Absolutely natural...and absolutely strange

My review of the really quite good Rickolus album from late last year runs today at Blurt. It reminded me quite a lot of Neutral Milk Hotel, but I didn't mind at all...as you can see from the first two paragraphs:

Rickolus, otherwise known as Richard Colado, has a way of filling out fragile folk melodies with bittersweet bravado, so that verses murmur and harmonica-and-accordion-stuffed choruses soar. His “9th Street to San Pablo” expands from a plaintive acoustic guitar song, into a marching band’s bluster, then flowers into vocal profusion at its extremity, sounding very much like Neutral Milk Hotel’s “King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. 1”

Indeed the shadow of Jeff Magnum hangs over Troubadour: Roads, in the jaunty surreality of its lyrics, as well as the major-to-minor-shaded melodies. There is even a burst into lo-fi rock exuberance a la “Holland, 1945” late in the album with “We Paint the Rocks Gold.” Both NMH and Rickolus have the trick of sounding absolutely natural — and also absolutely strange — at the same moment.

You can read the whole thing here.

Elephant 6 is everywhere

The late, great, sprawling psych movement known as Elephant Six may have made its biggest splash in the mid-1990s, but its imprint is everywhere lately...in the day-glo garage scene of the Bay Area (see Sonny Smith's great new comp I Need You, which I am not supposed to talk about until after Thanksgiving), in the still unwinding, long-awaited tour of Neutral Milk Hotel, in the surviving, still working bands like Elf Power and in one other called Rickolus, whose Troubadour: Roads is giving me a serious, very welcome whiff of In an Aeroplane Over the Sea. Let's take them one at a time.

Polyvinyl has very particularly asked reviewers not to cover I Need You Bad for a couple of weeks, but it's pretty great...with tracks from Sonny himself, Magic Trick (that's Tim Cohen from Fresh & Onlys), and Warm Soda (who had a really wonderful, way-under-appreciated LP out on Castleface last spring, and, god knows I tried, but no one would let me cover it). The very best track, to my ears, is "Dreams" by Jessica Pratt, which is not available (yet?) on soundcloud or youtube, but here she is singing "Hollywood" from her debut album, which will maybe give you an idea.



And, oh, Neutral Milk Hotel, for a decade, Jeff Magnum wouldn't tour, now you can't stop him with a stick. Here are dates through February 2014:

November 12, 2013

w/ M. Ward, and Superchunk
The Tivoli
Brisbane, Australia
tickets >
November 14, 2013

w/ M. Ward, and Superchunk
Enmore Theatre
Sydney, Australia
tickets >
November 15, 2013

w/ Superchunk, and M. Ward
The Forum
Melbourne, Australia
November 16, 2013

w/ Superchunk, and M. Ward
The Forum
Melbourne, Australia
tickets >
November 20, 2013

Dunedin, New Zealand
Sammy's
On Sale at Cosmic
tickets >
November 22, 2013

Wellington, New Zealand
James Cabaret
On Sale at RPM and Slowboat
tickets >
November 23, 2013

Auckland, New Zealand
The Kings Arms Tavern
On Sale at Real Groovy
tickets >
November 24, 2013

Auckland, New Zealand
The Kings Arms Tavern
On Sale at Real Groovy
tickets >
NOVEMBER 28, 2013

Taipei, Taiwan
Legacy
tickets >
NOVEMBER 30, 2013

Tokyo, Japan
Hostess Club Weekender
Yebisu Garden Hall
tickets >
January 13, 2014

Ithaca, NY
The State Theatre
On Sale October 25
January 14, 2014

Jersey City, NJ
Loew's Theatre
tickets >
JANUARY 16, 2014

Orpheum Theatre
Boston, MA
tickets >
JANUARY 17, 2014

Orpheum Theatre
Boston, MA
tickets >
JANUARY 18, 2014

Olympia de Montreal
Montreal, QC
tickets >
JANUARY 19, 2014

Kool Haus
Toronto, ON
tickets >
JANUARY 20, 2014

Kool Haus
Toronto, ON
tickets >
JANUARY 22, 2014

The Capitol Theatre
Port Chester, NY
tickets >
January 23, 2014

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
Brooklyn, NY
tickets >
JANUARY 24, 2014

