.
Gorgeousness is, however. It took the aforementioned embrace of bigger sounds on Teen Dream to really make me appreciate Beach House – prior to that, I had to be in a very particular mood to listen to them for any period of time – and now they’re a band for all occasions. Having touring drummer Daniel Franz play on the whole of the record, a third member of the band even if he’s not formerly acknowledged as such, helps both ground and propel Bloom while Legrand and Scally do their thing in crafting the haunting textures and melodies that are the foundation of Beach House. And while we’re being literal about things, Bloom is an exceptionally appropriate name for this collection as there’s moments that simply burst outwards. To even suggest that the band be capable of this sort of dynamicism circa their debut would have seemed absurd, and yet just six years later, here we are – and without compromising their identity, no less.
It’s too early to say if Bloom is better than Teen Dream, but by the quantitative measure of how many times I’ve felt compelled to listen to it, it’s already well ahead. At worst, it’s as good as its predecessor and at best, its even better. In either case, it’s hard to imagine liking one and not the other and regardless of where you rank it relative to Beach House’s earlier output, despite really just being more of the same – or perhaps because of it – it’s excellent.
NPR has an advance stream of the new record and DIY, The Line Of Best Fit, The Orlando Sentinel, and Pitchfork have interviews with the band.
MP3: Beach House – “Myth”
Stream: Beach House / Bloom
Also streaming at NPR but two weeks ahead of release are The Only Place, the second album from Best Coast, and Passage, the debut from Exitmusic. Best Coast are at The Phoenix on July 21 and Exitmusic have a NXNE showcase at Wrongbar on June 14.
Stream: Best Coast / The Only Place
Stream: Exitmusic / Passage
S. Carey’s new EP Hoyas came out this week – stream it at Stereogum and read interviews with Sean Carey about the record at The Leader Telegram and Volume One.
MP3: S. Carey – “Two Angles”
Stream: S. Carey / Hoyas
In concert announcements, Joe Pernice will stretch his legs and take a mosey to The Dakota Tavern on June 22, maybe play some songs.
MP3: Pernice Brothers – “Somerville”
Having sold out Lee’s Palace their last time through, Youth Lagoon will be at The Opera House on July 12 with Father John Misty, who still has to get through Monday night’s show at the Horseshoe before he can make a return engagement. Tickets are $15.50 in advance.
MP3: Youth Lagoon – “July”
MP3: Father John Misty – “Nancy From Now On”
If part of Liars’ to-do list in preparation for the June 5 release of WIXIW was slate a North American tour, they can cross it off – they’ll be at Lee’s Palace on July 21, tickets $15. They can also check off releasing the first video from the new album.
MP3: Liars – “Scissor”
Video: Liars – “No. 1 Against The Rush”
Twin Shadow is also hitting the road in support of a new record – with Confess due out July 9, George Lewis Jr will be at Lee’s Palace on July 30 and 31, tickets $20.
MP3: Twin Shadow – “Five Seconds”
MP3: Twin Shadow – “Slow”
Merge has released a companion album to Crooked Fingers’ 2011 album Breaks In The Armor comprised of acoustic demos of the album. It’s out now and you can stream one of the tracks at Donewaiting.
Stream: Crooked Fingers – “Bad Blood” (acoustic)
Exclaim reports that some of The Mountain Goats’ early cassette releases from the early ’90s – The Hound Chronicles and Hot Garden Stomp, specifically – will be released on a single CD on June 26.
Fang Island have announced that their second album Major will be out on July 12; details at Spin.
Pop Etc have released a video from their self-titled debut, out June 12.
Video: Pop Etc – “Live It Up”
Explosions In The Sky have released a second video from last year’s Take Care, Take Care, Take Care.
Video: Explosions In The Sky – “Postcard From 1952”
America Give Up has yielded another video from Minneapolis’ Howler.
Video: Howler – “This One’s Different”
Rolling Stone has premiered a new video from Mates Of State, off of last year’s Mountaintops.
