Brief Hiatus

Sorry about the lack of posts recently, I've been knee-deep in my own crazy business. Please forgive me in advance for not posting anything here until April 26, at the earliest.

In my absence, please know that these records are awesome and deserve your immediate attention:

Fang Island - Fang Island
Caribou - Swim
Dum Dum Girls - I Will Be
LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening
MGMT - Congratulations (I know, I know, after all my shitting on them! It's not perfect, but it has definite merits*)

And as soon as it comes out, you absolutely have to check out Shad's new LP, TSOL. I haven't heard the whole thing yet, but if it's all like what's below, we're all in for a treat.



* merits = "It's Working," "Song For Dan Treacy," "Siberian Breaks."

NXNE Announces Initial Line-Up featuring Iggy and the Stooges, De La Soul, Les Savy Fav, Surfer Blood, and more!

Now that all that SXSW hullabaloo is behind us, it's nice that we still have a couple of big, juicy festivals to sink our teeth into. For some, that's Coachella, others it's Lolla, but for Torontonians, it's NX-fuckin'-NE.

Just this morning, NXNE announced an initial line-up that included just thirteen acts to play at this year's festival, and already, things are getting pretty exciting.

First up? An appearance by none other than Iggy and the Stooges at Yonge-Dundas Square on June 19 for.....free! Not to mention a show the night before, same venue, by Canadian indie icons Sloan.

Also announced? American first-wave punk-rockers X, De La Soul, Les Savy Fav, Japandroids, Cold Cave, Kid Sister, Wavves, Surfer Blood and Thee Oh Sees.

Of course, De La will near the top of my to-see pile, but Les Savy Fav and Surfer Blood are two bands that should put on shows worth seeing. Les Savy Fav are notoriously excellent and enthusiastic performers, and Surfer Blood, in case you haven't heard them, created one of Pitchfork's early 2010 Best New Music'd albums. I don't usually fall for PFork's shenanigans, but Surfer Blood are pretty dang enjoyable, if you're into that high-energy lo-fi sound.

I've embedded their single "Swim" below, so that I may see you, yes you, at the show. Just try not to pump a fist to this kind of triumph.

Wolf Parade live in Toronto, April 7

I went to see Montreal howl-pop outfit Wolf Parade at the Phoenix last Wednesday, and they were fantastic. They played a heap of new songs from their upcoming LP, Expo 86, and it's only made me more excited for its release June. Watch the performance of new song "Fast Ballad" above, and read a great review of the show below.

From Exclaim!:
"We're called Wolf Parade. Thanks for having us," Dan Boeckner modestly quipped, as if every person in the sold-out Phoenix wasn't there solely to see the Montreal quartet play their first Toronto show in nearly two years. With just a couple months left until the release of their highly anticipated third LP Expo 86, fans were expecting at least a taste of the new album, but they got a heaping bowlful instead: new songs made up nearly half the set list, while the gaps were filled with fan favourites from the band's back catalogue.

The show kicked off with the triumphant stomp of "You Are a Runner and I Am My Father's Son" and "Soldier's Grin," the opening tracks from Wolf Parade's 2005 debut Apologies to the Queen Mary and 2008 follow-up At Mount Zoomer, respectively. The former album was favoured a little more during the show, with classics like "This Heart's On Fire," "Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts" and crowd favourite "I'll Believe In Anything" making up a large portion of the set, compared to the mere four songs — including the fantastic, frenetic cascade of "California Dreamer" — from the latter.

There was no shortage of good vibes going around, either: Wolf Parade's new tracks reflected, in their synth-centric lightheartedness, a move further away from the fieriness of their debut and towards a sunnier sound that grooves where the band used to lurch. A mid-set phone call during which the crowd sang to co-front-man Spencer Krug's mother on her birthday only aided the band's joyous momentum.

"Thank you to We Are Wolves," Krug said as they launched into the final song of the night — referring the opening trio's blistering 40-minute set of rhythm and thrash — "and thank you," he offered to the fans, "for humouring us as we tested out our new songs."

Any time, Wolf Parade, any time.

Shad preps new album, TSOL, releases teaser for first single

In case you were never acquainted, Shad is the quick-witted, sharp-tongued MC from London, Ontario whose career began in 2005 when he used a $17,500 prize from a radio rapping contest to fund his debut album. In 2007, he released the very-good-but-not-amazing, Polaris Prize-shortlisted The Old Prince, which, on album cuts like “Brother (Watching)” and “Compromise,” demonstrated the heaps of potential Shadrach Kabango had for future albums.

So, it’s no stretch to expect something great from Shad this time around. He’s confirmed the release of his third LP for May 25, and he’s calling it TSOL, which apparently has nothing to do with the band of the same name. The band's acronym stood for "True Sounds Of Liberty".

No leaks of any kind yet, save for this 24-second teaser video for the first street single “Yaa I Get It” which, I gotta say, has me pretty jazzed about the album. I know, it’s only 24 second, but damn!

Below is the tracklisting, and below that, the teaser video. That’s the album cover above.

TSOL:
1. Intro
2. Rose Garden
3. Keep Shining
4. Lucky 1's
5. A Good Name
6. We Are The Ones (Reservoir Poetry)
7. Telephone
8. Call Waiting (Interlude)
9. Yaa I Get It
10. Listen
11. At The Same Time
12. We, Myself, and I
13. Outro

Amon Tobin + Eskmo = Eskamon, "Fine Objects"

"Excuse me, can I get a new hip-hop? Mine's broken."

This song is amazing. I hope that if there is an album, it's this good.

Even M.I.A., Santigold, Sia, Tricky Stewart, Le Tigre, Hill & Switch, and Ladytron couldn't make Christina Aguilera listenable

Whether you condone it or not, the blogosphere got just a little nutty after hearing news that former genie in a bottle Christina Aguilera's next LP, Bionic, was slated to feature the likes of M.I.A., Santigold, Sia, Tricky Stewart, Le Tigre, Hill & Switch, and Ladytron. With that single newsworthy tidbit, the internet seemed to pose the question collectively: "Could Aguilera be concocting something of real listening value?"

