at war with walls and mazes

i got excited about son lux back in the day (february) and then didn't really do a whole lot about it, because, frankly, i thought the single "break" was significantly better than the rest of the album. i listened to at war with walls and mazes for a couple weeks without getting hooked, and it eventually got retired to the pile of "what could've been" records without me really noticing it. but i woke up today, with exciting plans about riding my new bike to the olafur eliasson exhibit at moma, and of course it was fucking raining. goddamnit. so, wallowing in my own self-pity, and with my music player pointed at the "S"s, i kinda accidentally found myself listening to at war with walls and mazes for the first time in a long time, and i've realized it's definitely a better album than i originally gave it credit for.

the major issue i had with it originally was how indistinguishable the music is, the songs often identifiable only when maestro ryan lott's lyrics change. assembled from his library of aural scraps and fragments, the album is cohesive to the point of nearly being interchangeable - though each song is uniquely constructed, they, as a whole, lose their individual character and blend together into a sonic haze. when i saw son lux open for why? in march, i had been listening to his album for several weeks, yet i couldn't identify a single song until he started singing verses. the problem stems, i think, from lott's graveyard of sounds, which are all different notes, or noises, or whatever, but all have the same aural integrity, the same neologic, electronic quality. his sounds have the same effect, so their nuances are like a tree in a forest - their very sameness makes them universally reductable. and even when lott uses organic sounds, like violins or pianos ("war," "stand"), they can are so disembodied that these snippets don't transmit the inherent atmosphere of such instruments. this problem, however, has been reconciled through ignorance though - since regaling it to the bench, so to speak, my ear is less anxious and more content to absorb than critique. so even though i find at war with walls and mazes's sameness occasionally oppressive, now that it's unhitched from the playing cycle i finally appreciate son lux.

the singular tonal hue of at war with walls and mazes can be jostling, as it was for me, accustomed to constant musical variety as my ear is. but then i started to perceive the album as a whole symphonic work, and the one-word songs as movements within the piece. every movement on at war with walls and mazes is titled by one evocative word ("betray," "wither"), lending the album a conceptual feel, and, for a while, i tried closely concentrating on lott's lyrics to see if it was. certainly, themes of doubt and unfaithfulness and revenge run through the work (and are evident in lott's vocal croak), but it's unclear what he is referencing, and it seems far too pedantic for lott to have written an album of love and loss. whatever its meanings, at war with walls and mazes is certainly a more successful work as a whole, a song's individual vagaries taking on greater meaning and significance. at war with walls and mazes's uni-hued tones are not recycled limiters, but an overarching stylistic choice, emblematic and representative of lott's fundamental message. and while i'm not 100% on what that message is, maybe it's not a verbal one at all, and merely a forceful reminder of the polarity of albums wholly conceived.

at war with walls and mazes has lots of good moments, some of which are songs and others which span songs. i think the second half of "raise" (starts at 3:27) is the single most compelling section of the album, a sizzling crescendo into a theme that could soundtrack a hollywood explosion. my personal preference is for son lux's most damaging tracks, the chaotic escalation and freak outs, epitomized by "weapons" and "wither," though it is the mellower songs that endure longer. "betray" and "stand" are twins here, easy and, at times, more conventional fare in a work that simultaneously provokes and soothes (in its defense, "stand" has an incredible mid-song choral eruption). however, i maintain that at war with walls and mazes shouldn't just be boiled down to its "best" songs - it's not the type of thing to listen to piecemeal. it is unified by an excellent cadence, lott's sound collages dipping and rising (without drifting) regularly, climaxing in the middle of songs or not at all with impunity; at war with walls and mazes tests new ground, defying and reigniting the stagnant expectation of the album in independent music.

"break" & "raise"

buy at war with walls and mazes from anticon.

son lux has been getting a lot of press lately for his remixes. stereogum just published his vocal-only remix of jamie lidell's "little bit of feel good," his remix of radiohead's "nude" is popular, and my brightest diamond is selling his remix of "inside a boy."

also, don't forget that there's a free unreleased track called "do" available from anticon as well.

alopecia

if you're a sensible person, you downloaded alopecia back when it leaked in january, and if you're a smart person, you've been absolutely floored by it since then. it's deft, snide, totally off the wall, and super super good.

here are some reasons why?

1. "the vowels pt. 2" - i'm not a ladies man, i'm a landmine

2. "good friday" - sucking dick for drinks tickets at the free bar at my cousin's bat mitzvah

3. "these few presidents" - i thought 'there is no paved street worthy of your perfect scandanavian feet'

4. "the hollows" - i curse the last six months i've been hiding behind a mustache

5. "song of the sad assassin" - i feel like a loop of the last eight frames of film, before a slow-motion lee harvey oswald gets shot in the gut and killed

6. "gnashville" - sometimes i claim to know a guy but can't tell you what his hands look like

7. "fatalist palmistry" - you countin' blessings cuz your net worth oughtta be less cream than your best dream

8. "the fall of mr. fifths" - i'm unavoidable like death this christmas, is this twisted?

9. "brook & waxing" - if some divine simon spoke, or came down to find us caught here in a our labcoats but without a science, would we see light?

10. "a sky for shoeing horses under" - rain goes perfect with a nosdam mixtape

11. "twenty eight" - tell me, are you single yet? my heart's as big as texas

12. "simeon's dilemma" - you're the only proper noun i need

13. "by torpedo or crohn's" - today after lunch, i got sick and blew chunks all over my new shoes in the lot behind whole foods, this is a new kind of blues

14. "exegesis" - "no stack of yoga mats or foamcore cushion pads, to lessen the pressure of the phone cord choking my neck

"the hollows" & "the fall of mr. fifths"

buy alopecia from


stream their cover of "close to me" at their myspace.

awesome song(s) day!, courtesy of stars and sons!

awesome song day! is a spontaneous feature, when i am moved by a song's singular awesomeosity and feel the urge to share its awesomeness with all of you. the song below is awesome.

stars and sons - "if it's good for me" & "comfy now"

download the goat show ep right here, sans payment.

earlier this week, i got an email from michael lord, asking me to give his band stars and sons (uk) a listen, and if i would like a cd. so, i clicked my way over to their myspace to give them a test listen, when i saw that they were being so generous as to give away their debut, the goat show ep, for free, and asking just a pound or two through a paypal button. now, nothing piques my interest like free music, and i downloaded it right then and there.

though stars and sons is a new band, they already seemed to have their own impenetrable mystique (maybe), surrounding mike lord, who is supposedly "dead(ish)." there are pictures of the band on their myspace photo page, but they are all wearing black-and-white xeroxed masks, and they are always alone in the picture. curiouser and curiouser. maybe mike lord isn't actually dead (duh), but actually every member of the band? (although this picture is definitely of a woman.) okay, that isn't a huge stretch, but it's a pretty elaborate deception for a myspace page, and it's very intriguing. it's also quite convenient (if you're digging the mystique deal) that the band is named after a broken social scene song, which makes it not very easy to do any research on them (there are six google entries for "stars and sons" before the band). the most suspicious? the webwaves have been silent since i emailed mike back for more information. who doesn't work a little for free publicity? c'mon - he's totally dead!

