Tyvek

Another winner from the Detroit band with the funny name…My review, up at Blurt today, goes like this:

“Cranked, cracked, bashed and frantic, Tyvek's second full-length pogos on a tightrope. There's an abyss dropping away on either side, an endless bottom one missed mortgage payment or judicial crack-up away. And yet a sense of manic joy permeates, too. "Potato" swings hard on a one-two pendulum, rushed as a late commuter, yet has time, lyrically, for a recipe for hash browns and a bout of make-up sex. "Animals" is as straight up as a hard-core song can be, its toughness undermined only slightly by the kitty mews near its final blow-up. Tyvek reminds you that the great punk bands had a sense of humor, or at least of absurdity, and that rage by itself gets boring.”

There’s more


“Underwater To”

“4312”

Video diary from my long run in the rain

Really dreary morning here, fog, cold, drizzly rain and of course, dark as midnight until about 7 a.m. I’ve been pretty disciplined lately about listening to stuff I need to listen to, but this morning I went a bit off the res and heard a bunch of albums that I’ve been done with for a while…here’s what came up random-style.

Thin Lizzy “Jailbreak”
I reviewed Still Dangerous, a recently discovered live recording of a late-1970s show in Philadelphia, earlier this year, and honestly, is there any better way to wake up?



Scotland Yard Gospel Choir’s “Ellen’s Telling Me”
Totally loving I Bet You Say that to All the Boys, SYGC’s debut, which reminds me, in turns, of Belle and Sebastian, the Kinks and the Lemonheads…later stuff is much twangier but still pretty good. Hope these guys are doing better.


Tyvek, “Stand and Fight”
Tyvek’s self-titled was at #3 of my mid-year list and may have slipped to low teens by now, but it’s still the best punk (or post-punk, what exactly is the dividing line, anyone?) album from this year, not counting garage which is a close call between the Ohsees and the Reigning Sound.



Red Red Meat’s “Chain Chain Chain”
This is actually just about perfect for a rainy fall morning…and perfect anyway. Look how young Rutili is here. Sic transit rock and roll.

Tyvek…oh hell yeah.

Tyvek fished me out of a middlebrow, mainstream indie wasteland a couple of weeks ago, with their fuzzy, no-fi (they’re on Siltbreeze now) punk-ish pop. My review, up today at Dusted, tries (and probably fails) to convey exactly what’s so good about them…and I put “Hey Una” on my mix last week, so if you haven’t checked it out, what are you waiting for?

Maybe the review?

Tyvek
Tyvek
Siltbreeze

Around since the mid-aughts, Tyvek has been dropping scuzzed-out, drone-punk singles for the last couple of years. An EP, Fast Metabolism came out on What’s Your Rupture in 2007, but this self-titled full-length is clearly intended to be the band’s first cohesive long-form statement. Its tunes rattle along on fiercely minimalist beats (the drummer stands, and plays only one tom), alternating between shout-or-drawl refrains of Mark E. Smith-like disclarity, and an occasional bout of transcending melody. Back down to a three-piece – Kevin Boyer on guitar, Matt Z on drums and Larry on bass – the band is augmented on this record with Damon from Puffy Areolas, whose free-form guitar experiments give Tyvek’s clattery, nervy, boxed in sound the equivalent of an open window. Still, this is an anxious, fractured, highly intelligent sort of punk sound, guitar jangles pinging around inside claustrophobic beats, discordant phrases rising up out of the mix, then dropping back into it.

More


“Burning Bridges (Re-Edit)”

Oh, and this is crazy, I know, but I’ve been trying to listen to everything I’ve got on iTunes again and just got my playcount=0 list down below 500 (from about 8700), so I celebrated by putting a giant load of new music on…here’s what:

Iron & Wine, Around the Well
Ca-USE co-MOTION, Because Because Because
Hoots & Hellmouth, the Holy Open Secret
The Rural Alberta Advantage, Hometowns
Talbot Tagora, Lessons In The Woods Or A City
Ride, OX4: the Best of Ride
Sir Lord Raven, Please Throw Me Back in The Ocean
Tom Brousseau, Posthumous Success
Liechtenstein, Survival Strategies In A Modern World
Uuvvwwz. Uuvvwwz
Ruby Throat, The Ventriloquist

The Iron & Wine is really beautiful…more about the rest later.