On her website, Aguilera stated “working on this album with so many talented artists and producers that I admire was really an amazing experience. The artists I chose to work with added so many unique sonic layers to Bionic."

And so it was that we all waited skeptically for first single "Not Myself Tonight" to drop.

"My intention," Aguilera claimed of working with her guests, "was to step into their world and what they do combined with my own vision and sound. The results were magic.”

Not true, unless Aguilera's idea of "magic" is a trite sing-spoken intro and her trademark vocal theatrics over a tinny, skittery faux-Timbaland beat. The lyrics say something trite about being in a club, and - in a weak attempt to sound controversial - that she's "kissin on the boys and the girls." At least Katy Perry made it sound sordid by describing the kiss' taste; all Christina can manage after the deed is to guiltily swear at us: "I'm feelin' brand new, and if you don't like it, fuck you."

If you're still curious to hear the insipid "Not Myself Tonight," click the video below.

April Fool's Day is garbage for news-writers

Yesterday was April Fool's Day, and let me tell, if no picnic if you write news about something as based on hearsay and industry rumour as music is.

Last Thursday, March 25, Toronto hardcore experimentalists Fucked Up wrote a stirring essay about the relationship between SXSW and bands, and how the music industry is spending more on product placement than on artists themselves. The whole essay is here on the band's "Looking for Gold" blog, and it's definitely worth a read.

In it, the band trashed their SXSW showcase sponsor Thriller Energy Drinks, calling their product "vile" and finishing by stating, “we can say with force that Thriller Energy Drinks is a bullshit company and we won't be working with them ever again.”

So yesterday, when the band announced they were being sued by the Drink company, it seemed to make sense. Hell, even the Village Voice was corroborating, and their label, Matador, posted the fucking legal document, or so it seemed.

Then, after getting both NME and Exclaim! to report it and best of all, Muchmusic to put it on television, the band posted this, the important part of which you can read below:

"Hey, so the whole lawsuit thing was real. I mean fake. It was fake. No one is suing us. It was a really elaborate April Fool's joke we thought up like maybe 48 hours ago. Thanks to Bob Shedd for helping us find a place to host the website, and Aaron Campbell for doing all the programming. Thanks to the Village Voice for being cool and basically becoming out blog-bff over the last few days. Special thanks to Much Music for putting us on TV to talk about it and all the blogs and news websites (you know who you are) who fell for it. Also thanks to the almost 400 people who signed up to the facebook group to support us and the people that wrote complaints to Thriller."

Then the band claims that the whole thing, including the initial SXSW post, was just marketing for their own flavours of Thriller energy drinks, which they obviously made up in the first place. Fucker! Look at all their stupid products here, which, if people had bothered to shop, would have exposed the prank.

Then, after writing up this prank news, I also wasted half an hour writing that at an Aberdeen, Washington garage sale, demo tapes were found of Kurt Cobain performing when he was just 9 years old. I realized the news was fake and stopped writing when I got to the part about the 9 year old penning a song with the title "Nixon Must Die (Or Resign)."

So, good job to all you amusing bastards out there who grabbed people's attention and got them worked up about stuff that never happened. There's a pretty solid list of them here.

Talib Kweli and Hi-Tek finally make Revolutions Per Second

Talib Kweli's second-most highly anticipated reunion (c'mon Black Star!) has been a long-time coming, but after more than a year of hints, leaks, and suggestions, it appears as though Reflection Eternal is back, and they've brought a brand new full-length LP with them.

The album is titled Revolutions Per Second, and is due May 18 from Kweli's own Blacksmith label and Warner music. Though "Just Begun" - which features the fantastic underground MC/beat-maker Jay Electronica, Mos Def and J. Cole - has already been leaked, it appears that the first single is "Strangers (Paranoid)" with UGK member Bun B. The album's tracklist is below and the video for "Strangers" is above.

Revolutions Per Second:
1. “RPM's”
2. “Back Again” (f. Res)
3. “City Playgrounds”
4. “Strangers (Paranoid)” (f. Bun B)
5. “In This World”
6. “Got Work (Fame)”
7. “Midnight Hour” (f. Estelle)
8. “In the Red”
9. “Liftin’ Off”
10. “Black Gold Intro (The Black Gold Countdown)”
11. “Ballad of the Black Gold”
12. “Just Begun” (f. Jay Electronica, J. Cole and Mos Def)
13. “Long Hot Summer”
14. “Get Loose” (f. Chester French)
15. “So Good”
16. “Ends” (f. Bilal)
17. “Outro”

Erykah Badu - New Amerykah Part Two (Return Of The Ankh)... 59/100

Am I the only person on Earth who doesn't like Erykah Badu? It often feels like I am, which is hard for me to understand - she's easily one of the most overrated neo-soul singers around. Her voice lacks the soul of Sharon Jones, the character of Macy Gray and the power of Alicia Keys, but more importantly, she's never come close to matching the hype surrounding her talent and eccentricity. There's nothing particularly interesting or challenging about her music, which often hovers around a slow-to-mid tempo that quickly gets dull, especially if you're trying to plow through an entire album.

And yet, I want to believe, so here I am listening to New Amerykah Part Two (Return Of The Ankh), trying to glean some enjoyment from Badu's latest creation.

But those who, like me, hoped the music might match the wild beauty and colourful intrigue of her album cover will be sorely disappointed: Return of the Ankh is yet another sprawling yawner. It's not nearly terrible, but it never verges on exciting, either. Badu is most exciting when she's spontaneous, which rarely happens here, and at her worst when she drags a single idea through mud for more than five minutes. "Love" and "Fall In Love (Your Funeral)" are both exasperatingly long and yield little reward after a six-minute slog.