all sleuthing and jokery aside, i've really been digging the goat show ep, and not because of the intrigue. stars and sons play baroque, schizoid pop in the vein of nation-mates guillemots, rife with addictive piano, arching and understated vocals, and occasional squealing guitar solos. "if it's good for me" instantly caught my ear, self-mocking and cheesy (my sister thinks it sounds like an 80s montage), and hooked my on the rest of the record. the goat show ep is so unbelievably camp, more so than anything patrick wolf or owen pallett or fyfe dangerfield could dream up, that it has just totally won it's way into my headphones...and my heart. "comfy now" is probably the other best song on the goat show ep, also driven by a manilow-on-crack piano and has one of those super guitar solos, and is lush and abrupt and really, really good. so good, in fact, that it is both free AND worth spending money on, so go download that shit, and give stars and sons some money love via their myspace.

update: ok, i have to retract my statement that stars and sons are camp-er than patrick wolf. i forgot he wore satsumas on the belt of his hot pants at connect.

everything's perfect

i'll tell you what - if you're sick of hearing about team robespierre, you best point your browser elsewhere, because i am so fucking in love with this band that it's scary. in lieu of going to their showpaper benefit tonight (sorry guys, but it's cold and bushwick is far away), i'm gonna rap at all y'all about the excellence of their debut album, everything's perfect. you might remember that i was at its release party (along with matt & kim!), and i really haven't stopped listening to it since. though i've been listening to them for over two months (since i picked up their fake gold sampler at the yeasayer show), i still haven't really nailed down what, exactly, i love about them so much, but i know that i fucking do.

a team robespierre song is, fundamentally, a short debilitating burst of energy, released as a mix of anger and joy that provokes little of the former, and much of the latter. on everything's perfect, they tackle subjects such as gasoline ("gasoline"), the 88th precinct ("88th precinct"), and nuclear fallout ("plutonium pigs"), and, fervently, brooklyn. fiercely proud of their home borough (if you weren't aware, you will be at the end of any team robespierre show, since they announce their origins two to four times during any set), team robespierre is justifiably resentful of its inevitable gentrification, a threat not only to brooklyn's diversity and independent spirit, but also its rent prices. currently, my favorite song on everything's perfect (most of the tracks have been my favorite at one point or another) is "mal de mer," a crude but emphatic call to arms against imported dicks with a cleverly turned chorus: "what we're gonna do is stage a coup / against these pricks they make me sick." the team's diy aesthetic and casual anti-establishmentism is their guiding light, a mindset which their (universally-shared) aversion to work stems from. one of the album's punkier cuts, "ha ha ha," is a ballsy anti-work anthem about wanting to be a hearththrob, and "solid gold" is an glitzy all-keyboard jam about "waiting for our break / so some money we can make." one olfactory byproduct of the team's lifestyle is an irregular showering schedule, which was overpowering in december, is coyly joked about on "death smells" ("death smells / i do too" is the song's closing lyric), but i'm also totally in love with its chorus, the nonsensical "death / smells / zombie / christmas," shouted at customary full volume for no reason other than the joy of it all.

so, in case you're just joining us, i'm a stingy bastard (listen - who else actually tells you when it's worth spending money on an album, instead of just downloading it?), and one thing i always looked for when buying a record is its length. unless i was desperate to have it, i wouldn't bother buying it if it clocked in under, say, 42 minutes, cuz i would totally feel ripped off otherwise. as i've grown older, thankfully, i've learned that length really has little to do with an album's quality, and that my brain can't really listen to more than 50, 55 minutes of the same band straight (i've only listened to illinoise all the way through, like, twice). what really seals the deal is my overwhelming love for everything's perfect, which scoots past at barely 18 minutes long. the single "88th precinct" is their longest tune, at just under three minutes, and only one other track is over two, yet i don't feel shorted. everything's perfect is a full album, and though i do frequently wish it was longer, that's because i don't want the party to stop when it does. one good thing about their preferred song length - it makes it hella easier to dance to. i don't know if i could spazz out as hard as is necessary for longer than three minutes without dying (metaphorically). though team robespierre's songs are short, they rarely feel underdeveloped, and it makes you wonder if it's harder to make an awesome short song than an awesome normal length song. for "black rainbow," a superb track that isn't quite 1:30, all the essential song elements are present, and there's even space for a little improvisation. usually, i find myself thinking that songs are too long, that they drag and my mind wanders, and it's really nice that that isn't the case with everything's perfect. short, sweet, and, i daresay, perfect, it's an easily digestible album that rewards long past its 18 minutes.

lyrically, everything's perfect is exciting, a little ferocious, and totally adorable (in that endearingly self-righteous way), especially because it's hard to decipher a lot of the words without the album's helpful lyric sheet. the ecstatic catharsis that accompanies any public enjoyment of team robespierre's music is what really sells the band though. just look at this photo, one of the many that sums up how intense the team is live. everybody sweats, everybody dances, some people crowd surf, and everyone runs on a lot of fucking adrenaline. i'd like to borrow a line from the hold steady here: "people touching people when they don't even know you," as it defines a live team robespierre experience, a jumbled mess of energy and euphoria. the team's loose approach to instrumentation and avid appreciation for multiple vocalists make their songs perfect for joint band-audience participation, and you will likely find yourself dancing with a member of team robespierre if you're anywhere near the front. their enthusiasm is infectious, yes, but their music is so provocative and addictive that it's hard to tell if the crowd goes more nuts when a member of the team jumps into their midst, or whether their frantic dancing has reached a sustained climax. don't expect to go home fresh and clean after one of their inimitably awesome live shows.

the moral of the story? everything's perfect rocks. go see team robespierre live.

"88th precinct" & "mal de mer"

"88th precinct"

update: good thing i ended up staying home last night. man, that fucking sucks.

leak of the week - street horrrsing

of all the awesome things about fuck buttons (trust me, there are many), the undeniably awesomest thing about the band is their name. it's got an attention-grabbing expletive, but unlike fellow swear bands, the harshness of the "fuck" is blunted by the benign "buttons," so their name becomes a curiosity, not a curse. and then the questions - what does it mean? is it an imperative? are bandmates andrew hung and benjamin john power commanding us to (as anatomically unlikely as it is), have intercourse with buttons? are they referencing the strange and awesome power of multiple clitorii? or maybe it's an ejaculation of anger, as in "fuck [those goddamn] buttons!" when you say "fuck buttons," is there an exclamation point at the end? maybe it has some relationship to their instrumentation; do none of their noisemaking gadgets have buttons? to tell the truth, i'm happier not knowing, because a) it really has no relevance to fuck buttons' sound, and b) i'm happy with the way i say it, with a great big ! at the end, in an extremely happy voice (unnecessary swearing is a joy), and with the hard "ck" and crisp "tt" bouncing off my tongue. i think i would like fuck buttons even if their music sucked, because their name is so much fun. fortunately, as i said at the beginning of this long-winded and rambling paragraph, their name is only the most awesome thing about fuck buttons, not the only.

