Google’s first ever television ad aired yesterday during the 3rd quarter of the Super Bowl. I don’t know what it is, but something about it strikes a chord in me. I’d say they hit it out of the park.
February 6, 2010
Good Intentions Paving Company
Usually, a 7 minute long song doesn’t stay interesting when played over and over again. I mean, who has time to listen to a song of that length four times in a row? That’s nearly a half-hour of your time taken up by one song – you could have listened to an entire album in that amount of time. Well, apparently, on a Saturday morning, I have that amount of time and thus have become entranced by the latest preview of Joanna Newsom’s third LP Have One On Me, specifically the song “Good Intentions Paving Company” which was released this week.
Really getting a Janis, Joni, Carly vibe while listening to this, and I can’t stop playing it. Enjoy.
January 28, 2010
Album Review: Beach House – Teen Dream
8.9 out of 10
The second you press play on the fantastic new album from Beach House, it’s clear why they titled the work Teen Dream. From the warm opening guitar phrases of “Zebra” to the lingering last lines of “Take Care” which has lead singer Victoria Legrand’s voice trailing off into silence, gently making the promise to “take care of you,” the whole album feels like being wrapped in a cozy blanket of bliss. It’s practically a musical dream come true, and yet the duo’s overall sound is little changed from that displayed in previous efforts Beach House and Devotion. So what makes this release one of the best albums of the year (yes, I know it’s only January, but I’m sticking to this claim)?
Le bon Dieu est dans le detail, and there are many details to gush over throughout these 10 tracks that make the now familiar Beach House sound more impactful than ever. The chugging organ chords hit deeper. Alex Scally’s guitar work blossoms. Legrand’s voice soars to new heights. There is a renewed sense of energy in the imagery created while listening to these songs, even though the subject matter deals with some of the less pretty things in life, like breaking up with the one you love. But doesn’t the best art come from incredible pain?
Take “Norway.” The song gallops along at a breathtaking pace and the guitars shimmer while Legrand sings about a man who she describes as “a hunter for a lonely heart,” the line complimented by a woozy-sounding slide. It’s achingly beautiful. “Walk in the Park” is about as epic as Beach House has ever sounded, organ chords and guitar licks dripping with the sound of regret as Legrand laments “The face that you saw in the door/isn’t looking at you anymore.”
Although not nearly the catchiest or most intricate of songs on the album, “Real Love” is a standout purely for the sheer emotion coming through in Legrand’s vocals. Smoky and gorgeous, she bows her voice from deep, husky lows to silky highs over a simple piano melody that brings this high-flying dream back down to earth for 5 minutes.
Although the album loses some steam near the middle, when taken as a whole this is the most colorful, grand and enthralling album the duo has released. Not that they had to top much to begin with. It’s simply a delight, and we are lucky as listeners to be welcomed into the vision of Teen Dream.
Key Tracks:
Zebra
Norway
Walk in the Park
Used to Be
Real Love
January 26, 2010
ODDSAC
The trailer for Animal Collective’s movie, “Oddsac.”
Premiers at the Sundance Film Festival this evening.
Directed by Animal Collective and collaborator Danny Perez.
This is bound to be some wacky shit!
January 25, 2010
Album Review: Spoon – Transference
8.1 out of 10
A lot of bands rely on studio trickery and glossy production as a crutch, but not Spoon. What is great about Britt Daniel’s crew is when listening to albums like Gimme Fiction and Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, you know they spent countless hours laboring over the production; making sure every sound, echo, talkback and guitar fuzz was exactly in its right place without the overall feeling of the album sounding artificial or manufactured. The meticulous productions of Gimme Fiction and Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga were crafted with love.
Enter Transference. It’s ragged, worn, a little rough around the edges. Some songs sound finished to the same detail Spoon has paid attention to in previous efforts, where elsewhere some songs might make one think they purchased a CD of demos by mistake. Standout track “The Mystery Zone” ends abruptly without warning. In album opener “Before Destruction,” which, guess what, details the destruction of a relationship, Daniel sings “Everyone loves you for your black eye.” Transference is kind of like a black eye, a bruised Spoon album.
They wear the bruise well, too. While I miss some of the slickness most people associate with Spoon, this rough and tumble sound provides an earnest feeling and sense of importance to this collection of recordings. Lyrics that talk about losing love, challenging authority, figuring out your position in society all benefit from the new, almost experimental drive Spoon features on Transference. “Trouble Comes Running” sounds the most-unfinished, but it gives the song a fun, care-free air about it, letting the listener fully enjoy the 60s sounding guitars and crashing drums. The immediate sense of melancholy that floats from the piano chords on “Goodnight Laura” would not hit you in the gut the same way had they been fine tuned and combed through in the studio for hours. When Daniel starts singing, it almost sounds like he dragged the piano right into your room (or car, or wherever you may be listening) and is singing right at you.