Elsewhere, the album feels equally long-winded, even when the songs are short. “You Loving Me (Session)” feels half-baked and frivolous, while “Agitation” starts promisingly and quickly loses its momentum.

It wouldn't be so bad if the rest of the album was twisting and turning, but between its length, its middling tempo and its monotony, New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh) is a long, hard road.

Back to the drawing board, Erykah.

The Morning After: Spoon Live in Toronto, March 29, 2010

Sometimes shows you decide to attend last minute turn out to be among the best. Such was the case when last minute, a friend and I grabbed tickets off of Craigslist and headed to (ugh) the Sound Academy. We missed opener Strange Boys (meh) and supporters Deerhunter (dang!), but arrived ten minutes ahead of the mighty Spoon, who may have played the greatest Spoon setlist of all time.

Anyone familiar with Spoon knows that there isn't a dud song in their catalog, but boy, did Britt Daniel and co. ever play to their strengths. The band pulled heavily from Gimme Fiction and Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, playing more songs from each of those albums than from their latest LP, Transference.

Included in the set were my personal favourites "Stay Don't Go," "Rhythm and Soul," "Monsieur Valentine," and "Don't Make Me A Target," and "The Ghost of You Lingers," complete with an epic, crashing-drum finale. Hell, they even played "Everything Hits At Once," a rare but excellent number from their underrated 2001 LP Girls Can Tell.

At the top of the screen, I've embedded a video of the stellar "Black Like Me" from the show. The sound isn't all there, but you can still feel the excitement exuding from the band, not to mention the crowd. And, in case you never got around to hearing Girls Can Tell, you can listen to "Everything Hits At Once" just below. Note the way the drums roll so easily into the groove.



What a stunner:

Nobody Gets Me But You
The Way We Get By
Got Nuffin
The Beast and Dragon, Adored
Me and the Bean
The Ghost of You Lingers
Stay Don't Go
Rhythm & Soul
Everything Hits At Once
Trouble Comes Running
Written In Reverse
I Could See the Dude
Don't Make Me A Target
They Never Got You
I Summon You
Who Makes Your Money
Don't You Evah
Small Stakes
My Mathematical Mind

Encore:
Black Like Me
Is Love Forever?
You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb
The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine
The Underdog

Introducing: Fang Island

So, there's this tracking/analytics website called Next Big Sound, and they offer a service for bands where they track every time a band is mentioned/linked to/shared/etc on the web and translate it into statistics so that the band can analyze where their internet presence is working and where it isn't.

Prefix reported earlier this week on the bands that experienced the biggest boom in popularity following this year's SXSW Festival, and the results are pretty interesting. Epic sad-sacks Antlers picked up a bunch of fans, which is nice, since their 2009 album Hospice went criminally unappreciated despite heaps of critical acclaim. Wu-Tang Clan member GZA also picked up a wad of fans, which is kind of weird, but so did a pretty great band called Phantogram, whose myspace is here, in case you'd care to take a listen.

Experiencing the biggest post-SXSW buzz, however, was a band by the name of Fang Island. The band's myspace claims they sound like "everyone high-fiving everyone," and I gotta say, it's pretty on the money. On their debut, self-titled album, the band stomps around energetically for half an hour, usually with the aid of sky-reaching group vocals and jerky, uptempo rhythms. Fang Island is fuzzed out, but they aren't hiding behind their production value - I think the sound quality here is really all the band could afford at the time. Some of the album comes across as just a little novel, but by and large, the band's energy and interlocking guitars are enough to entertain.

Fang Island are worth keeping an eye on, but they're nothing spectacular as of yet. Kudos to the hype machine this time around for showing a little restraint - I'm digging the band, but too much Fang Island would be overwhelming.

...Oh, you'd like to hear a song, would you? I'll do you one better:

Music Critic Bingo!

I found these gems today at Flavorwire, and they're pretty hilarious.

Why not grab two friends, take a stroll through my reviews, and see who wins? Or head on over to Pitchfork and see who wins...faster.

High Places - High Places vs. Mankind... 70/100

I hate to give in to the cliche, but here goes: their first album was better.

I first heard of Brooklyn duo High Places in January, when I checked out their debut, self-titled album and their follow-up full-length, 03-07 - 09/07, a compilation of their singles released during the titular time period prior to their debut. Their music was meandering and ramshackle, but therein lied a certain mesmerizing charm. Mary Pearson’s flange-y warble provided the perfect voice for Rob Barber’s rhythmic clatter, which sounded as though a number of tin cans were being fed through AM crackle, and his accompanying synth minimalism, which gave the whole complex mess an alluring, atmospheric quality. High Places was fantastic because it succeeded by sounding so effortless, and because it lured the listener in again and again until Pearson’s subtly sweet melodies finally stuck. Then, you were trapped.

High Places vs. Mankind finds the band trading in their trash-can aesthetic for straightforward, dreamy pop, which is fine, but nothing astounding. The duo sound subdued, as though some thoughtless human being told Barber that his recordings sounded too cluttered and complex, and Pearson that her voice needed to be sweeter, her melodies more obvious, and the song structures more traditional. The album still stands, because hell, there’s nothing wrong with dreamy, synth-y pop songs, but the whole thing verges on the side of boring, which is unfortunate. Album highlights “The Longest Shadow” and “On a Hill in a Bed on a Road in a House” are worth hearing, but by and large, this is a “background” album that hardly rewards repeated or concentrated listening.

If you’re looking to spend some real time in dreamland, but want to stay awake, you might be best to forgo Mankind for now and head for High Places instead.

New Song: Jonsi - "Go Do"

I had the pleasure of speaking with Jonsi, the singer of Icelandic band Sigur Ros, last Friday, and he's probably the nicest interview I've ever had.

Sigur Ros started making music that was very pensive and sombre, but by the time 2008's Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust came out, they had begun to let loose, creating bounding, sometimes even joyous music.