Video: Mates Of State – “Unless I’m Led”
The Magnetic Fields have released a second video from Love At The Bottom Of The Sea.
Video: The Magnetic Fields – “Quick!”
Interview talks to Molly Hamilton of Widowspeak, in town at The Garrison on June 15 for NXNE.
The Line Of Best Fit has a video session with Of Montreal, in town for NXNE on June 16 at Yonge-Dundas Square.
Artrocker and Drowned In Sound talk to A Place To Bury Strangers about their forthcoming album Worship, out June 26.
Red Eye and The Detroit Free Press talk to Andrew Bird, in town at Echo Beach on July 19.
Sharon Van Etten plays a video session for WBEZ; she’s at The Phoenix on July 31.
Pitchfork talks to Merrill Garbus and the director of the recent tUnE-yArDs video for “My Country”. She plays The Phoenix on August 1.
SF Weekly chats with John Vanderslice.
Reverb interviews Kurt Wagner of Lambchop.
NPR is streaming a KCRW radio session with M. Ward.
The Line Of Best Fit talks to Savoir Adore.
Ra Ra Riot talks to Spin about what they’ve got planned for album number three and to Grantland about their appreciation for hockey.
NPR has a WFUV session with Shearwater.
Spin gets a progress report on the next Dinosaur Jr album, due out later this Summer.
Greg Dulli takes The Skinny on a guided tour of The Afghan Whigs’ catalog.
Spin talks to Bob Mould about the 20th anniversary of Sugar’s Copper Blue and the single, “If I Can’t Change Your Mind” in particular. Slicing Up Eyeballs reports that two of Mould’s ’90s albums – Bob Mould and The Last Dog & Pony Show – will be getting released as a three-disc set in the UK on June 18 with the third disc consisting of a live 1998 show.
The Atlantic reflects on the significance of Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot on the occasion of its tenth anniversary.
The AV Club has posted the fourth part of their look at the history of R.E.M..
Wednesday, May 9th, 2012
M83 and I Break Horses at The Sound Academy in Toronto
Frank YangIf you’re thinking, “hey – didn’t you just see M83 a few months ago? Why are you going to see them again so soon?”, then a) you spend far too much time keeping track of my concert schedule, and b) you would have a valid point. Usually I would have happily given Sunday night’s show a pass, as much as I look for any excuse to go to the Sound Academy, particularly with the band already planning a third local show in nine months when they play the Hard Festival at Fort York in August, but in their efforts to make sure that they got as much chromewaves.net coverage as possible – because that’s obviously their endgame – they played a card I couldn’t resist: I Break Horses.
The Swedish duo of Maria Lindén and Fredrik Balck released my favourite album of 2011 in their debut Hearts, and there was no way I was going to miss what is almost sure to be a rare visit. But with that said, I don’t know if I necessarily expected a lot – after all, they were a studio project who only made their way to the stage for the first time late last year and their brand of introspective synth-gaze isn’t the sort of thing that translates easily to a compelling show, even for seasoned performers.
So I’m happy to report that they more than exceeded my expectations in the live setting. Expanded to a four-piece, they smartly augmented the electronics with live drums and guitar and though they still hid behind blinding backlighting and aggressive smoke machines, they were more assured than I expected, with Lidén a compelling silhouette of a frontwoman in the Victoria Legrand vein but with more fist pumps. The songs were noticeably adjusted in structure for bigger builds and crescendos – I’d love to get some live recordings of their shows – and while I selfishly hope they don’t get big enough to play rooms this size anytime soon, they established that but their sound could fill the space – their bedroom anthems worked marvelously at arena scale and while it’s true that if any crowd would be favourably inclined towards what they do it’d be M83’s, they still more than earned the roar of approval they received; the nearly-full house was clearly smitten. I don’t know if their plans include more touring over here after their duties supporting M83 are done, but from this show and reports from previous dates, they’ll have an enthusiastic fanbase waiting for them.