street horrrsing is fuck buttons' first LP but their third overall release, distributed by ATP recordings (a label i had hitherto not known the existence of, but with some significant releases under their belts). a few impressive things about fuck buttons: they were tapped for an ATP performance after releasing only two songs, they were picked by pitchfork for their own ATP event (sensing a pattern here?), and, unrelatedly, they're totally amazing. street horrrsing includes all of fuck buttons' previously released material, but sounds fresh regardless. i hesitate at using the term "noise rock" to describe fuck buttons )though that is almost certainly the correct one), because i hear virtually no similarities between their sprawling, gargantuan sound and the often aimless and self-gratifying sonic squeals of other practitioners of that genre. fuck buttons are riveting, engaging and imaginative, musicians who occupy the coveted, and strangely tender, space that exists at the intersection of melody and noise.

i think fuck buttons' secret is rather simple, though that doesn't limit its quality. even while lambasting ears with unbelievable sounds, fuck buttons' noise is always, always musical. a shocking revelation, this. hissy, staticy, feedbacky, yes, but it is never dissonant, never atonal, never pure, alienating noise and volume for its own (unnecessary) sake. fuck buttons' careful mastery of the noise/melody merge not only makes street horrrsing one of the more impressive debut albums i've heard in years, but also means fuck buttons are the best hope for intelligent progressive rock since godspeed you! black emperor (r.i.p.?)

"sweet love for planet earth" is arguably the best song on street horrrsing, which makes it equally arguably the best thing fuck buttons have ever written. this nine minute opus that titled the band's first EP exemplifies the appeal of fuck buttons through the dichotomous juxtaposition of noise and melody, and is remarkably tight and succinct considering its near-epic length. the song opens with tinkly droplets of sound, the musical equivalent to ripples in a pond, and by its fourth minute, "sweet love"'s melody is riding a reverberating crescendo, pulsating with sonic fury, still accompanied by the tender melody that began it. in spite of its intensity (or due to it), "sweet love" has the remarkable ability to bring serentity and calm even as power screams indistinguishably, his voice little more than distorted vowels. like all of street horrrsing, "sweet love" is impeccably balanced, so that the supposedly brutal sounds are never deafening, and always exist in harmony with its more peaceable side.

the best fuck buttons songs are made using the blueprint of "sweet love" without falling victim to simple replication of its enticing formula. "okay, let's talk about magic" is another lengthy work (at ten minutes, street horrrsing's longest) that is ground in hissy volume and constant beating of drums, and accentuated by another dose of possibly-verbal bellowing, with the vocals mixed at a lower volume than the music so that they are merely a different-sounding instrument.

the only fuck buttons song i can readily identify by name is "sweet love for planet earth," and that's not likely to change. without identifying verbal characteristics, street horrrsing blends together into a 50 minutes of zen-like intensity, unhindered by a need for narrative exposition, climax, and denouement. it is constantly, cyclically powerful, a record that has accompanied me on subways, sidewalks, and sleep. don't bother listening to it with your friends; for one thing, they probably won't get it, and for another, you should really absorb it alone, and without interruption. listening to street horrrsing has made me a happier person.

"sweet love for planet earth" & "bright tomorrow"

street horrrsing is expected later this year on ATP recordings.

leak of the week - afterparty babies

to hear rollie pemberton tell it, the life of a 21 year old internationally respected rapper isn't actually all peaches and cream. on afterparty babies, his first album for anti-, pemberton, better known as cadence weapon, bemoans the loneliness of touring, the duplicity of fame, and the somewhat questionable honor of being "an accident." though his debut breaking kayfabe was released in 2005, it wasn't until last year that pemberton really began to get the attention he deserved, due primarily to his uniform rejection of hip hop convention. an album that defied even the most progressive interpretations of the genre with its 8 bit beats and mostly rhymeless flow, breaking kayfabe (a title that references a relatively disguised pro wrestling technique) stretched the fabric of hip hop, and was utterly alluring and almost indigestible. thankfully, if not surprisingly, afterparty babies promises more of the same, only better. pemberton's conversational delivery, a mix of bitter soliloquy and nonchalant fatalism, and his own acerbic and intensely melodic beats have been honed in the two-plus years of touring in support of kayfabe, presenting us again with an album that could very well be unlistenable if it wasn't so brilliant.

the first thing about afterparty babies that really makes an impression (after opening track "do i miss my friends," which consists of pemberton's looped acapella) is the almost unreasonable amount of melody in his beats. almost entirely self-produced (as was kayfabe), babies exemplifies pemberton's wholesale refusal of any conventional beatmaking process. mostly devoid of bass, and intentionally so (he spits "just bought a beat / can't deal with the bass" on "real estate"), babies rolls with melodies so thick as to obscure his own flow, swirling, glitchy vortexes that don't stand still. hip hop production is usually straightforward - one beat for the verse and one for the chorus - but babies relies on unstable sounds that flit between cuts by dj weez-l (cadence weapon's traveling dj) and pemberton's own deviant electronics. "in search of the youth crew," the first track released from the album, is aggressively top-loaded, but it is "limited edition of oj slammer" that exemplifies the exaggerated glitch of babies, harshly inorganic sounds that are not mere complements for pemberton's flat delivery. with only the exception of "do i miss my friends," afterparty babies cements cadence weapon's outsider approach to beatmaking, a radical process that exceeds similar efforts from other IDM artists.

beat-wise, afterparty babies is mostly more of the same of kayfabe, only better produced (and glitchier). pemberton's lyrical maturation is the album's real highlight. a little more brazen and a little more lonely, pemberton has filled out as a lyricist, honing his mostly rhymeless flow and letting free associations inspire him. he talks more trash but seems more wounded - on "do i miss my friends" he tells us "i have friends who don't know my name" - but his hyper-intellectual delivery is impressive, to say the least. throughout babies, he belittles hollywood ("tom cruise and katie holmes was my idea"), pop music ("it used to be 'i wanna be your dog' but now it's 'who let the dogs out?'"), "hip hop hipsters / dearly departed," mocks tattoos for a whole song, and, as so many have done before him, trashed major labels on the anthemic "real estate." most poignant, however, may be "juliann wilding," a person and a song whom pemberton acknowledges as a inspiration for the record. checkered with equal parts charisma and disgust, babies finds pemberton in excellent lyrical form.

get ready to buy afterparty babies when anti- releases it on march 4.

