THE THIRTY BEST RECORDS OF 2008: Part #4

15. Christina Carter - Texas Working Blues (Blackest Rainbow cassette)


Following the recorded output of Charalambides / Christina Carter can be a frustrating business. Anyone who’s seen the Carters live, or heard their best records, will know the extraordinary depths of power and catharsis their music can draw upon. But pick the wrong selection of product off the shelf, and you’d be forgiven for thinking they’re the most pretentious and self-involved musicians who ever walked the earth. For instance, Christina’s ‘official’ release for 2008 – ‘Original Darkness’ on Kranky – seems to me to be an unsatisfying and difficult affair, piecing together disjointed musical fragments and spoken word monotone into a confounding and uncomfortable failed(?) experiment. This micro-label cassette release meanwhile (no I don’t actually own a copy – I copped a sneaky download), is just plain beautiful - one of the most engrossing and satisfying solo Christina joints to date. In contrast to recent stark, brittle outings, the sound here is instantly warm and welcoming – maybe that’s deliberate, to suit the songs, maybe it’s just the fuzzy, analogue cassette factor. Either way, it’s a winner. This is exactly the kind of music I always WANT Christina to make, and those familiar with her work will know the score by now I’m sure; dense, happy spiderwebs of heavily effected, finger-picked electric guitar notes hanging in the air like bright yellow smoke, tracing ghosts of divine melodies that never quite seem to coalesce, whilst sustained vocal syllables cut through like hot knives, comforting and settling, telling you exactly what’s up, even when you can’t make out the words. To say nothing of some of those star-gazing Garcia-esque solos you always assumed Tom was responsible for on the Charalambides records. Blessed with more in the way of form than is often the case, this is fascinating, wholly honest and idiosyncratic songcraft with a strange, non-linear psychedelic desert drift that recalls nothing so much as the testimonies of earlier Texas psyche-blues travellers Cold Sun. I think this would sound amazing whilst stoned; y’know, where you get into that headspace where you’re listening to music, and the spaces between the notes seem to stretch out, becoming more important than the notes themselves..? This is the kind of record that gets you to that stage whilst sober. “I want to use my voice for good, however small the good, in this world of foolish dreams”, Christina sings on ‘Preserve Our Face’, and so under the spell are you by that point, there’s nothing to do but to spit our a slurred, delay pedal “HELL, yeah” from deep within yourself, and slip back down to dig the sunrise, or something.

Mp3>A Blind Eye

14. Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Real Emotional Trash (Matador/Domino)


Back in May, I said:

“Were this not the work of a man with so much history and expectation still hanging over him, we might even be able to appreciate it for what it is. And what it is is an extraordinary, bold and deeply STRANGE concoction of sweet, stoned fuzz and vertiginous audiophile thunder, cross-pollinating full band progressive rock blowouts with more hallucinatory, laugh-out-loud wordplay than ever before, all assembled like some grand architectural folly, with Malkmus’ perfectionist production aesthetic searching the studio console as usual for some manner of rock perfection that is never quite ‘old’, never quite ‘new’, but is certainly pretty oblivious to the social/cultural context of making a record in 2008. The results are meandering and monstrous in equal measure, an hour or so of genuinely multi-faceted, imaginative music that makes perfect, goofy rock n’ roll sense but is at same time completely off the map, answerable to nothing except the inscrutably odd logical-musical pathways of the hallowed Malkmus brain. Previous solo Malk escapades may have paid reference in passing to such comfortingly dusty fetishes as Turkish psych, obscure folk rock and European prog, but it’s only on ‘Real Emotional Trash’ that he’s really dared to step fully out of his own ‘indie’ shadow, putting together the kind of powerhouse band you kinda suspect he’s always wanted to have backing him up (that’s veteran Jicks Joanna Bolme and Mike Clark, with Janet “she-is-so-awesome-we-don’t-even-need-to-bother-pointing-it-out” Weiss taking over on drums of course), and playing a brand of big-in-every-sense, capital letters Rock Music whose central axis veers between CLASSIC on one hand and WEIRD on the other, and proceeds to take no prisoners.
[ … ]
There’s a definite feeling on ‘Real Emotional Trash’ that this time Steve’s got his Orange amp and his boutique fuzz pedals and fingers itching to get busy. His scrabble board keeps on delivering the goods, he’s got a band behind him who could chase Robert Fripp round a labyrinth all day, and he’s gonna fuckin’ JAM, regardless of what anybody wants or expects. And I for one say: bring it on Steve, I can dig it!”