M83 are a band who’ve learned a thing or two about scale. The jump from a room the size of Lee’s Palace, where they were in November, to one the size of the Sound Academy is a pretty huge one but if any act should be able to handle expansion, it’s one named after a galaxy. But this is where the success of Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming has taken them – completely sold-out, 3000+ capacity rooms. And has the success changed them? It’s hard to say. While this show was very simliar to the one at Lee’s – the set list was almost identical in composition and structure – the scale of it disallowed lazily drawing parallels between them; they were fundamentally the same show but the experiences were wholly different. The backdrop was done up with lights so as to resemble a starfield and the much bigger space gave the band more room to act out their rock star fantasies. Anthony Gonzalez and Jordan Lawlor danced and lurched around the stage as they were wont to do and Morgan Kibby, though anchored to her keyboards, gave it her best as well. I think back to the first M83 gig in Toronto some seven years ago and how I thought Gonzalez’s onstage persona and moves seemed oversized to the show; now I realized that he was just waiting for everyone else to catch up.
I’ve actually just erased a few lines about the shift in the band’s demographic from vintage shoegazing aficionados to a younger, synth-pop demographic and how the show’s encore came across more like the start of the afterparty than the finale of the show because, well, I said pretty much the same things last time around and while I could try to find different words to express it, it’d be the same sentiment; just bigger. This doesn’t necessarily bode well editorially-speaking for their Fort York show on August 4, but the fact that there won’t be any roof or other such trifling human concerns to try and contain them and keep them from literally reaching for the stars means my writeup will probably just be the equivalent of frantically waving my arms in the air. Just watch.
Panic Manual also has a review of the show and The Toronto Star has an interview with Gonzalez. And DIY has a trailer for their next video for “Reunion” because apparently releasing trailers for videos is now what people do.
Photos: M83, I Break Horses @ The Sound Academy – May 6, 2012
MP3: M83 – “Midnight City”
MP3: M83 – “Claudia Lewis”
MP3: M83 – “Reunion”
MP3: I Break Horses – “Winter Beats”
MP3: I Break Horses – “Load Your Eyes”
MP3: I Break Horses – “Hearts”
Video: M83 – “Midnight City”
Video: M83 – “We Own The Sky”
Video: M83 – “Graveyard Girl”
Video: M83 – “Kim And Jessie”
Video: M83 – “Teen Angst”
Video: M83 – “Don’t Save Us From The Flames”
Video: M83 – “Run Into Flowers”
Video: M83 – “America”
Video: I Break Horses – “Winter Beats”
Video: I Break Horses – “Hearts”
Because Instinct is out in the UK as of now, NME is able to stream the whole of the debut album from Niki & The Dove; North Americans can consider it a three-month sneak preview before it’s released over here on August 7.
MP3: Niki & The Dove – “The Fox”
Stream: Niki & The Dove / Instinct
NPR has a World Cafe session with First Aid Kit. They play The Music Hall on September 26.
Gigwise talks to Jonsi of Sigur Rós about their new record Valtari, out May 29. They play Echo Beach on August 1.
Múm are cleaning out their cupboards a bit, targeting a July 17 release for Early Birds – a collection of unreleased material dating back their earliest days between 1998 and 2000. Exclaim has details on the release.
If your appetite for musical things Icelandic goes beyond the usual suspects, have a listen to this downloadable compilation of current artists who are not Bjork or Sigur Rós, and if you like that there are four more. Other Icelandic acts that are worth your time are also the focus of a half-hour doc that was released late last year, so you should watch that. And oh, Sigur Rós were just announced as headlining this year’s Iceland Airwaves, so obviously you should go to that. Yes, it’s all the way in Iceland; that’s rather the point.
Stream: various artists / Made In Iceland V
Video: Iceland: Beyond Sigur Rós
The Quietus talks to Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine about the just-released reissues and potential new album.
Maxïmo Park have released the first video from their forthcoming fourth album The National Health, out June 11.