"in search of the youth crew" (via pitchfork) & "juliann wilding"

we brave bee stings and all

stoically maintaining his total lack of care for that band that is oh-so-popular this week, mr. mammoth wants to tell you about thao nguyen's new album in a friendly, conversational, and possibly mocking fashion. mr. mammoth hopes that that is okay with you.

like most children, thao nguyen was born. twelve years later, she picked up a guitar. unlike many children who played guitar, she didn't use it to get chicks. or give it up after college. no, she stuck with it - thao ain't no quitter. in addition to these inspirational thoughts, she needed something to do at her mother's laundromat. then, some blah blah, she released an ep, was inspired by lilith fair (gag, anyone?), and has a band called the get down stay down. awesome name, no? they have just released their second record, the super cutesy titled we brave bee stings and all, on kill rock stars, and it's way excellent. if you're fact-repping, her first album, like the linen, was totally named for the laundromat.

lots of people will tell you thao nguyen sounds like chan marshall. those people are mostly wrong. she sounds a little like chan marshall, but it's kinda just cuz they both a) are from the south, and b) sing some form of blue music (chan handles the blues, thao the bluegrass). also, on "beat (health, life and fire)," the first track kill rock stars leaked from we brave, thao does kinda channel chan's huskiness, but it doesn't last - the vast majority of we brave are quirky little ditties, sweet and endearingly childish (especially on the distinctive young-kid ballad "big kid table"). thao's sophomore album is her first post-graduation (from william and mary), and is studded with stories of exploration, development and anxiety, all playfully arranged with buoyant banjos and subtle beatboxing (thao's secret talent).

we brave bee stings and all is notable for its disparity of styles as much as its overall enjoyability (definitely a word). "swimming pools," the album's overwhelmingly best track, is heavily steeped in bluegrass picking, while "feet asleep" features a horn section worthy of a honky-tonk circus. the penultimate "travel" is a brisk trot, ear-catching in a field of slow, easy songs, and rewarding from all the pickin' going on.

it's not a stretch to imagine thao & el get down stay down in a brightly-lit lounge somewhere, serenading happy, well-adjusted people with their cheerful anthems, but thao's lyrics sometimes hide behind the perkiness of her tunes. the well-titled "fear and convenience" highlights a sadder side of thao's love life ("i have see fear and convenience / i have never glimpsed romance"), and easy, beatboxed hit "bag of hammers" has what may be the album's best lyrics: "the trick is / you do not get on that interstate bus / the catch is / you stay and see what becomes of us," delivered with thao's characteristically off-putting nonchalance.

there was a time, not too long ago (you may well remember it), when bands actually had to release a full album before the rivers of praise cascaded over their shoulders (ok, last vampire weekend crack of the week), but, even more than that, prove that they could learn and improve over time, incorporating new tricks and talents into their songs. having been through a whole heap together, thao nguyen and the get down stay down have a better working (and songwriting) relationship, and have clearly matured in the two years since like the linen was released. now managed by kill rock stars' ex-honcho slim moon (man, i would kill for that name), thao etc. have written a slick and sensitive folk pop record that will turn as many heads as nod to its catchy beats and mouth its clever lyrics.

thao nguyen & the get down stay down hit new york on feb 4, opening for death vessel at the knitting factory. they play boston on the 3rd, and move on from there. they're also opening for xiu xiu on their national tour.

"bag of hammers" & "swimming pools"

buy we brave bee stings and all from

in the future

three januarys ago, a widely read, distinguished music zine named pitchfork media called black mountain's self titled debut a "best" record, making the band a household name (in austin, chicago, and my headphones at least). black mountain is a grateful debt paid to late 60s guitar rock (with interest), music of the future that owes it all to the past. a common story, really, but black mountain digs deeper and, consequentially, offers greater rewards for the studious. anchored by frontman stephen mcbean's dynamic and pathos-ridden voice (imagine jason molina without the deadpan), black mountain is reverential yet inventive, blowing all misconceptions away with "modern music," a saxophone-laden anti-pop track, or "druganaut," a funky dead jam, determinedly drafting a different blueprint for this band. it is doubly ironic, then, that in the future, black mountain's second album (and, nominally, its most forward-reaching) is less progressive than their debut, and much more rewarding.

from its first notes, it is clear that black mountain is channeling something deeper for their future. they've shed their playful and nervy attitude, as well as their saxophonist, for a future more ancient than possible, keeping pace with heavy retro-rockers everywhere. mcbean and fellow bandleader amber webber eschew the lighthearted creativity of black mountain, shelving its derring-do and toe-treading in favor of a more mainstream aesthetic of gritty prog-rock. it's both a commercial and aural shift. in the future is a satisfying, reverb-rich epic of crunching guitars and tremulous wails that begs to be louder and longer - a progressive hard rock album that was released forty years too late (and arrived right on time).

along with their new brooding stares (check out this photo) and heavier tunes, black mountain have embraced an appropriately dire outlook. jagjaguwar's press release compares the band's sophomore album to freshman year of high school, a supposedly liberating time, "the first real taste of independence in the quest for absolute freedom." last time i checked, the first year of high school was a truly frightening experience, choked with budding pituitary glands and vicious cliques, and in the future is a much better soundtrack of anxiety and rebellion than of independence. like an alienated adolescent, in the future is moody and disenchanted, an exorcism and escape. there's no cheekiness in the title of "stormy high" - it's the national anthem of a stoned fantasyland. this is outcast rock for kids who played dungeons & dragons, then retreated into a smoky haze.

what black mountain have dreamed up is a post-apocalyptic dark ages, with heroes, villains, and crunching guitars. like an eight minute dystopian vignette, "tyrant" (the future's ostensible single) is a morality play acted through dynamics, a ham-fisted loud-soft-loud-soft "effigy" for the new millennium. "tyrant" is still brutal, an aural rendering of one likely apocalypse that is delivered like a B+ science fiction screenplay, emotive without any attempt at finesse. (on the other hand, who ever wanted subtlety from a hard rock futurist nightmare?) "tyrant" delivers the goods, a neat little package of guts and guitars sweetened by amber webber's prophetic howling, so evocative that you can, if you close your eyes, see her renting her garments and vowing vengeance on the cruel dictator in a wide, pan shot of the wreckage of her burnt house (appropriately tolkienesque, i feel).

though black mountain have retired some of the tools from their self-titled, in the future does feature other important developments, like that of amber webber. in a role expanded from her relegated use on black mountain, webber's vocals consistently shape songs and define their most rewarding moments. her wailing on "tyrant" and "bright lights" form those songs' cruxes, and her solo, alice-in-weirdland "queens will play" - though it suffers of a progression that promises more than its payoff delivers - is darkly portentous and heavy. webber still does regular duty on harmonies, but even then she works in tandem with mcbean, providing tantalizing and haunted vocals that accentuate and enrich his own. their interplay is one of in the future's best features, her keening laments and harmonies really filling out their sound.

what, despite its flaws, makes in the future such an appealing album? well, for one thing, black mountain go totally medieval on our asses, ditching the quirky 60s amalgamation for a solid shot of hard rock, no chaser. no surprise that they were invited on the last queens of the stone age tour; in the future is the best kind of stoner metal, luxuriously heavy and plush with intensity. the album starts on the right foot with "stormy high," a swaggering neo-viking war march that only improves with volume, a characteristic the album shares. fuzzball "evil ways" lingers , thanks to a screeching guitar and mcbean's raw vocals, and the ballad "angels" shows off a different side of the band entirely. at the tail end of in the future is black mountain's greatest opus t0 date - the sixteen minute "bright lights." it starts gently, switching "bright light" and "light bright" around lyrically, mcbean and webber chanting ritually, and abruptly lurches into fifth gear, bellicose and bristling for a fight before dissolving into a dreaded spacey-pedal-fest, a bad decision that it never fully recovers from, though it puts up a good show - the last minute and a half of "bright lights" might be the best on the record.

in the future is a more successful album than black mountain, for its commercial appeal as much as its sonic one - richer, deeper, and blissfully heavier than anything their debut could have suggested, in the future is the work of more attuned yet less confident artists. my own enjoyment of in the future notwithstanding, it is a stylistic regression for black mountain, a hedged bet, regurgitating the past for fresh ears. slavishly constructed, this is an easily digestible homage liberally slathered with inspiration, instead of the other way around. no small part of in the future's importance is this eponymous conundrum: if this is the music of the future, why does it sound so much like the past? if anything, black mountain is the future, lessons learned from ancient masters, reinvigorated and refreshed, and not merely an accomplished mimicry. in the future apes the old and calls it the new like some orwellian thought program, a self-imposed verbal hurdle that is never quite cleared.