Jonsi's solo effort Go, which comes out April 6, is a continuation of that joyous sound, but the best track is "Tornado," a grandiose song punctuated by staccato piano and swirling atmosphere.

For your listening pleasure, I've embedded the leaked track below:

New New Pornographers - "Crash Years" "Your Hands (Together)"

May is going to be a wild month. The likes of Broken Social Scene, the Hold Steady, Sharon Jones, the National, Foals, LCD Soundsystem and Band of Horses all have albums coming out between the 1st and 31st, but none of them get my endorphins a-flowin' like the news and accompanying single of the New Pornographers' Together (due May 4 from Matador). For a reason I can't put my finger on, I just feel like this will be an important and thoroughly satisfying album.

Maybe it's the fantastic first single, "Your Hands (Together)." Or the fact that St. Vincent's Annie Clark, Okkervil River's Will Sheff, Beirut's Zach Condon and Sharon Jones' Horn Players are all confirmed album guests.

Either way, here is that fantastic song. I know it's late; I rather wanted to post the song "The Crash Years," which was released earlier today, but apparently iTunes is only offering it to Americans at this point.

Since, you know, the band are as American as G.I. Joe and Apple Pie.

OR NOT.

You lucky Americans can apparently buy the song here. Everybody else will just have to wait.

Too twee for me: Zooey Deschanel

I heard the new She & Him album for the first time tonight. No big surprise there: another album of fey twee-pop that would be bland as plain toast were it not slathered with so much of Zooey Deschanel's gooey, over-the-top-cutesiness that it hurts your teeth.

It's not Deschanel's voice that offends me so, although it far from impresses. It's the sense that she spends her entire life playing the lead in "Zooey: the girl so perfectly marketed to an 'indie' audience and so concerned with her twee image that when she finally farted for the first time in her entire life, an explosion of teacups, literary references, Belle, and Sebastian destroyed an entire state". Everything Deschanel does just feels so calculated: the band references, the role choices, the album artwork. It's all part of an elaborate character construction that, by taking itself so seriously, epitomizes the oft-percieved shallowness and pretentiousness of "indie" culture.

In an interview with Exclaim! in 2008, Deschanel answered the following questions posed to her and M. Ward thusly:

What’s your idea of a perfect Sunday?
She: Wake up early. Bake cookies and play piano. Take a walk where I hopefully see lots of cute dogs. Eat spaghetti squash. Watch a documentary.
Him: Rest.

How do you spoil yourself?
She: A New Yorker magazine and a bag of peanuts with shells. I'm a simple girl.
Him: Soy mochas.

You know what Ward answered to the first question? Rest. Rest! He would rest! That's reasonable, of course - wouldn't you? Or would you stack your day so high with idyllic, childlike activities that it made you seem hip, quirky and eerily unspoiled by real life interaction? She can't just say "peanuts," either, in response to the latter question. Deschanel has to mention that they're in the shell, otherwise, we wouldn't know that she was so cutely idiosyncratic.

And in case you still haven't seen it, here's the latest She & Him music video below. How is it different from Britney Spears' "Hit Me Baby One More Time"? Deschanel's wearing tights, and Britney Spears has never name-dropped the New Yorker.

Joanna Newsom live in Toronto, March 13

For many, (present company included) Joanna Newsom's idiosyncratic voice has always been a stumbling block between the listener and her meticulously crafted music. Have One on Me (which I reviewed, by disc, here, here and here) will forever mark the moment that Newsom went from cutesy folk darling to full-blown musical maestro, and despite throwing accolades all over the album, I still underrated it. Have One on Me is Newsom's opus, a brilliant master-stroke that perfectly balances Newsom's knack for arrangement with her Kate Bush/Joni Mitchell folkiness. Her voice is dynamic and stirring, her strict pronunciation of each vocal syllable reflecting the precision with which she plucks her harp.

Newsom's concert last Saturday (March 13) at Toronto's Phoenix Nightclub was over far too soon, and was beyond worth the hour I spent in six-degree, torrential rain. The man beside me had pretty fancy equipment set out all around, so I had an inkling this was coming: high-quality video versions of nearly the entire show. Please watch her encore song "Baby Birch" below from front to back, so as not to miss the stirring ending or the triumphant crash of entering drums at 5:45.



In case you missed it, you might also want to check out Newsom's performance of "Soft as Chalk" on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Don't worry, he only talks for ten seconds.

Titus Andronicus - The Monitor... 83/100

Reining in youthful angst and passion can be difficult. Luckily for us, Titus Andronicus’ seem to know this, and thanks to their multi-genred approach and ability to self-edit, their sophomore effort, The Monitor, is a stunning success.

Centred around the theme of the American Civil War, the album is suitably grieving, angry and confused, but like well-trained soldiers, the band never lose the plot: they are out to make an album here, and by ensuring its emotional connection through short, effective snippets of Civil War-related recordings, and its flow by crafting multi-layered, restless epics that cover all the emotional territory one might associate with the Civil War, they’ve done a shockingly good job.

The Monitor is equal parts punk, shoegaze and country, and by infusing these genres with the added shambolic grace of indie rock and the lamenting stumble of the blues, Titus Andronicus evoke a stirring mental portrait of life as a civil war soldier. Album cuts like the harmonica-featuring, group vocals-aided “Four Score and Seven” and the album’s best track, blistering-guitar opener “A More Perfect Union” are lengthy (7-8 minutes apiece), but not excessive, making for an album that takes the listener the full journey without exhausting them.

The only stray shot on the album is fourteen-minute closer “The Battle Of Hampton Roads,” not because it’s not a quality song, but that the album feels complete without it. Its gigantic, bagpipe-laden ending alone makes the track worthy of listening to, but, at nearly fifteen minutes, the track could have, and really should have, been its own EP.