Video: Maxïmo Park – “Hips & Lips”
Chart and Guitar World talk to the brothers Jarman of The Cribs, who’ve been contributing articles to Drowned In Sound all week about this, that, and the other thing.
Tuesday, May 8th, 2012
Spiritualized and Nikki Lane at The Phoenix in Toronto
Frank YangPeople will probably never stop referencing 1997’s Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space as the iconic Spiritualized album, and justifiably so. It was Jason Pierce’s grand breakup album with a soap opera-calibre backstory, it was the band’s marker in the Britpop era (though stylistically they never really fit), it raised the band’s profile immensely – I once heard “Cool Waves” coming over the PA at a Mongolian Grill restaurant – and was a gorgeous melange of psychedelia, gospel, jazz, and rock besides. It’s the sort of record that a band would be lucky to make once in their careers. And yet with each listen to their latest Sweet Heart Sweet Light, I feel the argument that this could well be the definitive Spiritualized record.
The talking points on Sweet Heart are that this is Pierce’s “pop” record, and indeed it’s as immediate and melodic as anything he’s ever done, but it hardly dilutes the Spiritualized formula for the sake of mass appeal. If anything, it’s as clear a picture of everything that Pierce has done since leaving Spaceman 3 in one hour’s running time – it rocks, it swoons, it jams, it drones, and it does it all with focus and purpose. While it certainly echoes everything that’s gone before, it’s also an exciting signpost to what’s yet to come – of all of his musical peers that came out of ’90s Britain, Pierce may yet be the most creatively vital among them, and that’s with certainly having had the most near-death experiences. All of which is to say that if the first Spiritualized show in Toronto in almost four years and the first plugged-in, headlining show since 2003 wasn’t enough reason to get excited about their appearance at The Phoenix last Saturday night, then the fact that hearing material their new record was to be highly anticipated rather than simply endured should have sealed the deal.
Support on the tour might have seemed an odd choice in Nashville-based, South Carolina-bred Nikki Lane though there were some stylistic threads between her dusty country sound and Spiritualized’s cosmic rock if you dug down to their shared gospel roots, but the fact was that she had been invited by the band to support so questions of appropriateness were really rather moot. And armed just with an acoustic guitar and a sweet, breathy twang of a voice and despite implying that she didn’t usually play band-less, she did just fine – having been gifted with a rowdy yet friendly crowd, she was able to get comfortable and sass back and needed. Having forgetten her set list, she ad libbed a set drawn from her debut album Walk Of Shame, the off-the-cuff-ness of it adding to her charm. Spiritualized followers might not make up her normal demographic, but it was pretty safe to say that she was winning over fans on every stop of the tour.
It’s hard to believe, but excepting their afternoon set at Virgin Festival 2008 and the “Acoustic Mainlines” tour in Fall 2007, the last time Toronto hosted a full and proper Spiritualized show was at the Opera House back in late 2003. That’s a long time, people. And yet thanks to their distinctive semi-circle stage setup with Jason Pierce positioned at far house right, it all felt immediately familiar – doubly so since the core of the lineup had remained intact since their V Fest appearance circa Songs In A+E (the two backing singers were new faces).
Their epic set – and that’s not an adjective I use lightly – pulled from all points in their discography but were still very specific about which records were represented. Sweet Heart was naturally prominently featured, but 2003’s Amazing Grace was also given a lot of attention – surprising because it wasn’t a record that was particularly well-received but perhaps not so surprising since its no-frills aesthetic matches Sweet Heart fairly well. And being forced to reevaluate the material, I must admit that it sounded great in this context – the guitar duel between Pierce and Doggen on “She Kissed Me”, in particular, was jaw-dropping.
While Sweet Heart is not short on the extra-long compositions – opener “Hey Jane” and second-last main set selection “So Long You Pretty Thing” did as much to affirm the new material as as good as the old – you couldn’t not feel a certain rush when the ascending riff to “Electric Mainline” from Pure Phase and a crackle of electricity up the spine when it the ensuing jam coalesced into the title track of Ladies & Gentleemen. It was curious to see Lazer Guided Melodies, Let It Come Down, and Songs In A+E get overlooked completely, but there really was no arguing with the resultant show.