"stormy high" & "tyrant"

follow this sweet little .gif to jagjaguwar's online store.

black mountain embark on their north american tour on thursday in seattle. they play your city ___.

tout seul dans la forêt en plein jour, avez-vous peur?

there are a lot of words that describe geneviève castrée, the artist who performs as woelv, but, somehow, none of them seem right. it turns out i lied to you back on the last day of november, when i claimed that the year might well be over as far as seriously good music goes, and no, 8 diagrams is not the reason why. i had forgotten about woelv, who i saw opening for mount eerie in a church basement, who was releasing her seventh (!!!) album (though only her second full-length as woelv) on december 4. seriously, how does someone put out sixth albums without going some sort of internet notoriety? don't blogs exist so that that doesn't happen anymore? anyway, her impossibly titled album, tout seul dans la forêt en plein jour, avez-vous peur?, was released five days ago by k records, during which time it has utterly seduced me with its bizarre drama and hopeful anxiety.

geneviève castrée is québécoise, a graphic illustrator and painter from the suburbs of montréal. she taught herself guitar in order to create songs to accompany her paintings. indeed, castrée's method for understanding tout seul dans la forêt en plein jour, avez-vous peur? best is to get the "book-record" lp version, which comes with a 60-page book of artwork and translation from french to english. ...wish i'd known about that version before i got the cd. the album is sung entirely by castrée in french. recently on tour with mount eerie, castrée is a close confidant of phil elverum's, and her naturalistic style often mimics his [elverum also appears on "(réconciliation)"]. woelv, however, sings about a different nature than mount eerie, whose songs are gentle and respectful; castrée is anxious and nervous, caring and doting, confused yet assured, and her paradoxes are woelv's heartbeat.

there are a lot of pictures of woelv out there, but this one in particular, striking and evocative, sums up woelv's aesthetic, oddly paradoxical though that seems. cathartic yet self-reflective, castrée's music is minimal to nearly the extreme, though its beauty is something to behold when she rips the silence to shreds, whaling on her guitar and wailing her lungs out. the disparity of the two, clearest on "drapeau blanc," tout's first song. it builds tentatively, cautiously, as castrée builds her loops, stringing her voices together in a choir. a harsh drumbeat lifts the song's energy, accompanied by raw, dissonant shrieks from castrée, beautiful and terrible, before it abruptly subsides, leaving a hole where none existed before.

i like to think of tout seul dans la forêt en plein jour, avez-vous peur? as two things: cold music and headphone music. i've been listening to this album while traveling to work the past few days, with the wind slicing down my neck, and i can't imagine listening to woelv in any other way. there is a stillness to tout that suggests a silent winter forest, and a tremulousness chill in castrée's voice that cannot be soothed by the summer sun. in addition, castrée's voice sounds like a fusion of björk's and jónsi birgisson's, and has seemed to absorb by association (they're from iceland. she's from canada. those places are cold!) their wildly stylized yet implicitly naturalistic vocal renderings. like the wind whispering across ice or through trees (as it literally does on tout's title song), castrée sounds like the voice of winter. oh, and the fact that lots of her press photos feature her bundled in this warm red coat helps with the winter analogy as well.

i was listening to tout seul dans la forêt en plein jour, avez-vous peur? on my way home tonight, when i realized how loathe i was to listen to the album on my stereo. there is a raw intimacy in listening to woelv on headphones, the music rich in your skull, every nuance enjoyed and wondered at. castrée's voice is remarkable, childish yet mature, a strong foundation for woelv's songs, which can really only be appreciated on a (good) pair of headphones. i know all music is better on headphones, but this is one of the rare few that really should only be listened to on headphones. songs like the (nearly) acapella "la mort et le chien obèse" are painstakingly constructed around castrée's vocal loops, which are almost indistinguishable on a stereo. a real connection is felt, a bridge between you and woelv, that is the emotional crux of her music, one that i feel best through headphones.

my one real complaint about tout seul dans la forêt en plein jour, avez-vous peur? is its haste. not its brevity - i think the album is a good length - but the little time for reflection we get between songs. especially in the beginning of the album, when we need the time to process song by song, we instead get five songs practically overlapping. woelv's music is so striking, so bizarrely compelling, that it requires time to digest, to be comprehended. also, geneviève castrée may think that i would enjoy her album more if i had the translation in front of me, but i in no way feel hindered by the language barrier - i even find it liberating. i can get lost in her sounds, the lilt of her voice as it climbs octaves, the gorgeous lo-fi equality of the sound, the true complexity of her loops, which i would have a much harder time doing if i was translating every phrase. as mr. mammoth readers know, i'm no stranger to non-english music, and i find castrée's music all the more beautiful for my own inaccessibility to its true meanings. tout seul dans la forêt en plein jour, avez-vous peur? is an open-ended story, a choose your own adventure, and i like it that way.

"drapeau blanc" & "sous mon manteau"

buy tout seul dans la forêt en plein jour, avez-vous peur? from k records.

stream the album (if you don't believe me on how good it is) here.

all hour cymbals

it's hard to discuss grandiose bands in simple terms. i've run into this problem every two to three minutes while conceiving this review, and it's a doozy. yeasayer is a band instructed by contradictions, a band that embraces double standards and duplicitous perspectives - in other words, the most authentic american band of the new millennium. yeasayer waves this banner high, the flag of fear and uncertainty, bedecking their sound with pangeaic rhythms from countries that we fear the most. it's a compelling hybrid, coupling worried lyrics with globally inspired sounds, and it makes all hour cymbals one of the year's most ambitious releases.

the brooklyn quartet vaulted into the musical consciousness earlier this year, after the release of "2080," the band's first single. driven by a restless bass hook, "2080" is yeasayer's multiculti paradigm, and the lens through which they will eternally be judged. charismatic and precocious, "2080" is all hour cymbals in miniature. on the track, frontman chris keating's voice is tremulous and boasts a hefty amount of reverb, begging the oft-repeated peter gabriel comparison. the linchpin of the song is the near-acapella chorus midway through, backed by bare drums, acoustic chords, and a distinctly subcontinental pan pipe melody, a carefully arranged cultural hodgepodge. such is the blueprint for the entire album, especially their repeated four-part vocal harmonies (all of yeasayer's members were in vocal groups as young men). it is keating's words, however, that inspires yeasayer's entire framework; lyrics from "2080" are not only the most often scrutinized, but they also adorn the pages of their website. deservedly so - "2080" is a capsule of fear and worry, as the graphic to your right sums up. the song opens with keating's honest fright as he sings "i can't sleep when i think about the times we've living in; i can't sleep when i think about the future i was born into," tapping into a natural (universal?) fear. but keating remonstrates us, "in 2080 a.d. i'm sure to be dead, so don't look ahead, never look ahead." fearful but determined to live for the moment, yeasayer's sprawling sound reflects our national attitude.