Still, Titus Andronicus’ The Monitor is an overwhelming success that should strike chords with a wide range of independent music listeners without the band sacrificing an ounce of their edginess or commitment to making music that’s as affective as it is adventurous.

Holy Fuck! A New Song!

Toronto psychetronic (not a real word) band Holy Fuck is on the verge of releasing their third LP, titled Latin.

The disc reportedly has quite the line-up of modern producers: Girls Against Boys' Eli Janney, Dave Sardy (Black Mountain, Johnny Cash), Paul "Phones" Epworth (Bloc Party) and Broken Social Scene producer Dave Newfeld are just some of the names. The new single, "Latin America," was released to weird-ass chat site Chatroulette last Friday, but you had to risk seeing guys touching themselves on camera, since the site has no search function and randomly hands you out, via webcam, to strangers.

Now, you can hear the song, sans jerking-hermit, below. It's pretty face-melting, so you might want to wear goggles of something:

Liars - Sisterworld... 73/100

Five albums in, and despite enjoying the occasional foray into their discography, everybody’s favourite New York dance-thrash-art-punk outfit Liars still don’t make me want to scream out loud. What is it about Sisterworld that keeps me from finally falling arse-over-tea-kettle for the band? I sought an answer, and here’s what I found:

1. Liars don’t make particularly good use of their sonic space. They prefer a sparse production sound, and in that kind of spaciousness, one needs to really strongly establish a mood, as they do on album highlights “No Barrier Fun”; otherwise, the song sounds empty. The band are obviously going for an eerie, haunted sound, but cheap production values lend this album (“Drip” and “Drop Dead,” especially) a tinny quality that makes the album listenable where it should be downright captivating.

2. Liars can’t write a memorable melody. I know, I know, this band isn’t supposed to be concerned with melody; they’re all about establishing mood, and expressing anguish and isolation through sonic space. In that case, they should’ve paid more attention to production (see above). Songs like “Here Comes All The People” and “I Still Can See An Outside World” are utterly forgettable.

3. There’s a little too much Radiohead biting going on here. The beginning of “Scissor” (stunning though it is) is just a hint too reminiscent of Hail to the Thief’s “We Suck Young Blood,” layered harmonies, vocal timbre and all. Still not hearing the similarities? At minute 2:53 of “Proud Evolution,” it’s all singer Angus Andrew can do not to sing “This is the Gloaming” by accident.

Don’t get me wrong, Sisterworld is by no means a bad album: at its best, (“No Barrier Fun,” “Scarecrows on a Killer Slant,” “The Overachievers,” and “Goodnight Everything”) Sisterworld is incandescent, especially when Liars get the haunted vibe right. But for every stunner here, there’s a mediocre follow-through, making for an inconsistently great album that leaves the listener just short of satisfied.

Lady Gaga + Beyonce x Quentin Tarantino = "Telephone"

Have you SEEN this? Lady Gaga is the worst actress in the world, but when you're surrounded by so much crazy crap it could cover the walls of a Jack Astor's, it just doesn't matter.

Does Tarantino know about this? Update: he does know about this.

You might wanna full-size this:

Bright Eyes EP being reissued with new songs

Those of you just getting on the Conor Oberst bandwagon think he's a monster of folk, but he hasn't always been that way. He used to be a constantly ruffled, angst-ridden, alcoholic romantic whose songs were punctuated by shrieks and wails that single-handedly lead many to designate his brand of music as emo, despite the obvious influence of the folk balladry of Bob Dylan (was Dylan emo?! - chew on that)

Now that he's all grown up, it's hard to picture Oberst all young and green, so I've included a picture of it (above) and brought with me news that his split 2004 EP with Neva Dinova, One Jug of Wine, Two Vessels, is being reissued by Saddle Creek on March 23. The EP includes four newly-recorded tracks, including this gem, "Happy Accident," which hearkens back to Oberst's middle years in a major way.

For longtime fans, this is vintage Bright Eyes. For new ones, enjoy, and please - go listen to Lifted as soon as you can.

Sunny Day Real Estate announce new album, new D.A. mixtape

Anybody with an open mind knows there's no such thing as a moot genre. In that line of thinking, get ready for some of the greatest emo (that's right, EMO) news this side of Cap'n Jazz reissuing Analphabetapolothology on vinyl: second-wave emo pioneers Sunny Day Real Estate announced last night, via a tweet from some seattle radio DJ who let the cat out of the bag, that they are going into the studio in May to record a fifth studio LP, and their first since breaking up almost a decade ago.

News of the new album comes on the back of the reissuing of the band's two classics, 1994's Diary and 1995's self-titled album, commonly referred to simply as LP2 by Sub Pop in late 2009.

Those who think emo is a total waste of time, something to think about. Have you rightly given emo a chance, or have you shrugged it off based on the fact that Fall Out Boy, Taking Back Sunday and Dashboard Confessional are a load of flaccid babyshit? To do so would be to write off metal based on Metallica's St. Anger, punk based on Blink 182, electronica based on David Guetta, or the entire pop world based on the recorded output of Britney Spears. My point, of course, is that every genre has its share of chaff, and that only with effort can one discover the gems hidden under one's scummy surface.

Ready to accept emo as a genre? Start by listening to Sunny Day Real Estate's "Waffle" below, then check out at least one of the following albums:

Sunny Day Real Estate - Diary
Cap'n Jazz - Burritos, Inspiration Point, Fork Balloon Sports, Cards In The Spokes, Automatic Biographies, Kites, Kung Fu, Trophies, Banana Peels We've Slipped On and Egg Shells We've Tippy Toed Over
Rites of Spring - End on End
Jawbreaker - Dear You
Brand New - The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me
Weezer - Pinkerton... yes, Weezer used to be listenable!

Or, download my 40 minute emo mixtape, maybe emo ain't so bad after all, here.

Then, quit yer bellyachin'.