Well, don't know about you, but here at the end of December, he's still got me "dancing like a pitbull, minus the meat".

Mp3>Hopscotch Willie


13. Hotpants Romance – It’s A Heatwave (Happy Happy Birthday To Me)


“You said my lipstick was the best you’ve tasted / c’mon baby let’s get wasted!” Yes! Hotpants Romance are here, and their album - 12 songs in 17 minutes - is nothing less than inspiring in it’s wrecked, Ramonetastic, homemade pop splendour. And they cram a pleasing amount of variety and ideas into that seventeen minutes too; “Shake” and “Blow My Fuse” are the perfect grrl-garage party anthems, like if Thee Headcoatees had shaken off Billy and learned to play their own instruments, whilst “Effing & Jeffing” and “We Used To Meet” lurch more toward shrieking, electrifying noise-punk, and “I Don’t Wanna” is the purest and most touching forty-five seconds of DIY pop yearning you’ll hear this year. It’s always a thrill to hear a band who set enthusiasm at ‘10’, technique and musical know-how at ‘who cares’, and kick your ass into remembering that that’s exactly how it should be. Can’t sing? – just shout! Got a guitar? – whatta you waiting for, hit the fucking thing! And if you’ve got the songs in your head and the awesomeness in your heart that these girls have, you’ll be the best band in town within minutes. Magic. With a fucking ‘k’, if you must.

Mp3>Effing & Jeffing


12. Congregation - s/t (Bronzerat)


This year, Congregation played for a capacity crowd of about twenty people in the really nice vegetarian cafe down the road from my work, and they were very loud and very good. I enjoyed it when a late-working co-worker walked past the front window and stared in with a classic ‘these damn beatniks with their rhythm & blues!’ type expression. Congregation also brought out their first album this year, and it is also very good. It’s got a real professional sounding production job and, whilst my initial instinct would be to want to hear this band in a more garagey live-with-one-mic set up, it works well for them. There’s some big echo, heavy delay and slap-back on the guitar, some overdubs and suchlike, but, most importantly, Victoria’s songs are allowed to stretch out into some darker territory than is communicated by their live show, with a very real sense of vicious depression creeping in between the more raucous r’n’b footstompers; songs such as “Dose Of Hell” and “Never Forgive” deliver as their titles promise.

Reviewing Congregation’s first single, I ventured: “This is some vitally genuine, minimal electric blues right here – not ‘genuine’ in the sense of paying cack-handed homage to some never-existed traffic jam of blues cliché, but genuine in the sense that it’s music with guts and heart, wrought from exactly the elements it needs to hit your own personal spot, wherever you are in time & space, and not or note nor beat more.”

And, after seeing them at 2007’s End Of The Road festival (although probably with memories of a couple of other shows I saw them at in mind too), I got a bit carried away and cranked out the following; “Benjamin Prosser is a shit-hot rhythm/slide guitarist, playing consummate electric blues and boogie that raises the spirits of Bukka White and John Lee Hooker, recalling just how propulsive, spine-chilling and flat-out awesome this sound was before the late-‘60s generation drove it headfirst into formalised, shrieking self-parody. Victoria Yeulet sings sweet, subtle and impossible to ignore, with the commanding authority of an Irma Thomas or a Bessie Smith. A bass drum thump and Victoria’s leg bells bring the mama-heartbeat. Basically, Congregation jam together some of the best elements of some of the best fucking music ever made, and bring it straight back to us, ragged and powerful in a way that never goes out of fashion. ”

I think all of that still basically holds true, so why repeat myself? I think these guys are fucking great, essentially.

Mp3>Hard To Bear


11. Howlin Rain - Magnificent Fiend (Birdman)


Earlier this year, I said:

“Howlin Rain’s less-is-NOT-more restatement of the grandest ‘70s rock truth is a thing of absolute beauty when it comes together, and it’s a shame that the rabidly enthusiastic review I had planned of their ‘Magnificent Fiend’ album ground to a halt upon the realisation that however, well, magnificent the record’s first side may be, the second half sadly loses it’s focus a bit and drifts off into confusion. But on those three hefty tunes that open proceedings – BOY HOWDY, do they ever get it right!