yeasayer has positioned themselves at a unique intersection in music, one that both defines and generates their sound. they play what is undoubtedly "world" music, called such not because they hail from a different musical heritage, but because they have assimilated (and reinterpreted) the sounds of the world. all hour cymbals features, in addition to a clear homage to genesis, peruvian pan pipes, native american and pagan imagery, african drumming patterns, the laughter of children, shaker harmonies, and sleigh bells, just to name a few. this trans-cultural borrowing is yeasayer's hallmark, along with their bizarre songcrafting. yeasayer are so deliberately progressive that all hour cymbals could be the product of a resourceful (and brilliant) one-man band, slowly layering disparate phrases until the aural goal is reached; as it is, a yeasayer song is like a mystery novel, with seemingly unrelated clues accumulating until awareness comes. yeasayer are globalization bluesmen, spinning yarns about our unsteady times with melting pot melodies.

yeasayer - "2080" (from their daytrotter session)
"sunrise" (from all hour cymbals)

the shepherd's dog

the iron & wine sound has matured in the five years since our endless numbered days, and, honestly, how could we expect otherwise? forever restless, iron & wine continually reforge themselves in the crucible of sam beam's imagination, and even the two eps they have dangled before us since 2002 - woman king, their first foray with an electric guitar, and in the reins, an impressive, collaborative rethinking of some of iron & wine's oldest tunes - only began to hint at what was to come on the shepherd's dog, their third full-length. on this album, sam beam, the man who traffics under the iron & wine moniker, whose musical growth mimics that of his named medium, has matured beyond all expectations. as with wine, beam's flavors and sub-flavors have developed shades and tones, untasted at first blush. from the rough peasant red of the creek drank the cradle, burning the throat with its coarse beauty, to the marvelously aged shepherd's dog, striking the palate with a multitude of textures, it is clear that beam's time in the cellar has produced a work with unparalleled depth and complexity.

with an artist like iron & wine, whose musical maturation is evident at every stage of his recorded career, a listener's initial tendency is to compare and contrast his releases, an impulse that must be suppressed. each time sam beam consents to putting his songs on wax, iron & wine is reinvented, reshaped to the point of nearly being unrecognizable. wistfulness for the iron & wine of yore - the fireside hymns of the creek drank the cradle, the fastidious empathy of our endless numbered days, or even for the militant order of woman king - such longing does the shepherd's dog, and iron & wine, a great disservice. to plumb this album's depths, listen to it as if in a vacuum, devoid of context, with a blank slate mind, and focus on how iron & wine sound right now.

how iron & wine sound right now is pretty damn good. the shepherd's dog starts on sure footing with the lilting "pagan angel and a borrowed car," heavy on the harmonies, fiddle, mandolin, piano, marimba, and god knows what else, instantly displaying iron & wine's enthusiasm and energy. as ever, each song is immaculately arranged and orchestrated; though beam remains the crux of the band, laying down his deceptively simple sounding melodies and whispering his woes in our ears, he is joined by an exceedingly diverse collection of musicians. what all the instruments are, i can't say - all i know is that his friends (and ex-collaborators) calexico join him at least on "wolves (song of the shepherd's dog)," providing dub-esque inflections to beam's shifty and staccato melody. having long graduated from the stifling limitations of the folk-rock genre, beam flexes his songwriting muscle on the shepherd's dog, packing it with some of the finest songs he has penned thus far, dividing the album between anxious, bluesy jams like "the devil never sleeps," with its gaudy saloon piano, and the sitar-inflected "white tooth man," and delicate loveletters to melancholy: the reverbing lullaby "carousel" and "peace beneath the city," a down-home lament with a slow cello drawl. "boy with a coin," the album's first single, falls somewhere in between: a quick, hypnotic melody, backed by a handclap chorus that changes rhythm with the song's, lulling the listener into musical paralysis. the shepherd's dog closes with a waltz, a serene, humble song of simplicity and casual happiness that belies beam's overarching dissatisfaction and uncertainty. "flightless bird, american mouth" seems to resurrect, even if just for a few minutes, a ghost of americana, barnyard dances and girls with braided hair, ghosts that no longer haunt beam's lyrics.

sam beam has always been a master storyteller, metastasizing everyday incidents into profoundly raw and emotional vignettes of the human experience, capable of making our hearts ache for the tragedies of strangers. the characters of the shepherd's dog are his most human yet - flawed, suffering, and alone. this album speaks of ordinary heartbreak, of everyday tragedies that we have grown cold to - automobile accidents, absent fathers, unhappy marriages. yet through all these challenges, americans have kept their faith. inescapable in contemporary america - our president honors jesus as his greatest inspiration, having disdained our longstanding pledge to divorce church from state, while others, blinded by the limitations of two thousand year old words, blame homosexuals for inciting terrorism - but the faith that has inspired sam beam is of a humbler variety; the faith of mothers, praying for their sons at war, the hopes of boys whose fathers don't come home, the jealousy of brothers. "peace beneath the city," the album's penultimate song, is perhaps its most sorrowful, a song of wanting nothing more than a modicum of certainty about the future (or the present), a cry for assurance in a world where faith is not always enough. to create the desire for such a simple thing, iron & wine flesh out beam's quietly earnest lyrics with a languorous pedal steel, solitary handclaps, and the faint beats of a tabla, as beam mutters "black valley, peace beneath the city / where women tell the weather but the never ever tell you what they pray / they pray, 'give me a yellow brick road and a japanese car and benevolent change.'"

for the album's midpoint, "innocent bones," iron & wine do not abstract faith, but use it as a direct inspiration; here, cain and abel, born of the memory of our lost eden, are beam's protagonists. in "innocent bones," a gently lilting tune carried by sparse piano, a washboard, and beam's guitar, cain buys a knife and abel a bag of weed, and beam lays a bet that "if christ came back, he'd find us in a poker game." and while there are other direct references to christianity in "innocent bones" itself, the album as a whole generally focuses on unspoken faith, and what it has begat - american confusion. one track that highlights our national uncertainty is "the devil never sleeps," one of the most musically compelling songs on the album. upbeat with strong piano jazz and a tantalizing pedal steel in the background, flushed with energy and vigor, "the devil never sleeps" is still suffused with that tangible sense of feeling lost that muddles and confuses our everyday lives. one of its most telling lines succinctly captures our national nervousness: "all of us lost at the crosswalk waiting for the other to go / someone bet a dollar that my daddy wasn't coming home." as iron & wine is wont, the beauty of the shepherd's dog's arrangement beguiles the listener, tricking us into falsely believing that its lyrical message is as soothing as its sounds. "carousel," another standout track, entices and enchants, lulling us into a sweet stupor, even as beam sings "your grieving girls all died in their sleep / so the dogs all went unfed / a great dream of bones all piled on the bed."