Pierce didn’t say a word to the audience – or even the rest of his band – through the entire show until the final notes of “Come Together” faded out to close the main set, and then it was just a couple of quiet, “thank you’s” before leaving the stage. Following a serenely cacophonous “Cop Shoot Cop” for the encore, he said “thank you” twice more and was gone. Some might have wished that he’d interacted with the audience more, but he and his band had just given everything for two hours – what more was there to say?
NOW also has a review of the show and The National Post, The Music, and Toronto Star talked to Jason Pierce.
Photos: Spiritualized, Nikki Lane @ The Phoenix – May 5, 2012
MP3: Nikki Lane – “Gone, Gone, Gone”
MP3: Nikki Lane – “Sleep For You”
Video: Spiritualized – “Hey Jane”
Video: Spiritualized – “Soul On Fire”
Video: Spiritualized – “Cheapster”
Video: Spiritualized – “You Lie You Cheat”
Video: Spiritualized – “She Kissed Me (It Felt Like A Hit)”
Video: Spiritualized – “Do It All Over Again”
Video: Spiritualized – “Out Of Sight”
Video: Spiritualized – “Stop Your Crying”
Video: Spiritualized – “Come Together”
Video: Spiritualized – “Electricity”
Video: Spiritualized – “Let It Flow”
Video: Spiritualized – “Run”
Video: Spiritualized – “Any Way That You Want Me”
Video: Nikki Lane – “Lies”
Video: Nikki Lane – “Gone, Gone, Gone”
Video: Nikki Lane – “Sleep For You”
Richard Hawley talks to The Sheffield Telegraph about getting angry and politicized on his new record, Standing At The Sky’s Edge.
The Line Of Best Fit is streaming the whole of In The Belly Of The Brazen Bull, the new album from The Cribs. It’s out this week.
MP3: The Cribs – “Chi-Town”
Stream: The Cribs / In The Belly Of The Brazen Bull
The Guardian checks in with former Supergrass frontman Gaz Coombes about going solo. His debut Here Come The Bombs is out May 21.
Paste catches up with 2:54. Their self-titled debut is out May 28 and they play Lee’s Palace for NXNE on June 15.
The Guardian talks to Faris Badwan of The Horrors.
The Fly has a chat with Clock Opera frontman Guy Connelly.
Damon Albarn sounds of to the BBC about his solo projects and the London Olympics.
Spin checks in on The Joy Formidable, who are in the studio working on their second album.
The Line Of Best Fit marks the release of the My Bloody Valentine reissues with an intensive look at the band’s history.
Monday, May 7th, 2012
Rose Cousins at The Rivoli in Toronto
Frank YangIt’s basically a given that the songwriters who pen the saddest songs also have the wickedest senses of humour, right? I have no quantitative proof to support this – only anecdotal – but if I were to start assembling some scientific proofs in support of this hypothesis, I’d certainly include Rose Cousins’ show at The Rivoli on Thursday night in the lab report. It was a record release show for her third album We Have Made A Spark – the gorgeousness of which was saluted hereabouts last month – and while three months after it came out seems a little late for a record release show, she has been touring the record all over since it came out and has presumably been making each show an occasion. This one certainly was.
And not just because they put out chairs, dispensed with an opener, and scheduled an early start time, though those were certainly signs that it wasn’t going to be a typical show. As was Cousins opening up the show solo with a cover – Blue Rodeo’s “Five Days In May” – which would be one of two songs by others she’d perform that night (Ana Egge’s “Shadow Fall” being the other). The rest of the show, however, was dedicated to showcasing Spark in all its rich emotional nuances with Cousins moving from guitar to piano and being accompanied by two of the musicians who played on the album, Austin Nevins on electric guitar and Zachariah Hickman on upright bass. She was also joined through the night by special guests Suzie Ungerleider aka Oh Susanna, Ruth Moody of The Wailin’ Jennys and Robyn Dell’Unto who augmented Cousins’ own gorgeous vocals with some astonishing harmonies.
