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; 
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.
Monday, November 19, 2007
all hour cymbals
Saturday, November 17, 2007
awesome song day! - "love and caring"
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.
crystal castles - "love and caring"their full-length debut is due february 19, 2008.
mount eerie w. woelv, flying, karl blau @ lutheran church of the messiah, 11/8/07
(sorry for the delay, my computer broke this week and only got it fixed today).
phil elverum and his friends (at least the ones who played at the lutheran church of the messiah last week) have something in common: they are astounding. last thursday's incredible basement show, lit by candles and colored lightbulbs, was simply transportive. the 150 or so people crammed into the greenpoint church were quiet, respectful, and stunned by what we saw - simply, one of the finest shows of the year.
as you may have guessed by now, this was a todd p show (who else has concerts in church basements?), and was a study in sharing and tolerance. the neighborhood demanded low volume (the word was that the mount eerie show, audible only if no one else was talking, was the loudest ever in that space), and the hush became an integral part of the show's magic. huddled in a basement with polish beer and flannel jackets, the stage barely illuminated by amber and blue cliplights, all four acts (karl blau, flying, WOELV, and mount eerie) played with noble restraint, their music replacing their selves as the audience's focus.
karl blau, last-minute addition to the bill, was another horse from the k stable (along with woelv and mount eerie), and a longtime elverum disciple. blau was a looping wizard, crafting gauzy sonic tapestries with a heavy 60s pop feel. it was often enjoyable unclear the extent to which blau improvised on premeditated melodies; his songs developed organically, growing note by note without any discernible guide. it was riveting, reinforcing the incredible intimacy of the space, especially when he didn't use the mic, his voice carrying just as far without amplification. between songs, blau seemed to suffer from some stage fright, stammering and telling stories, but there was no such nervousness in his songs. methodical and compelling, blau set the tone for the show: quiet, intense, and remarkable.
flying, next up, was the only non-k band, and the difference was palpable. while blau, and later, woelv and mount eerie, embraced the quiet, flying was clearly less at home. the trio, however, adapted well to the limits of the space, expanding and dimming their sound without diluting it. flying commented more than once on the required volume, saying "we've never played such a quiet show before." yet because flying was the only band limited by the volume constraints (and, actually, the only band, since all the others were solo artists), their set was aurally and visually engaging and innovative. during one song, flying's drummer and keyboardist stalked along the back edge of the stage, yelping and hooting in time with the music, their grunts echoing in the hushed space. flying's sound was an odd one, a sort of postmodern weimar cabaret effect, creating a pastiche of prettiness, like juana molina without electronics. it often seemed as if all three were playing in disparate keys, rhythms, and tempos, yet the music was well-blended and exciting.
one of the coolest elements of the show was the effort todd p made to keep the crowd seated. for a stage that was no more than two feet high, this was both a logical and aesthetic decision. though sitting on a hard floor for three hours really kills the butt, a sitting crowd kept the show intimate and special. sitting there, in the near-darkness, the music literally washed over us, and the church's basement was really a sanctuary.
WOELV is the inexplicable pseudonym of geneviève castrée, a quebecois artist who deserves every single comparison to sigur ros. true to her roots, castrée sings only in heavily stylized french, backed only by guitar and her own looped voice. breathtakingly beautiful in her stark musical simplicity, WOELV was riveting. castrée's airy choral onomatopoeias served a feather bed for her verses, warm and soft against the transcendent wails. castrée's vocal style begs comparisons to jónsi birgisson, her singing chillingly evocative. WOELV used a guitar for some songs, but the most moving songs were the acapella ones, her voice echoing against itself in the tiny room, relaxing yet spine-tingling. as with blau, WOELV found that using the microphone wasn't absolutely necessary, and some of the evening's best moments were during her set. i was stunned by the sheer beauty of her songs.