after circulating for the internet equivalent of millennia, "boy with a coin" has become the ubiquitous face of the shepherd's dog, with good reason - it's a great song. but it's often difficult to tease out the meanings of songs when they arrive in an inbox devoid of context, which is how it came about that i didn't understand "boy with a coin" until i listened to the entire album. with my 20/20 of hindsight, i see now that the lyrics of "boy with a coin" are the heart of the shepherd's dog, the key that opens the lock of its meaning. the song's setting is in the debris of an automobile accident, "when god left the ground to circle the world," an idea that i believe explains the entire album. given iron & wine's history for favoring animals in his titles ("lion's mane," "the rooster moans," etc.), the shepherd's dog does not, at first glance, carry any larger meanings, any subtext that we need to read into. the portrait of a dog on the album's cover should confirm this assessment, as does "wolves (song of the shepherd's dog)" - the dog is merely an object of a song, the shepherd the same. but, while the shepherd's dog is definitely not a concept album, it does have hidden meanings, buried deep in its lyrical heart. through sophisticated use of metaphor and allegory, sam beam subtly, yet directly, challenges our modernity and our faith. the titular shepherd is no mean peasant, toiling in the hills - for beam has long outgrown any need for idyllic, pastoral metaphors - but none other than christ himself. despite the regular allusions to faith throughout the album, however, it is not about christ - it is about his dog. the dog is the essential instrument of the conventional shepherd, warding away wolves and other predators from the tender flock, too weak to protect itself and too dumb to do much else. but the dog must also direct the sheep, away from treacherous cliffs and unstable footings, guiding the flock to green pastures. the shepherd is the lord of the flock, able to decide its fate, but the dog is its true redeemer. if "god left the ground to circle the world," then maybe we cannot rely on the shepherd any longer. we must look for the dogs in our midst, guiding and protecting us, and put our faith in them, for only they can soothe our fears and show us the right path to follow, away from the precipice on which we are balanced.

iron & wine - "boy with a coin," "innocent bones"

buy the shepherd's dog from sub pop.

listen to the shepherd's dog streaming at iron & wine's myspace.

live iron & wine photos taken by gregory william wasserstrom and stephen dowling.

worth spendin' money on, volume the fourth!

in spite of the shockingly low rating it received from pitchfork earlier in the week, music is rallying this week around the mother of all pointless showdowns - 50 cent's curtis versus kanye west's graduation (apparently, kenny chesney is also a contender). i'm actually stunned at the extent that this has taken over, even making headlines in the associated press. what about the independent albums that have been released? even the usually reliable largehearted boy only gives a handful of 9/11 releases, completely skipping over figurines, simian mobile disco, and what is undoubtedly this week's best album, proof of youth by the go! team. here are my thoughts on the media's collective ignorance of this album: what. the. fuck. here's what they missed: the jump-kick-to-the-face return of the one of the most original bands around.

as with their debut thunder, lightning, strike, the go! team's second album is packing heat - proof of youth is filled with roundhouse punches, car chases, and all the pg-13 violence you can fit in your headphones. after their triumphant explosion into the scene in 2004, the go! team went from being a kitchen recording project to an internationally known headlining band. in order for this to happen, creator ian parton had to find some bandmates. well, the sextet spent some time together on the road, had deep & meaningful discussions, and rocked some parties. then they decided it was time for a new album. but this album would be different, sort of. it would still be as spastic as a yuppie after doing blow in a bathroom, it would be still have crazy funk samples from the 1970s, and it would definitely still make even the most frigid hipster aesthete dance uncontrollably. the big difference? this time, the whole band was invited to the studio. what they came up with, basically, is thunder, lightning, strike: part deux, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

the go! team obviously had one hell of an off-season in recording proof of youth. the album literally crackles - with energy as well as with their endearingly lo-fi, over the top production. proof of youth is 36 short minutes of aural ecstasy, from the opening track (and first single), "grip like a vice" to "patricia's moving picture," a sunny, sample-heavy bon voyage. both "grip like a vice" and "doing it right" sound like singles, and, appropriately, they are. but they aren't proof of youth's best tracks, and you have to dig a little into the meat of the album to find those.

it is generally rare that an album's middle tracks are its best; most albums are top-heavy, packing their best songs into the first ten or fifteen minutes, so you don't realize it's not that good until too late. not so with proof of youth. the album takes off with its fourth cut, "titanic vandalism," a cheer-led funky bass adventure, complete with ninja's requisite demanding "are you ready for more?," to which we can only reply "OH GOD YES! MORE MORE MORE!," while dancing spastically, oblivious to the staring passerbys and baffled policemen (it was a mistake to listen to proof of youth walking to the grocery, i admit it.). "keys of the city" is unmistakably the best cut on the album, three minutes of aural crack. it opens with a rather complacent guitar riff, introducing the jump rope chants of the double dutch divas, before launching into a exultant horn breakdown. the high speed chanting plays best as an instrument, a counterpoint to the angular guitar that reminds you of the best routines of bring it on, sans kirsten dunst and eliza dushku, and avec a bad ass marching band. "the wrath of marcie" is another excellent track, featuring new guitarist kaori tsuchida on backup vocals, an essential melodic counterpoint to ninja's verses. filled with the high-energy horns and clatter of drums that we expect, "the wrath of marcie" is fulfilling in the sense that it makes you want to dance as much as the go! team's other songs, doing exactly what it is meant to.

there's been a lot of noise made about the go! team's chosen collaborators for proof of youth, (including marina ribtaski from bonde do role, the rappers' delight club, and the aforementioned double dutch divas) with the consensus that, except for chuck d's raps on "flashlight fight," they don't really matter. well, they need to get themselves some hearing aids (or study the press material a little more closely). my money says that most reviewers couldn't actually distinguish which tracks the non-chuck d guests were on, and therefore declared their contributions null and void. mid-album cut "universal speech" clearly benefits from ribatski's vocal contributions, as well as the happy-go-lucky elementary school raps of the rappers' delight club (i heard that, and i don't even HAVE press materials.). i guess you do have to listen a bit closely to hear the difference between ninja and ribatski or a bunch of 8 year olds spitting verses... even if some of the go! team's collaborators on proof of youth occasionally get lost in the mix, we should still reflect for a moment - they got chuck fucking d to do a guest spot on what is unmistakably an indie rock album. how bout some fucking props for that? and "flashlight fight" is a great track as well - if the go! team may have buried their other collaborators too deep, "flashlight fight" holds back just the right amount, giving chuck d the perfect amount of room to spit over blaring horns, paranoid sirens, and "gonna fly now" progression.