Between the songs, however, it was all charm and humour with Cousins proving herself quite the crack up with anecdotes, impressions and audience banter, the crowning glory of which was a hilariously detailed description of her ideal soundtrack placement for the song, “Go First” – specifically, the season finale of a surgical drama that included but wasn’t limited to a newborn child getting an arm transplant from a gorilla. It really is a shame that a video already exists for the song because her treatment had “viral” written all over it. It was moments of levity like this that helped provide the right amount of lightness to balance out the emotional weight and dark tones of the songs, though as Cousins pointed out the album isn’t all downcast – it acknowledges and arcs towards the silver linings of matters. No jokes were needed to end the show on a high note, however, as it was all hands on deck for a rowdy cover of Adele’s “Rumour Has It”. Not even the ginormous thunderstorm that awaited outside the Rivoli could dampen the spirits of those leaving the show after that finale; our clothes, yes.
NOW had an interview with Cousins in advance of the show.
Photos: Rose Cousins @ The Rivoli – May 3, 2012
MP3: Rose Cousins – “The Darkness”
Video: Rose Cousins – “Go First”
Bry Webb and Del Bel will team up for a Wavelength show at 918 Bathurst on June 1 to mark the release of a collaborative single which you can hear below. Single aside, both have excellent albums to draw from – Webb with Provider and Del Bel with Oneiric – and both have already put on impressive shows this year in support of them – Del Bel in January and Webb in February. All of which is to say you can’t go wrong here. Tickets are $12 in advance.
MP3: Bry Webb – “Rivers Of Gold”
MP3: Del Bel featuring Bry Webb – “No Cure For Loneliness”
Le Blogotheque has a video session from and Spin a conversation about hats with Patrick Watson; he plays the Music Hall on May 29.
Uptown and Beatroute have features on Great Lake Swimmers, back in town playing a show at the Music Hall on June 2. They’ve also just been announced as support for Blue Rodeo’s annual Molson Amphitheatre show on August 18.
Rolling Stone gets to know Japandroids, whose new record Celebration Rock is out May 29 and who play Lee’s Palace on June 23.
The Line Of Best Fit chats with Hooded Fang, whose next local show is their NXNE showcase on June 15 at The Silver Dollar.
Dan Mangan has released a new video for the opening track of his latest, Oh Fortune. He plays a free show at Pecault Square on the afternoon of June 16.
Video: Dan Mangan – “About As Helpful As You Can Be Without Being Any Help At All”
Long rumoured but now fact, Leonard Cohen will take his new record Old Ideas on the road and play the Air Canada Centre on December 4. Full dates at Pitchfork.
Video: Leonard Cohen – “Show Me The Place”
Braids talk to Spin about the direction of their sophomore record.
Sunday, May 6th, 2012
Richard Hawley covers The Jesus & Mary Chain
Frank YangI’d actually decided on this song for this week’s selection a while ago – the fact that Richard Hawley’s new album Standing At The Sky’s Edge was coming out in the UK this week was more than enough excuse to dig out this track.
It dates back to 2006 when it appeared both as a b-side to the 7″ of “Hotel Room” taken from Cole’s Corner and as part of Q‘s Covered: Best of 86/06 CD compilation, which got artists doing stuff that year to reinterpret artists who were doing stuff two decades earlier and in this case, it meant The Jesus & Mary Chain – Hawley tackled the title track of the Some Candy Talking EP which came out in the Summer of 1986, not long after their 1985 debut Psychocandy.
The point being that it was on deck before the JAMC announced their first Toronto show in some fifteen years last week, making a date to play The Phoenix on August 3. But hey, double context – I’ll take it.
MP3: Richard Hawley – “Some Candy Talking”
Video: The Jesus & Mary Chain – “Some Candy Talking”
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