mount eerie is a band for completists. phil elverum has released somewhere between 8 and 10 million albums, as both the microphones and mount eerie; his lastest, mount eerie pts. 6 & 7, is a 132 page photobook that is "the visual counterpart to pretty much the entire catalog of the microphones and mount eerie," overexposed and lovingly reimagined images of our natural world. accordingly, mount eerie's set was backdropped by short movies of beautiful and terrible interactions with nature. phil elverum, minimalist, naturalist firebrand, matched his songs to the images, pairing his more frustrated songs with videos of steel refineries and the soothing, elegant ones with ferns blowing in the wind or fog rolling over an evergreen forest. at times, it was so beautiful that tears came to my eyes. having extinguished all electric lights, elverum was lit only by candles on the stage and the reflected light from his backdrop, and it was the easiest thing in the world to close your eyes and see the cloud-topped mountain or the moon rising over a harbor. serene, reflective, optimistic, mount eerie was as spiritually rejuvenating as a sermon.
mount eerie plays new york again in december, at st. mark's church. you would do well not to miss it.
phil elverum runs his own store here, where you can buy mount eerie pts. 6 & 7, among other treats.
mount eerie song
Monday, November 12, 2007
awesome song day! - "let's get ready to crumble"
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.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
the black angels w. a place to bury strangers @ bowery ballroom, 11/7/07
i was so impressed by passover, the black angels' full length debut, that i was seriously considering thinking about going to see them open for queens of the stone age at madison square garden last month. i decided not to, mostly because the tickets were forty bucks and i didn't really care about seeing qotsa again, but the real wisdom of that decision wasn't clear to me until last night, when the black angels headlined a sludge fest at bowery ballroom. featuring fellow led zeppelin devotees spindrift and hotly hyped a place to bury strangers, the night was loud, and, ultimately, disappointing.
from their first note, the reason that spindrift was on this tour was blindingly obvious: they and the black angels play such a similar brand of neo-psychedelic medal that they were nearly the same band. spindrift even borrowed a black angel to round out their band, affirming the similarity. though spindrift rocked, rumbled, and churned with the same intensity (and much to the same effect) as the black angels later would, one thing proved these were not the same bands in disguise: instead of borrowing native american rhythms and iconography, as the black angels are wont to do, spindrift, based in southern california, had adopted the stylized melodies of the spanish conquistadores as their foundation. spindrift was mostly instrumental - drums, two guitars, keys, guitarbass, and the borrowed christian bland on maracas - though some songs featured surprisingly tender vocals from spindrift frontman kirpatrick thomas. tender in tone only though; thomas avoided speaking actual words, preferring to emit something between a murmur and a howl. more primeval than the black angels (and extremely hirsute), spindrift suggested the kind of music neolithic men and women would have played, and thomas's vocalizing added to this effect. they also played one really cool song with a harmonica.
the night featured a reverse dancing trend - very interesting. there were several people dancing during spindrift's set, and rightly so. the black angels tip the scale towards metal a little more than jefferson airplane, but spindrift's ties to the 60s are a little clearer, and people responded to that, with dancing. a place to bury strangers, more visceral and fuzzy, meant fewer dancers, though the more committed ones continued, but the meandering, flat jams of the black angels quelled the dancing. it was almost sad.
second up, a place to bury strangers totally stole the show. their visceral show featured swirling and charged visuals, as like the photo. because of the projection, the stage was nearly black for most of the set, until a strobe light from the floor illuminated everything. aptbs's set, for me, was an package experience; totally unfamiliar with anything about them, i was very happily a blank slate for their show. aided by the indistinct visuals (nothing identifiable like peoples or shapes), their churning, gloriously heavy rock turned into a circle of sound, marked by crescendos and decrescendos. i saw and heard guitarist oliver ackermann singing, but it blended in with the music in the haze of distortion, 
and the whole experience was almost out-of-body - the most successful noise rock experience i've ever had. unfortunately, after a while, the deafening loudness canceled itself out, but their show was great up until the very end. the last eight or ten minutes of their set, accompanied by the strobe lights, aptbs embarked on a epic metal jam, during which i kind of lost interest in the music, so i watched the drummer. jono MOFO, the drummer, is fucking crazy. he could easily pass as andre the giant's midget brother, still towering over his bandmates, furiously and happily beating the shit out of his drumkit. he was awesome.
