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Marissa Paternoster, the lead singer/guitarist (and only female) of the Screaming Females, is a wee thing but you'd never know it from the unholy racket she wrenches from her throat and guitar. Screaming Females tow the line between Sleater-Kinney's brash punk and Black Sabbath's cavernous stomp. If Corin Tucker and Tony Iommi somehow had a lovechild, it would most definitely be Ms. Paternoster. "Bell" takes only seconds to ingratiate itself with its meaty, incessant hook. It could almost pass for a killer pop song if it weren't for the thunderous breakdown and quicksilver guitar solo. I have no doubt that Screaming Females will be able to hold their own when they open for both Dinosaur Jr. and The Dead Weather this summer.
Perhaps due partially to my current life situation, I have been listening to "Hellhole Ratrace" pretty much obsessively all weekend. It possesses that magical element that makes it feel instantly timeless - like it was written decades ago and you already know it by heart. Hell, it's probably a clever reprise of some eternally beloved song that I can't place, but who gives a fuck? What matters is that Girls (Christopher Owens and Chet “JR” White, by the way) have tapped into the twilit, hypnotic beauty of The Velvet Underground and J. Spaceman's astral hymns to create an undeniable classic. Not to mention, lyrics don't get much more poignant and universal than these:
I'm sick and tired of the way that I feel, I'm always dreaming and its never for real. I'm all alone with my deep thoughts. I'm all alone with my heartache and my good intentions.
I work to eat and drink and sleep just to live, Feels like I'm never getting back what I give. I've got a sad song in my sweet heart. And all I really am is needing some love and attention.
"Hellhole Ratrace" clocks in at 7 minutes, but I swear to god you'll wish it went on for another seven. It doesn't seem to have discernible verses and choruses - it simply unfolds in the manner it seems fit. Around the song's halfway point, the guitar switches from gentle echo to a low-register wave of white noise and the sleigh bells kick in a little harder. The transition effectively takes the song from being purely melancholic to pretty damn life-affirming. Again, Mr. Owens' lyrics knock the whole thing home:
And I don't want to cry my whole life through. I want to do some laughing too. So come on, come on, come on, come on, laugh with me. And I don't want to die without shaking up a thing or two. Yeah, I want to do some dancing too. So come on, come on, come on, come on, dance with me.
I don't know much about these mysterious Swedes beyond the fact that they are label mates of Air France and The Tough Alliance, but they just released my new favorite summer album. To put it in overly simplistic terms, jj makes African-influenced dream-pop. The group's singer (whose name I cannot find) is blessed with a silky, sensual voice much like Beach House's Victoria Legrand or Hope Sandoval. I've had their debut LP, No. 2, on repeat all week, but the lead single "From Africa To Málaga" has sunk its claws in the deepest. It's so exceedingly breezy/woozy that you can practically feel sunbeams. Even more impressive is the fact that jj achieves this effect without ever becoming saccharine. Of course, the deceptively dark lyrics help: "It's too easy to cry when everything eventually dies." (Big thanks to GvsB for the recommendation.)
This Danish chamber-rock ensemble is the brainchild of Jannis Noya Makrigiannis. He possesses a voice not unlike Jim James - a plains-sweeping falsetto laden in cavernous echo (although, I don't think COYB records in a barn silo too). As you probably guessed from the word "choir" being in the band's name, COYB's music does contain many voices, but Jannis is always at the eye of the storm - somehow sounding utterly alone despite the 8 person band brewing around him. I must clarify that if COYB evokes My Morning Jacket in any way (outside of the vocals), it's the melancholic, reverb-soaked MMJ of At Dawn. The other band that I can't help mentioning in regards to COYB is The Besnard Lakes. Both the Besnard Lakes and COYB have an endearing propensity for projecting Roy Orbison tragedies through a space-rock filter. "Action/Reaction," the lead single from the band's debut, could be described as symphonic trip-hop - like a fusion of the tundra-trotting beat 'n' strings of Björk's "Jóga" and the polyphonic majesty of The Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations."
One of my favorite songs of the year just became one of my favorite music videos of the year. Is it just me or does watching David Longstreth walk his llama through the forest make anyone else think of Atreyu and his trusty steed, Artax, from The Neverending Story? Maybe I just watched that movie too much as a kid. Speaking of watching certain movies too much, I'm also getting a serious LOTR vibe from the girls - they look like they just walked out of Lothlórien.
It snuck up on me, but 2009 is officially half way over. Since that is the case, I feel compelled to do what I did at this point last year: compile a list of my top ten albums of the year as it stands. There won't be any eulogizing on this list - I'll save that for December.
I just stumbled upon this amazing performance of Volta's "Declare Independence" from Bjork's upcoming tour film, Voltaic: The Volta Tour. The film features footage of 2007 shows in Paris and Reykjavik. The video below was shot in Paris.
Portugal. The Man's hometown is as far from Portugal as you can get - Wasilla, Alaska far to be exact. They are currently based in Portland, Oregon, and I can only assume the distinct pleasure of having Sarah Palin as a neighbor was not enough to make them stay. The '60s-loving quartet has a new album, The Satanic Satanist, arriving in the near future and "People Say" is a good indicator of what to expect. The track rides a serious Grateful Dead groove and the choruses are most definitely Lennon-kissed. There is even a little Zeppelin crunch in the guitars. All these tried and true references aside, the one current band that always comes to my mind when listening to these guys is Yeasayer. For the most part, I feel it's lead singer John Gourley's voice and the group's tendency towards mass harmonies. There are also threads of soul and Middle-Eastern music woven into their classic (bed)rock.
For me (and I assume many, many others), summertime = the Beach Boys. They've been a constant in my life for as long as I can remember and may be the only band that I enjoy as much in adulthood as I did in childhood. Naturally, discovering Pet Sounds and Smile greatly aided in my continued appreciation. More specifically, Smile's "Surf's Up" has been my go-to Beach Boys song in adulthood. The title of the song is tongue-in-cheek - a sarcastic acknowledgment of the Beach Boys' image/reputation and, at least partially, a rejection of it. Brian and Van Dyke Parks (his Smile lyrical collaborator) wrote the song in a single night, and it was probably Wilson's most somber and introspective composition to date:
A choke of grief, heart-hardened I Beyond belief, a broken man too tough to cry
Surf's up Aboard a tidal wave Come about hard and join The young and often spring you gave I heard the word Wonderful thing A children's song
This stark recording of "Surf's Up" that I have posted features Brian alone with his piano, and it may rival the official recorded version for primacy. Not least of all because Brian's brother Carl sang lead on the recorded version. Hearing Brian perform "Surf's Up" completely unadorned and at his peak is a moment with few peers. Although "Surf's Up" was written and recorded in 1966, it and the entire Smile project marked the end of the '60s for Brian Wilson. It also marked an end to the innocence inherent in Wilson's music.
For the unacquainted, The Very Best is London based production duo Radioclit and Malawian singer Esau Mwamwaya (who actually sings in four different languages: Chichewa, Swahili, Portuguese and English). After making their presence known last year with "The Very Best Mixtape," which featured contributions from M.I.A., Santigold and Vampire Weekend, the trio are set to release their debut LP, Warm Heart of Africa. Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig again lends his pipes for the album's stellar title track - a unflappably joyous cut of woozy, polyglot pop. The Very Best blurs the line between the "authentic" African music of Amadou & Mariam and the post-modern appropriations of M.I.A. (I say that with no negative connotations). Best of all, "Warm Heart of Africa" sounds hot. The production has a hazy, disorienting feel to it - like a vinyl record left to melt in the sun.
Although "Tightrope" has been available for a while now as part of the Dark Was The Night compilation, I felt compelled to throw up a post about it regardless. Simply put, it's the best song Yeasayer has written to date and one of my top 2 or 3 favorite songs of 2009. While I can't deny that I'm drawn to the heartbroken sentiments in the song, the lyrics wouldn't be nearly as powerful without such a compelling sonic backdrop. The whole song has a trance like quality to it: a rhythm that simultaneously sways and marches and guitar immersed in a swamp of delay and reverb. The closest comparison would be Animal Collective's Feels, but "Tightrope" almost feels like a hymn with its sighing harmonies and repeated refrains of regret: "So, you're wishing that you never did all the embarrassing things you done?/And you're wishing you could set it right, and you're wishing you could stay the night." With a combination of affection and resignation, lead singer Chris Keating closes the song by repeating "oh, give and give and give it, until you just can't give no more" over and over until it becomes a hypnotic mantra.
A couple months back, Pitchfork rounded up The National, Dirty Projectors and Yeasayer to perform stripped down versions of their Dark Was The Night contributions. Yeasayer laid down a sparse, gorgeous version of "Tightrope" with only a banjo and melodica.
Animal Collective recently released a video for "Summertime Clothes" (one of my favorite songs of the year). It was shot by their longtime collaborator, Danny Perez, and features Brooklyn's FLEX dance crew who appeared with the band for their Letterman performance. The dancers writhe around in sheets and giant, inflatable balls while lights throb around them. It's actually a lot cooler than that description sounds.
Brooklyn's Woods succeed wonderfully at honoring their name: their music crackles with rustic, roughhewn beauty and audible grit. You can almost smell the pine. These songs would sound completely at home around campfires, in cabins or sweat lodges and, maybe, even Brooklyn lofts. I have had their latest LP, Songs of Shame, on heavy rotation all weekend and it's given me a serious itch to go camping. Anyways, all this evocation of forestry would be empty without some ace tunes and, obviously, Woods have got those. Opener "To Clean" perfectly encapsulates Woods' M.O.: ragged guitar, wobbly melody and sylvan ambiance. The languid "Rain On" is a bit more frayed around the edges and more endearing because of it.
Throw Me The Statue's "About To Walk" was one of my very favorite songs of last year. So, I was pretty excited to hear that they had produced a follow-up to their debut,Moonbeams, so quickly. Creaturesque is the name of that follow-up and it was produced by the legendary (to me) Phil Ek (Built To Spill, The Shins, Les Savy Fav, Modest Mouse). His presence is immediately apparent on "Ancestors," the first single from Creaturesque. Although I never had any complaints about Moonbeams' wooly, lo-fi production, I can't think of a single band that Phil Ek hasn't made sound better - and TMTS is no exception. "Ancestors" is a shimmering, driving tune propelled by some wicked fuzz-bass and star-gazing synths. It still sounds very much like TMTS - just more upbeat, fleshed-out and, yes, better.
For a singer, it must be near impossible to deliver the line "I'm in love" without sounding cloying/trite/etc. So, credit must be given to Lightning Dust's Amber Webber for wrapping said line in her soft vibrato and delivering it in such a way that I don't cringe even slightly. Then again, Ms. Webber could sing just about anything in that lovely voice of hers and it would make me swoony. "I Knew" is the first single from Lightning Dust's forthcoming sophmore album, Infinite Light, and it shows a much more upbeat and lively side of the band. I saw Lightning Dust open for Bonnie 'Prince' Billy a couple weeks ago and I was surprised and pleased at how different their new material sounded. Their previous M.O. of somber folk-rock had been injected with new surge of vitality and, yes, light.
Marissa Paternoster, the lead singer/guitarist (and only female) of the Screaming Females, is a wee thing but you'd never know it from the unholy racket she wrenches from her throat and guitar. Screaming Females tow the line between Sleater-Kinney's brash punk and Black Sabbath's cavernous stomp. If Corin Tucker and Tony Iommi somehow had a lovechild, it would most definitely be Ms. Paternoster. "Bell" takes only seconds to ingratiate itself with its meaty, incessant hook. It could almost pass for a killer pop song if it weren't for the thunderous breakdown and quicksilver guitar solo. I have no doubt that Screaming Females will be able to hold their own when they open for both Dinosaur Jr. and The Dead Weather this summer.