Gorillaz - Plastic Beach... 95/100

Every ten years, hip-hop has a revelatory moment. In 1980 (okay, late '70s, but quit nitpicking) the term was first coined, the movement began in South Bronx, and the first hip-hop record was released. The genre of hip-hop represented a way in which largely oppressed African-american communities could express themselves musically without having to afford expensive musical instruments, and in this way, was comparable to the punk movement going on around the same time. Hip-hop was a way in which North American culture (via vinyl LPs) could be manipulated to sound entirely different, so that it represented a community that was largely excluded from middle-class popular music culture.

By 1990, records like Criminal Minded, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back and Three Feet High and Rising had turned hip-hop into something more than just entertainment. The former two albums used hip-hop as a political tool to challenge social norms and narrow-mindedness while the latter expanded the genre musically, incorporating multiple genres en route to making what could be called the first conceptual hip-hop album.

By 2000, the genre had stagnated slightly: Gangster rap, which was initially created to voice anger at the inequality of North American society, had become a cheap imitation of itself, and in what would less than a decade later be considered a joke, the genre of rap-rock was trying to marry the two genres to no avail. Only the Soulquarians, a hip-hop collective featuring acts such as the Roots, Mos Def and Common, could be considered revelatory, but despite releasing classics like Things Fall Apart, Black on Both Sides and Like Water for Chocolate, the group’s soul-oriented sound went largely unheeded by the mainstream (long-time soul-hop progenitors Outkast excepted). The genre spent most of the 2000s floundering in the tired gangster posturing of 50 Cent and the faux-artistic hip-hop types associated with Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. music. The 2000s forced us to look outside the mainstream to find challenging hip-hop, which came in the form of artists like MF Doom and hip-hop veterans who operated just outside the mainstream.

What, then, is there to point to as game-changing in the new decade? Maybe nothing concrete yet, but if Gorillaz’ latest, Plastic Beach, is any beacon, this turn of the decade could mark the moment when hip-hop freed itself by finally loosening its idea of what hip-hop means.

Is Plastic Beach a hip-hop album? Hip-hop purists might argue that it’s not: more than half the songs here are either orchestral or electronic soundscapes over which Damon Albarn sing-speaks pretty little melodies. There’s no turntablism and no gangster posturing, but listen closely and you might just hear the most striking omission here of all: there’s no fear. No fear of over-stepping the restrictions and boundaries of hip-hop, no fear about whether the album will sell enough, and no fear about keeping some false tough-guy image intact. Unfettered by the strings and limitations of the hip-hop genre, Albarn and his company of guests (of which a large portion are rappers) may have just created a hip-hop landmark.

Not unlike its sonic predecessor Three Feet High and Rising, Plastic Beach is characterized by creative abandon, a multi-genred approach and a mysterious overlying concept that unites a lengthy track-list.

Given these characteristics, Plastic Beach could easily lose the listener were it not for it’s fastidious attention to cohesion. The opening strains of violin on prologue “Orchestral Intro” slip effortlessly into the ominous Tuba rumble of “Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach,” which acts a bit like the first chapter of a grand novel. This approach to the album's construction works perfectly, mostly due to ever-transmuting nature of the album’s “chapters”: most songs here comprise several different ideas, never resting on one idea for too long, and have beginnings, middles and endings within themselves, as well as working within the album’s greater context. “Empire Ants,” for example, begins inconspicuously enough, with Albarn delivering barely more than a whisper over gently rolling chimes, before a thumping beat replaces the sweeping ambiance and synth stabs push the chimes into the song's background. The Mos Def-featuring “Sweepstakes” is similarly nomadic, beginning with an African-influenced rhythm that becomes suddenly celebratory when the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble enters the fray with latin-infused horn accents.

Plastic Beach’s success can also be attributed generously to the album’s guest-list. All too often, a guest-heavy album sacrifices its own cohesion and vision for watered down, stylized versions of songs the guest might have written in their sleep; on Plastic Beach, Albarn has cast his guests into the perfect roles to suit his purpose and as such, they sound great. Snoop Dogg has never sounded as genuinely vivified on a featuring track as he does on “Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach,” on which he intones the titular phrase perfectly: “Beach!” he emphasizes, as if there’s no better place on Earth. Musical collectives The Lebanese National Orchestra For Oriental Arabic Music and the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble are used sparingly and effectively for emphasis, and the long list of hip-hop contributors all sound on point, especially De La Soul on the single-worthy “Superfast Jellyfish.” Hell, even Lou Reed is used to great effect, his weathered rasp lending “Some Kind of Nature” added poignancy.

But what are the album highlights, you ask? Wish I could tell you, but the thing’s too damn consistent. As a result, there are sure to be grumblings that Plastic Beach is meandering, that it contains no gems like “Feel Good, Inc.” or “Clint Eastwood,” but to assert that is to miss the point of this album: Plastic Beach is a journey, not a destination, and therein lies its importance to hip-hop as a genre.

After all, when was the last time you heard a hip-hop album called a “journey”? In this era of hip-hop, an album is typically a vessel by which a rappers gets their three or four singles out to the public, and the rest is filled with hollow guest performances and interludes. Plastic Beach “maximizes the hip-hop album as art,” to paraphrase the Roots’ 1999 masterpiece Things Fall Apart, and as such, stands as the first to do so in quite a few years. It values artistic achievement over the “dollar bills” and toys with so many different genres that haters will say it doesn’t even qualify as hip-hop. But if that, then what was hip-hop ever? Hip-hop was, from the beginning, based on the manipulation of the recorded music of others and old culture to make culture anew. Is that not exactly what Damon Albarn, with help from some hip-hop mainstays, has done?

Plastic Beach isn’t quite perfect, (its rating, based on quality alone, is 89/100) but its sheer relevance and what it might mean for the future of hip-hop earns it a solid 95 - only time can prove that wrong.