the whole time the black angels played, i couldn't figure out whether they had the worst stage presence ever, or whether they were trying to up their mystique. i don't know if they expected to smell more acrid smoke than they did, or were attempting to live up to their motto "turn on, tune in, drone out," except with more droning. though their music was less psychedelic and more plodding, the black angels tried to time travel by playing stock vietnam footage from 1972 and projection pseudo-trippy images. 
it made me wonder whether bands are creating visuals so they don't have to have a stage presence. needless to say, the black angels have clearly chosen that route.
much of passover's attraction was in the lyrics of singer alex maas - fervently anti-war and reactionary, they provided a verbal foundation for the drones of the band. however, maas bumped up the reverb on the mic up to "indistinguishable," so that nearly everything he sang was just a haze of sound. lacking even the most basic physical connection to their sound, the black angels stood on the stage, moving only occasionally. playing with a blunt intensity yet obvious ambivalence, the black angels lack anything that passes as a "show." unwilling to watch the band, i stared at the projection and listened to the music, which also turned out to be a mistake. maybe i had just never noticed it before, but the black angels were really aimless. flat jams appealed to neither the neo-psychedelics nor the metal fans, and were overwhelmingly unsatisfying. the black angels droned to their hearts' content - good for them, bad for us.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
awesome song day! - "ship the majestic suffix"
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.
autumn is a terrific season
i love new york, but it's no place to enjoy autumn, which is a major bummer, because it's my favorite season, and a terrific one, and this rambling introduction is brought to you by these are powers, because it was their terrific seasons that prompted me into writing this post.
i've been working on staten island lately, and my call went very late tonight, so i didn't get home until nearly 4 am. i napped on the ferry (sleeping through half of begin to hope), but didn't want to sleep through a 1 train, so i started thinking about all the shit i need to review. i've got the black angels show from wednesday, the mount eerie show from thursday, i've been preparing my full all hour cymbals review - suffice to say, it was enough to keep me awake. and as i sketched out some ideas for the yeasayer post, "no need to worry" on repeat on my headphones, i gradually woke up. so by the time i get home at 4, i know i'm gonna a little too mentally jazzed to collapse into bed. so what did i find on my desk? terrific seasons, you guessed it!
you will remember these are powers as the thermals' opener at warsaw last week - i really enjoyed their frenetic sound, which i've since learned is referred to as "ghost punk." honestly, it sounds better than "neo-psychedelic sludge rock," which is how i heard the black angels described the other day, though i'm at a total loss as to what it means. anyway, i got in contact with the band, who offered to send me a review copy of terrific seasons, an offer i readily accepted, despite my claim that it was "probably not something i could stand in my headphones for more than 90 seconds." also, who doesn't love packages?
though not unexpected, it was amazing to find the album when i did. i'm going on 24 hours without sleep, and finding a package cheered me up (and woke me up). intrigued by their cover art and best label name ever (more on that in a moment), i popped the cd in and waited. my expectations of them were already shaped by their live show (and the video of "you come with nothing" that i took), and what i expected to come out of the speakers didn't, not in the slightest.
aside: interestingly/disappointingly, the label that these are powers claims to have released terrific seasons on could possibly not exist. in two places, the inside cover and the cd itself, these are powers credit the album to pre teens of the himalayas (i am not lying. i couldn't make up something that good.). click the link. okay, you get the problem? what if pre teens of the himalayas doesnt' exist? these are powers, i hope you're not fucking with me. the back cover of the album credits hoss records, as does their myspace (and hoss records themselves), so you lead me to conclude you are fucking with me. no joke, i did a doubletake and laughed out loud, in my empty house at 4.30 am. i hope pre teens of the himalayas are real.
at the drive-in (lots!)
sleater-kinney
fugazi
old school sonic youth
since these are powers' bassist used to play with liars, maybe they sound like liars? i never got into them, so i don't know...
anyway, tons of great stuff.
so, i'm really tired now, and you'll have to entertain yourself with these two mp3s below. these are powers play death by audio in two weeks with clipd beaks. there's a bitching poster on their myspace.