for all of the criticism it has received, proof of youth is essentially a simple album by a simple band. the go! team aren't necessarily interested in artistic progression and maturing their sound - they want to send listeners into a frenzy, and that's exactly what they do. we don't need to critically analyze how little they've changed since 2004. what we need to do is remember why they make the music they do, and why we listen to it - because it's enjoyable. let loose a little. turn off the interpol. put on your dancing shoes and kick it with the go! team. you can always be young enough to dance - all you need to do is prove it.

the go! team - "doing it right," "keys to the city."

buy proof of youth from sub pop or memphis industries.

worth spending money on, volume tres

if you've been playing the home game (and if you're reading this blog, i'd say the likelihood of that is fairly high), then what i have to say is not going to surprise you. but just in case you've been out of the loop for the past several months, here's a real shocker: you should go out to the store right now, and fork over some paltry dollars for the incredible menomena sophomore album, friend and foe. until sometime around christmas last year, menomena was a name new to me, and it was only from a brief stereogum post that i learned their name and got a taste of the quiet excitement that surrounded their second release. the great reception it received from pitchfork (the first BNM nod of the year) only sweetened the deal, and drove me to undertake the safest option for anyone hearing about a new band - i downloaded friend and foe.

oh, the blissful ease of torrents! the typing of letters, a little hunting, a few clicks, the brief wait, and voila! an album. the problem (for me, at least), is convincing myself of the need to listen to these albums that i've just acquired for next-to-nothing. friend and foe came out just as i was getting acquainted with the blogosphere, and i hadn't been quick enough on the draw to get any menomena mp3s, and i had no idea what to expect from the album. so friend and foe lingered in my library for some months, until, struck by the dreaded i-need-something-new-to-listen-to disease, i put it on my shuffle. at first, i was unimpressed. the only song that caught my ear was "the pelican," after which i usually passed on to another album. before you call me overhasty ("the pelican" is friend and foe's second track), et me offer a few words in my defense. despite the egalitarian simplicity of torrents, they are not without their own flaws, as i discovered after my purchase of friend and foe (mr. mammoth is no hypocrite). what i must have downloaded was a pre-release version of the album, a slightly smudged precursor of the final cut. among its differences (which also included different takes of "the pelican" and "air aid," as well as a alternate title for "my my"), was a complete shakeup of the album's middle tracks. it still opened with "muscle n' flo" and ended with the "evil bee" - "ghostship" - "west" trilogy - which, ultimately, probably made the album less accessible at first, but didn't alter its overall excellence in the slightest. so, even though many of the tracks that preceded "the pelican" in my bootleg version are now among my favorites, none of them really captured my attention during initial listens. a month after friend and foe's dry run in my shuffle, i returned to the album, for the simple reason that "the pelican" was inextricably stuck in my head, and i know of no other remedy for that than to listen to the song, which i did. since then (now that i listen not only to "the pelican," but the songs that surround it), friend and foe has, basically, remained on my regular album rotation. i can't get enough of it - and if you haven't given it a chance yet, now is the time to do so. for its enduring quality, sheer brilliance, and simple audacity, i name friend and foe the third album that is worth spending money on. read on for why.

there are, by my count, four best tracks on friend and foe: "air aid," "the pelican," "running," and "evil bee." this last one is my absolute favorite, primarily because of the lyrics (and bitchin' saxophone parts). "oh to be a machine / oh to be wanted, to be useful" croons guitarist/pianist brent knopf, a declaration of such stunning simplicity and earnestness that it wins you over immediately. "evil bee," like most menomena songs, is an ADD hodgepodge of sounds, stitched together piecemeal, almost haphazardly, but striking in its forthrightness. there is nothing hidden in menomena songs: there are only surprises, like the recurring maracas and the abrupt saxophone notes, used (at first) to punctuate the end of phrases (rather than in a leading role, as it is used in songs like "boyscout'n"), before it blends seamlessly into their soundscape. menomena's work lends itself to ordinarily foolish words like "soundscapes" very well - there are few better ways to describe their delightfully arbitrary sound matching, of adding melodies for the sheer cheek of it. they recklessly bend all rules of song structure, carelessly discarding chourses when they are not needed, or creating climaxes merely from a repetition of phrases, and then pulling the carpet out from underneath them, musically speaking. one song from friend and foe has more variety than most albums, and the work's quirkiness never bogs it down - unlike some progressive bands, who try to lump too much imagination into one song, menomena's inventiveness is almost sparse, always gently, lovingly putting song pieces together, never bulldozing their creativity down our ears.

one of my favorite things about menomena is the harmonies. while knopf and bassist/ saxophonist justin harris generally front the band, often trading off song by song, all three lend their voices to the others', fleshing out the vocals to the point where it is almost impossible to tell which parts are real and which are studio-produced. this is especially true on songs like "air aid," "rotten hell" (those two are tied for "cleverest song title," because of the way they are sung), and "wet and rusting." for menomena, the voice is not merely a device for delivering lyrics (which are highly sophisticated for such a young band), it is an instrument in and of itself, to a degree that is rarely heard elsewhere. in addition to the subtlety and nuances of their vocals, menomena also has some seriously exceptional drumming. i remember being struck by danny seim's drumming when i saw menomena some weeks ago - his energy and intensity far outstripped that of his bandmates, at least in terms of sweat. seim was dripping by the end of their set, the natural result of his labor. it is rare that i notice drums (beyond the cursory acknowledgment), but his drum lines are more than just underlying reinforcement, or a rhythm keeper, or any role that drums far too frequently function as - they are, like menomena's voices, an equal part of the music, adding its own style to the overall mix, never staying static but always fluctuating with the circumstances, fluid and versatile.

menomena's trademark is unexpectedness, a trait that is obvious from the first track, "muscle 'n flo." a jagged, abrupt guitar interrupts drawn out, stately notes and delicate piano, alternating between serenity and anxiety. "muscle 'n flo" is also one of the few songs that has something like verses and a bridge - many of their songs are just laid bare, stripped of pretense and false modesty. they stand proud without bowing to conventionality, one of the album's most endearing traits. i also find menomena's lyricism to be remarkable - it goes far beyond the wistfulness of gibbard or the historicity of meloy, disdaining continuity or even sense, focusing all their energy on turning clever/endearing phrases like "if only jesus would wash my feet" or "rain is falling through the floor " or "cover your ears / cover your eyes / cover your mouth / silence / blindness / tasteless violence," putting a new twist on the "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" aphorism. however, their best lyricism cannot be taken out of context - like their voices, or drumming, or any other instrument in their arsenal, menomena's lyrics are another layer of songsmithing.

on "air aid," harris sings about "people of the future," and that's exactly who the album is about. it's not a big stretch to say menomena is a little too cool for school - their rhythms, effects, and sheer bizarreness can't possibly have come from the same era as the black eyed peas, yet here it is. i don't doubt that harris, knopf, and seim are not a little startled by the immense acclaim friend and foe has received, though they shouldn't be. the word "pop" has far too many negative connotations right now, but, still, friend and foe is distinctly that: it straddles the line between the past and future of pop, and it is little wonder that people clamor to it, singing its praises. definitely WSMO, definitely awesome.

menomena - "the pelican," "wet and rusting." buy friend and foe here. live photo from nailgun.