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
Brooklyn, NY
tickets >
JANUARY 25, 2014

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
Brooklyn, NY
tickets >
JANUARY 27, 2014

Webster Hall
New York, NY
tickets >
JANUARY 28, 2014

Webster Hall
New York, NY
tickets >
JANUARY 29, 2014

Tower Theatre
Upper Darby, PA
tickets >
JANUARY 30, 2014

Union Transfer
Philadelphia, PA
JANUARY 31, 2014

DAR Constitution Hall
Washington, DC
tickets >
FEBRUARY 1, 2014

Cat's Cradle
Carrboro, NC

FEBRUARY 2, 2014

Cat's Cradle
Carrboro, NC
FEBRUARY 4, 2014

Ryman Auditorium
Nashville, TN
tickets >
FEBRUARY 5, 2014

The Pageant
St. Louis, MO
tickets >
FEBRUARY 6, 2014

The Riviera Theatre
Chicago, IL
tickets >
FEBRUARY 7, 2014

The Riviera Theatre
Chicago, IL
tickets >
FEBRUARY 8, 2014

Orpheum Theater
Madison, WI
tickets >
FEBRUARY 10, 2014

First Avenue
Minneapolis, MN
tickets >
FEBRUARY 11, 2014

First Avenue
Minneapolis, MN
tickets >
FEBRUARY 13, 2014

Uptown Theatre
Kansas City, MO
tickets >
FEBRUARY 14, 2014

Cain's Ballroom
Tulsa, OK
tickets >
FEBRUARY 15, 2014

Majestic Theatre
Dallas, TX
tickets >
FEBRUARY 17, 2014

ACL Live at the Moody Theater
Austin, TX
tickets >
FEBRUARY 18, 2014

ACL Live at the Moody Theater
Austin, TX
tickets >
FEBRUARY 19, 2014

Warehouse Live
Houston, TX
tickets >
FEBRUARY 20, 2014

Elf Power started just about the same time as Neutral Milk Hotel and Olivia Tremor Control. The main differnce is that they're still going. I reviewed their latest Sunlight on the Moon a couple of days ago at Blurt. I said:

Sunlight on the Moon is Elf Power’s 12th full-length, and while it still sounds exuberantly, defiantly amateur (in the best, “for the love of it” sense), the band has clearly gotten better at what it does. These fuzz-toned, delicately arranged melodies curve in a gratifying ways around bizarrely evocative imagery. They are well-constructed, tightly knit songs that fizz with eccentricity and bubble with subconscious impulses. “Even in the dreamworld, you will not comply with my commands,” sings Andrew Rieger on the mesmeric “Strange Designs”, and you do get a sense of dreams that permeate the music, infiltrate it, co-opt it, and refuse to cede to the real world.

And finally, for those who really long for MORE Neutral Milk Hotel, or at least something that sounds like it. time to check out Rickolus. The album's called Troubador: Roads...and I like it a lot.

Happy new year

I was really sick all day yesterday, hardly got out of bed until about 3 p.m. and we ended up watching a whole bunch of Friday Night Lights episodes instead of going out. Feeling a lot better today and even a tiny bit hopeful about the new year...I'm sure that'll get pummeled out of me by the end of the week latest, but it's nice now. Things to feel good about.

I'm working again, not exactly to the wall but more than half capacity, for the first time in ages.

Sean got a really good part in My Fair Lady. He's going to play Alfred Doolittle, clearly the best male part after Higgins, with two great songs ("A Little Bit of Luck" and "Get Me to the Church on Time.")

There's a ton of good music coming out early in 2011...very excited about Mogwai, Akron/Family, Sidi Toure, Bardo Pond and Skull Defekts.

I have a bunch of interesting books in the "to read" pile...especially psyched about biographies of Keith Richards and Cleopatra.

The sun is shining.

and one of my very favorite records came up on album shuffle this morning.

Here's a bit of it: