I gave Imperial Teen a five for their last album, The Hair the TV the Baby and the Band, in a PopMatters review subtitled Just add water. That was five years ago, but now they're back with a record that I really, really like, Feel the Sound ....reviewed at Dusted today:
Imperial Teen
Feel the Sound
Merge
The last time that Imperial Teen broke a five-year hiatus, with The Hair the TV the Baby and the Band in 2007, it was a bit of a letdown. The old peppy exuberance was stretched thin, the subject matter apologetically drawn from midlife. It sounded like the four principals had gotten distracted by the trappings of maturity and were unable to commit fully to the bubblegum joys of power pop. Sure, there were some good songs, some catchy boy-girl harmonies, some cheeky, in-your-face lines, but the album never caught fire. The band kept reminding listeners of all that had changed over the half decade, never really honing in on what had stayed the same: their fixation with the music.
With Feel the Sound, they’ve left the distractions behind. This fifth full-length, as the album title suggests, is all about the sound. Digging deep into the most elaborate power pop traditions – ELO and the Beach Boys seem like prime reference points – Imperial Teen crafts a super-clean, super-sharp, inordinately complex collection of songs that, nonetheless, go down like cherry cola.
More
You can stream the whole thing at Spinner now.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Cheyenne Marie Mize
Not a total rave, but I did really like the first couple songs on Bonnie Prince Billy compadre Cheyenne Marie Mize's new EP, We Don't Need. The review runs today at Blurt.
Cheyenne Marie Mize
We Don't Need
(Yep Roc)
Cheyenne Marie Mize, out of Louisville, is nothing if not self-assured, taking up every inch of sonic space in her latest six-song EP, strutting and stomping and occasionally revealing heartbreaking vulnerability in a broad range of rock and Americana styles. A versatile singer, she navigates the spoke-sung, blues-y chants of stand-out "Wishing Well," the tremulous self-laceration of "Call Me Beautiful," the road-house diva-isms of "Going Under" and the indie rocking directness of "Keep It" without a miss. She even plays all the instruments - raucous washboard scrapes and cowbell rattles, plaintive guitars and enough piano rolls and slides to make a Western's saloon doors rattle.
More
"Wishing Well" is, hands down, the best cut on the EP.
Cheyenne Marie Mize
We Don't Need
(Yep Roc)
Cheyenne Marie Mize, out of Louisville, is nothing if not self-assured, taking up every inch of sonic space in her latest six-song EP, strutting and stomping and occasionally revealing heartbreaking vulnerability in a broad range of rock and Americana styles. A versatile singer, she navigates the spoke-sung, blues-y chants of stand-out "Wishing Well," the tremulous self-laceration of "Call Me Beautiful," the road-house diva-isms of "Going Under" and the indie rocking directness of "Keep It" without a miss. She even plays all the instruments - raucous washboard scrapes and cowbell rattles, plaintive guitars and enough piano rolls and slides to make a Western's saloon doors rattle.
More
"Wishing Well" is, hands down, the best cut on the EP.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Laura Gibson's La Grande
I got into Laura Gibson through her collaboration with Ethan Rose, but her straight folk pop stuff is pretty good, too. Reviewed today at BLurt.
Laura Gibson
La Grande
(Barsuk)
Laura Gibson has a voice that flutters and trembles, hopping octave-length intervals weightlessly like a bird jumping from a low branch to a higher one. There's cranked Victrola aura of old-time-i-ness around her vocals, sometimes accentuated with static, which makes her sound like an old radio transmission, crossing not just space but time. And, yet, though there's much of the past in these pretty, warmly arranged introspections, there's also a strong thread of determination. Gibson wants to know that she is the lion, not the lamb, the crow and not the swallow. As lovely, as delicate, as seemingly vulnerable to the slightest breeze as she is, Gibson has reservoirs of strength and clarity.
More
"La Grande"
Laura Gibson
La Grande
(Barsuk)
Laura Gibson has a voice that flutters and trembles, hopping octave-length intervals weightlessly like a bird jumping from a low branch to a higher one. There's cranked Victrola aura of old-time-i-ness around her vocals, sometimes accentuated with static, which makes her sound like an old radio transmission, crossing not just space but time. And, yet, though there's much of the past in these pretty, warmly arranged introspections, there's also a strong thread of determination. Gibson wants to know that she is the lion, not the lamb, the crow and not the swallow. As lovely, as delicate, as seemingly vulnerable to the slightest breeze as she is, Gibson has reservoirs of strength and clarity.
More
"La Grande"
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Zomes
I've got another review up at Dusted today, this one of Improvisations, the third album by Asa Osbourne's Zomes, in which he turns towards the long-form. It's out this week on Thrill Jockey.
Zomes
Improvisations
Thrill Jockey
For two full-length albums as Zomes, Asa Osbourne has constructed short, mesmeric meditations out of the most rudimentary materials, squawky keyboards mostly, reinforced by the steady thwack of drum machines and occasional bits of guitar. Over the first two albums, the self-titled debut in 2008 and last year’s Earth Grid, Osbourne kept his compositions concise and disciplined. No track on the debut lingered much past the three and a half minute mark. Earth Grid‘s compositions topped out at just over five minutes. And most, if not all, of these staticky, hypnotic cuts relied on beats to keep them moving.
With Improvisations, originally released as a cassette tape in 2010 by Imminent Frequencies, Osbourne has left movement behind. Three long tracks sprawl over the disc’s half-hour duration, all alike enough to blend into one another, none especially tethered to rhythm.
More
zomes - improvisations (album preview) by experimedia
I also reviewed the first Zomes album for Dusted.
Zomes
Improvisations
Thrill Jockey
For two full-length albums as Zomes, Asa Osbourne has constructed short, mesmeric meditations out of the most rudimentary materials, squawky keyboards mostly, reinforced by the steady thwack of drum machines and occasional bits of guitar. Over the first two albums, the self-titled debut in 2008 and last year’s Earth Grid, Osbourne kept his compositions concise and disciplined. No track on the debut lingered much past the three and a half minute mark. Earth Grid‘s compositions topped out at just over five minutes. And most, if not all, of these staticky, hypnotic cuts relied on beats to keep them moving.
With Improvisations, originally released as a cassette tape in 2010 by Imminent Frequencies, Osbourne has left movement behind. Three long tracks sprawl over the disc’s half-hour duration, all alike enough to blend into one another, none especially tethered to rhythm.
More
zomes - improvisations (album preview) by experimedia
I also reviewed the first Zomes album for Dusted.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Rhyton
Another year, another band from Dave Shuford of NNCK, D. Charles Speer and other projects...reviewed today at Dusted.
Rhyton
Rhyton
Thrill Jockey
The word “Rhyton” is Greek for an ancient drinking horn, as well as a homophone for the 1960s all-purpose acclamation “right on!” Rhyton, the band, reflects all these nuances. The band is a partnership between Dave Shuford of NNCK and D. Charles Speer, Jimy SeiTang of Psychic Ills and Spencer Herbst of Messages. It grew out of the ending of Dave Shuford’s Greek-influenced Arghiledes project, started among drinking buddies at a bar in Brooklyn, and borrowed liberally from the open-ended blues-droning, psychedelic experiments of the 1960s.
More
There's a video for Stone Colored" here".
Rhyton
Rhyton
Thrill Jockey
The word “Rhyton” is Greek for an ancient drinking horn, as well as a homophone for the 1960s all-purpose acclamation “right on!” Rhyton, the band, reflects all these nuances. The band is a partnership between Dave Shuford of NNCK and D. Charles Speer, Jimy SeiTang of Psychic Ills and Spencer Herbst of Messages. It grew out of the ending of Dave Shuford’s Greek-influenced Arghiledes project, started among drinking buddies at a bar in Brooklyn, and borrowed liberally from the open-ended blues-droning, psychedelic experiments of the 1960s.
More
There's a video for Stone Colored" here".
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Fujiya And Miyagi
I've been unexpectedly hooked on Ventriloquizzing, the sublimely unsettling electro-pop record from the U.K.'s Fujiya And Miyagi. It's definitely electronic, but reminds me more of the sleeker, more decadent end of Brit pop, Pulp for instance, and if you have to go to a dance comparison, Death in Vegas is possible. Anyway, it's utterly poised and sophisticated, with just the right amount of menace. "Ecstatic Dancer," which can be had after some hoop-jumping at Yep Roc, is not on the album, but it's the main single and also the video.
No idea what they'd be like live, but you could find out and tell me all about it:
1/21 - Mercury Lounge - NY, NY
1/22 - Great Scott - Allston, MA
1/23 - La Sala Rosa - Montreal, QC
1/24 - Wrong Bar - Toronto, ON
1/25 - Lincoln Hall - Chicago, IL
1/26 - Electric Owl - Vancouver, BC
1/27 - Neumos - Seattle, WA
1/28 - Mississippi Studios - Portland, WA
1/30 - The independent - San Francisco, CA
1/31 - Casbah - San Diego, CA
2/1 - Echo - Los Angeles, CA
No idea what they'd be like live, but you could find out and tell me all about it:
1/21 - Mercury Lounge - NY, NY
1/22 - Great Scott - Allston, MA
1/23 - La Sala Rosa - Montreal, QC
1/24 - Wrong Bar - Toronto, ON
1/25 - Lincoln Hall - Chicago, IL
1/26 - Electric Owl - Vancouver, BC
1/27 - Neumos - Seattle, WA
1/28 - Mississippi Studios - Portland, WA
1/30 - The independent - San Francisco, CA
1/31 - Casbah - San Diego, CA
2/1 - Echo - Los Angeles, CA
Friday, January 20, 2012
More from the floor: Or, the Whale
A very belated shout for the 2009 second release from Or, the Whale, a country-rock band named after the second, less famous half of a Melville title. The band, out of San Francisco, uses all the accoutrements of Americana -- twangy guitar, righteous straight-ahead drums, banjo, tightly harmonized gospel harmonies -- in a way that seems fresh and un-archival. In his review of Or, the Whale two years ago, PopMatters' Joshua Kloke noted that "Or, The Whale succeed where others in the country-rock genre have failed: they keep things very, very authentic."
"Rusty Gold" is, quite possibly, the best of a very strong group of songs, not least because it starts with the line "My dog died and he broke my heart," which, considering that I think about my dog every day, four years after he went, is something I can relate to. It's also pitched at that sharp but loose country level, which reminds me of Neil Young and Oakley Hall and the Band...all outfits that could put a little spine into their down-home and make it rock.
I've been updating Dusted all week, which is way more work than you'd think, especially on dial-up. Last night I thought I'd brought the whole site down, but it came up again about an hour later and now I'm done.
"Rusty Gold" is, quite possibly, the best of a very strong group of songs, not least because it starts with the line "My dog died and he broke my heart," which, considering that I think about my dog every day, four years after he went, is something I can relate to. It's also pitched at that sharp but loose country level, which reminds me of Neil Young and Oakley Hall and the Band...all outfits that could put a little spine into their down-home and make it rock.
I've been updating Dusted all week, which is way more work than you'd think, especially on dial-up. Last night I thought I'd brought the whole site down, but it came up again about an hour later and now I'm done.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