R.I.P. Mark Linkous

As many of you might by now know, Sparklehorse mastermind Mark Linkous has committed suicide. Pitchfork has a collection of artists' reaction to the death here, and you can listen to one of his best songs, in my opinion, below. The song is "Piano Fire" from the 2001 LP It's A Wonderful Life, featuring P.J. Harvey.

R.I.P. Mark Linkous:

Speaking of De La Soul - Toys!

Kidrobot is no stranger to hip hop. In 2007, they dropped a limited Madvillain figure that replicated the figure from the beyond-awesome "All Caps" video. Now, they're dropping these beauties: Posdnuos, Trugoy and Pasemaster Mase in deluxe vinyl. Not the vinyl the boys are used to dropping, but wonderful nonetheless. You can see them at the official Kidrobot site here.

In the meantime, since I mentioned it, why not watch that Madvillain video?

Yeah? Yeah:

Listen: Gorillaz - "Superfast Jellyfish" (f. Gruff Rhys & De La Soul)

The new Gorillaz album, Plastic Beach, drops Tuesday, March 9, in case you didn't know. A full-length review is coming Monday, but for now, get lost in this funk-fest. It features Gruff Rhys (of Super Furry Animals) and De La Soul, who featured on previous Gorillaz track "Feel Good Inc."... and kiiiiiiiillllllllllllllleeeeeeeddddd iiiiiiiittttt.

Speaking of which, where the hell is the new De La record?

Bowie won't scratch Peter Gabriel's back

According to the Guardian, David Bowie has been the only artist to officially declare that they will not cover a Peter Gabriel song for the latter's follow-up to the terrible Scratch My Back.

Why not, you ask?

Your answer:



Kudos to Bowie for being the bigger man, and not seeking revenge for this monstrosity on one of Gabriel's tunes.

Of the artists whose work Gabriel butchered, only the Magnetic Fields and Paul Simon have gotten back to him thus far. The Arcade Fire were supposedly covering "Games Without Frontiers," but it looks like they've dropped out. Thom Yorke has been on and off about the entire thing, and many of the other artists have yet to even comment on the matter.

Jimi Hendrix pens letter to "Little Girl"

That there is correspondence from the late Jimi Hendrix to an object of affection known only as "little girl."

And if that isn't the hand-writing of an artist, what the hell is? There's nary an errant mark on the page, and the "f" in flower looks itself set to burst forth into magnificent bloom.

Thanks to Letters of Note for the heads up!

Those into this might be interested to know also that Hendrix's first post-humous album since 1988, Valleys of Neptune, will be out next Tuesday, March 9.

OK Go's second video for "This Too Shall Pass" might even be better than the first

OK Go might not make the most fascinating music in the world (although Of the Colour of the Blue Sky is certainly their best), but their commitment to making grin-inducing music videos? That is nothing short of spectacular.

Rogue Wave - Permalight... 68/100

I’ve never been able to fully commit myself to liking Rogue Wave, probably because they’ve never been able to commit themselves to a sound or cohesive idea of what the band really is.

On indie record label Sub Pop, the band always sounded just a little too much like label partners the Shins with their softer, folksy tunes and higher-energy, electronically-aided peppy numbers. Now, seems like the band might be making a shot at the majors, care of surfer-cum-troubadour Jack Johnson’s label Brushfire Records.

It’s not all bad, to be honest. In terms of straight-up pop rock, Permalight is quite catchy, if not a hint on the simple side, and is downright perfect to soundtrack, say, your day at the beach. With its upbeat acoustic guitar strums and simple, straight-for-the-throat hooks, it occupies a space in the musical spectrum from which a song can grab your attention without one having to pay it any.

Problem is, once you’re paying attention, the hook is over. Nearly all of the songs on Permalight are centred around the repetition of the same hooks, which make even short, sweet tracks like the two-and-a-half-minute “Per Anger” and the three-minute title track seem much longer than they are.

The album’s only sophistication derives from its clean, spacious production, which gives the band an air of stylishness not dissimilar to that of pep-rock peers Vampire Weekend.

So yeah, Permalight might make for some fun background tunes, but once your friends leave? It’s time to change the disc.

Nice album cover, though...

Frightened Rabbit - The Winter of Mixed Drinks... 64/100

I’m sorry, I just don’t get all the accolades surrounding Glasgow’s Frightened Rabbit. The Winter of Mixed Drinks is tolerably consistent, but what makes this band worthy of the near-universal acclaim it seems to earn?

If you’re wondering what the band sounds like, think Snow Patrol if they cared an iota about making their music interesting. Because yeah, the tumbling melody of “Not Miserable” is cool, and there’s some definite charm to their ramshackle musical nature, but in the case of Frightened Rabbit, it might just be too much about the Scottish accent and not enough about the fact that they really aren’t doing anything thought-provoking.

The Winter of Mixed Drinks is the perfect album for listening to at Starbucks while you sip a latte with an open book and your headphones on waiting for somebody to ask you what you’re listening to that you can say “Frightened Rabbit,” they can look puzzled, and you can say “they’re from Scotland.”

Kapish?

Zeus - Say Us... 54/100

People often use the slang term “vanilla” to describe things that are boring, unadventurous, plain, etc. The problem with the term is that vanilla can be quite a delicious flavour, especially when it’s derived from real vanilla bean for homemade desserts. This being the case, I hesitate to use the word to describe this Toronto quartet’s debut long-player.

I could call it oatmeal, but even then, I’ve eaten some very flavourful oatmeal, so let’s kick it down a notch. What Zeus have created here is akin to a cold bowl of plain oatmeal. I’m not trying to be especially mean; I’m trying to draw a comparison here that conveys just how unoriginal and tired the sound of Say Us is.