All of the slickness is not gone, though. “Who Makes Your Money” is a gorgeous slow-burner that will have your head nodding as creeping and uneasy-sounding muted keys float around the track, Daniel’s voice bouncing from left channel to right. “Nobody Gets Me But You” is as tight sounding as anything the band has ever recorded, with an 80s sounding groove, hand claps and wound-up keys making for one intricately put together track that’s quite appropriate to rock out to – this was definitely thought about in the studio for some time. “Out Go the Lights” is simply beautiful.
And so, Transference is definitely not the Spoon album I was expecting, but after repeat listens, it’s still signature Spoon doing what they do best, and it’s still crafted with love. They just let their hair down a little. I could get used to this.
Key Tracks:
The Mystery Zone
Who Makes Your Money
Out Go the Lights
Nobody Gets Me But You
January 19, 2010
I Really Shouldn’t Be Surprised, but…
Comments on Beach House’s fantastic first single “Norway” from Teen Dream, which was featured as the free single of the week on iTunes.
Not too shocking considering the top songs on iTunes right now include “Today Was a Fairytale” by Taylor Swift and “Baby” by Justin Bieber, but still appalling.
January 18, 2010
Album Review: Owen Pallett – Heartland
9 out of 10
Take the dude who produced Panda Bear’s Person Pitch (Rusty Santos), the Czech National Orchestra and Owen Pallett, who has composed string arrangements for Arcade Fire, Grizzly Bear and Beirut and you get Heartland, the brilliant third LP from Owen Pallett and the first released under his actual name.
Formally performing and releasing music under the moniker Final Fantasy, Pallett deserves every right to feel comfortable stamping his name all over an album like Heartland. His background as a composer is evident in the lush orchestrations that combine the use of classical instruments mixed with electronic sounds akin to something Beach House would use as a backbeat.
“The songs themselves form a narrative concerning a farmer named Lewis and the fictional world of Spectrum,” Pallett said in a press release concerning his masterpiece. “The songs are one-sided dialogues with Lewis, a young, ultra-violent farmer, speaking to his creator.” This is evident in songs like “Lewis Takes Action” where the listener is introduced to the farmer with a very Sufjan Stevens-like parade anthem with plucked strings, triumphant horns, crashing symbols and tambourine. Another highlight, “Lewis Takes Off His Shirt” gallops forward as the character Lewis sings “As soon as I got on the horse, I forgot about the math / Forgot about the odds against an adolescent standing up to all of Owen’s wrath.” Yes, Pallett is referencing himself as Lewis’ God. He did after all create this musical world Lewis thrives in.
And what a creator Pallett is. It seems that lately a band will try to infuse some strings here, an oboe or horn there to make their music more serious, as if inserting classical instrumentation makes the work “legit” because it’s like, real Mozart stuff dude. Even the classically trained Ben Folds used this to somewhat more of a successful result when playing with the full Minnesota Orchestra and other Orchestras around the country this past year. Songs like “Smoke (strings)” did sound quite lovely with the new arrangement and extra oomph provided by the Orchestra, but that’s mostly what other artists use classical instruments for in their songs, just extra sound that, if left off of the record, wouldn’t really change the meaning or overall sound.
This is not the case with Pallett and Heartland. The narrative of the album, no matter how oddball, obscure and hidden it can be, revolves around the compositions. Every single note that Pallett wrote for the instruments in the Orchestra has its place. Never does the music feel pretentious. Admittedly this is some very dense material, but the work is only overwhelming in its beauty and the sheer success that Pallett has accomplished with this album in a mere 45 minutes. Words really can’t do this work of art justice, so, just listen, and repeat, and repeat, and repeat…
Key Tracks:
This album should really be devoured as a whole but…
Lewis Takes Action
Oh Heartland, Up Yours!
Lewis Takes Off His Shirt
E Is for Estranged
January 18, 2010
The Sleeping Red Wolves
Not exactly a new tune, but hidden at the very back of Sufjan Steven’s The BQE DVD is this gem of a song, “The Sleeping Red Wolves.” Thanks to label mate DM Stith for providing a link via Twitter to a clean MP3 of yet another beautiful creation from one of my favorite artists.