The album’s all-over-the-map-ness indicates that Zeus just hasn’t settled on a sound yet. They want to be too many things at once, and they’re doing it in such a heavy-handed way that the whole thing just comes off as derivative. Most of Say Us falls somewhere between the Strokes and Sloan, but Zeus lack both the aloofness of the former and the charm of the latter to make the sound work, not to mention that they have neither of their knack for melody. Incidentally, the cheapest Strokes imitation here is certainly “Kindergarten,” on which singer Mike O’Brien puts on his best Julian Casablancas impression to croon the utterly empty phrase “all I want to do is clap, all I want to do is sing.”

When they aren’t channeling the spirits of their two primary influences, Zeus are ripping off other artists even more thoroughly. “The Renegade” is pure Beck, from the song’s opening guitar drawl through to the meandering guitar solo in the middle - hell, O’Brien even does his damnedest to sound like Beck himself. Elsewhere, “I Know” sounds like an OK Go b-side that just wasn’t catchy enough to make the album.

But in the end, it comes down to this: a good album is either engaging in a way that pushes boundaries and challenges the listener or it forgoes experimentalism for sheer melody and hooks. In some very rare cases, it can do both, but unfortunately for Zeus, it cannot do neither.

Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me [Disc Three]... 79/100

So maybe, now that I’ve been through the entire album, I should offer up some final conclusions about this album.

First, Have One On Me is incredibly consistent; seriously, there isn’t a bad track on the album. It’s a testament to Newsom’s songwriting ability that even the tracks that go longer than they should have a melodic spark that keeps them from ever going stale.

Newsom’s only failure here is to self-edit. Without an overarching concept or theme to tie the three albums together, it seems pointless to have released them all at once. Why not space them out so that listeners could focus their attention on just one at a time? Or, even better, get really critical and pare the songs that are good but not stellar down to a truly amazing double album, or a pair of single ones.

But it’s okay: What Newsom lacks in self-control she makes up for with track sequencing that could only be the work of someone who composes and arranges music. Her skillful hand in the matter ensured not only that none of the three discs was a dud, but that each of the discs was given a beginning, middle, and end. Each disc of Have One On Me works both as a single entity and as part of the greater album, which is important for fans who just don’t have two hours to spend hunkered down with it.

Have One On Me is more a showcase for Newsom’s consistency and immense talent than a superb, insular work of art. It doesn’t quite match the heights hit by previous album Ys, but that’s okay: Newsom has proven that she’s here to stay, and the next album could be her masterstroke.

Overall: 81/100

Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me [Disc Two]... 82/100

Don’t ask me which disc of Joanna Newsom’s fantastic Have One On Me is musically the best; I couldn’t tell you. She’s sequenced her albums in such a way that not only do each of the three discs work as an individual album with a beginning, middle and end, but the standout tracks are so evenly spaced over the three discs that there’s nary an argument to be made which of the three is made up of better songs.

Why then, if the songs themselves are equally rewarding and engaging, does disc two seem to captivate me more than disc one? It could only be the clever track sequencing.

Disc two begins with “On A Good Day,” by far the shortest song to be found Have One On Me, and it works effectively as a short introduction to the disc. The sweet ditty ends too soon, but being that it’s followed by the joyful, horn-aided waltz of “You and Me, Bess,” the listener needn’t fret too long.

The disc’s most seamless transition might be that between “Jackrabbits” and album highlight “Go Long,” who share a similar lyrical theme that the latter picks up from where the former left off. The cascading harp of “Go Long” brings the listener to album-closer “Occident,” whose sombre tone and minor chords truly feel like a farewell, which only serves to further accentuate the disc’s cohesion and perfect sequencing.

Disc two is also the shortest of the three discs, by around nine minutes. That the delicate centrepiece “In California,” whose sparse harp plucks are punctuated by a rolling timpani, is the longest track on disc two speaks to that succinctness. This brevity, like the disc’s opening track, leaves the listener wanting more and thus, might be the most effective of Have One On Me’s three discs.

Just don't call it the best.

Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me [Disc One]... 80/100

Joanna Newsom has come a long way from her days as The Milk-Eyed Mender, when she was known equally for her vocal idiosyncrasies as for her musical brilliance. For many listeners, her voice was a stumbling block that just couldn’t be overcome.

Her 2006 follow-up, Ys, was an epic, orchestrated affair that saw the singer tone down her high-pitched nasality in favour of a more “Bjorkian” timbre. The album was far less divisive and met with near-universal acclaim.

Those looking for another epic are in luck: Have One On Me is a whopping triple album that, at six lengthy songs apiece, is a veritable musical feast that matches the intimacy of Newsom’s first record with the scope of her second.

Disc one is opened by “Easy,” a dramatic song that almost sounds written for the stage with it’s constantly ascending and descending scales and quickly shifting moods. Jabs of flute and horns nearing the end of the track give the track added dramatic flair.

The eleven-minute title track exemplifies Newsom’s knack for keeping the listener ever-intrigued: clever melodic twists, multiple song movements and dynamic, soft-loud vocals ensure that not a minute of the monumental song drags.

Joanna Newsom’s hook is that she imbues her songs with a lingering sense of melodic familiarity while always seeming strikingly unique musically, most notably on the gorgeous tip-toe of disc highlight “’81.” Newsom wears her influences on her sleeve, but never crosses the line between resemblance and plagiarism. On the rollicking first half of the piano-led “Good Intentions Paving Company,” she channels the charm and effervescence of a young Joni Mitchell, while the sombre and melodic “No Provenance” whiffs faintly of Kate Bush, albeit without her synthesized sound.

Of all six tracks here (which average more than seven minutes apiece), only closer “Baby Birch” drags slightly, and it’s only partially salvaged around the six minute mark, when a hand-clap suddenly turns into an enjoyably uptempo, harmonized ending.

On the whole, though, disc one of Have One On Me is a cohesive and consistent affair that sets the plot of the album in motion. And though it could arguably stand as a great album on its own, disc one’s sense of intimacy and spaciousness is best enjoyed as a prelude to the rest of Have One On Me, and incidentally, on headphones.