The way than Ethan Miller has grown into a singer is in itself a wonder – from being the babbling, echoplexed drunk nearly ruining all those early Comets On Fire jams a few years ago, he’s now got his tonsils exactly where he wants them, moving effortlessly between a laidback Jerry Garcia croon and a fearless Fogerty bark as the music dictates. And thankfully, in Howlin Rain, that’s exactly what the music dictates. Take all the best bits of early ‘70s ‘Dead and Creedence, add a heroic dose of Blue Oyster Cult’s skyscraping high concept weirdness and a healthy reverence for the dusty, meaty tones of the Hammond and Fender Rhodes, combine with a spirit of positive and reckless invention, as opposed to aimless pastiche, and happy days are here for one and all!

And the lyrics – dear god, the lyrics. Let’s just say that if those of us who value truly extraordinary and inexplicable rock lyrics were to band together and form a club (and perhaps we should), there’d be little doubt that Ethan Miller would be getting our annual grand prize (perhaps the much-coveted B.O.C. medallion?) for this one. The Moorcock-inspired ‘Dancers At The End Of Time’ is pretty cool, but ‘Lord Have Mercy’ takes the biscuit. Whatever headspace Miller inhabits that allows him to belt out stuff like this without fear of ridicule, I want to get there. Lord have mercy indeed.”

So for any aspiring songwriters out there wondering how to do a real proper chorus…

“Mrs. Amelia Underwood,
Carry my heart in your hands!
Jesus will shine on your journey,
Into the Hollow Lands!”

…is how to do a chorus.

I’d pass on Howlin Rain’s advice on the verses too, but it’s still blowin’ my mind too heavily man. Listen and learn.

Mp3>Lord Have Mercy

Labels: album reviews, best of 2008, Charalambides, Christina Carter, Congregation, Hotpants Romance, Howlin' Rain, Stephen Malkmus, The Jicks

PRIMAVERA: Saturday


Times New Viking

Ok, so writing this review of Primavera’s third day has become a bit of an albatross hanging around my writerly neck for some damn reason, leading me toward endless procrastination, despite the fact that there is much to say on the matter, and a ton of other stuff that I want to get on and write about besides, but, ANYWAY, onward!

Saturday’s music actually begins a fair distance away from the main festival, in Barcelona’s Jean Miro park, where Primavera’s organisers have laid on a few extra free afternoon gigs ‘curated’ by Spanish record labels (in this case, the distinctly anglocentric Acuarela). I had a mental image of Jean Miro park being situated on one the idyllic mountainside districts that overlook the city, but sadly it’s actually a pretty functional urban patch o’ grass with a couple of purpose built little concrete performance spaces in the middle – the skies are grey and it’s none too picturesque.

Anyway, when we turn up Darren Hayman is midway through his set of resurrected Hefner favourites, inevitably backed up by a near full compliment of Wave Pictures. Prior to the festival, a friend of mine put forward the view that there was something “just plain sick” (her words, not mine) about the idea of London indie types dragging themselves across Barcelona just to see Darren Hayman busting out some tunes ‘neath a few palm trees, and indeed, whilst I wouldn’t go that far, sitting at a flimsy picnic table enjoying a (very) late breakfast whilst being treated to renditions of ‘Hymn To The Cigarettes’ and ‘Hello Kitten’ is an odd experience to say the least.

Things aren’t looking promising prior to David Thomas Broughton’s set either. Rain is falling and a team of roadies are out in force clearing, unplugging, packing away (the whole stage set up being open to the elements). The stage is soon bare but for a single microphone stand and David’s guitar case, and tarpaulin covers the PA speakers, whilst the audience has thinned out considerably too. It seems to be touch and go whether or not the performance will go ahead, but a man in protective gloves plugs in some mics, and gestures for our man to go ahead. And if there is any current performer capable of pulling triumph out of such a weird performance situation, here he is… come on, Broughton, you can do it. And readers who have experienced DTB’s performances firsthand won’t need to be told that he does indeed do it, and how.

In fact, scarcely two weeks prior to this show, I saw Broughton, looking utterly exhausted, crammed onto a tiny stage under blisteringly hot lights with a drummer and bassist he’d never played with before, confronting an audience of disinterested, vodka-swilling posh kids, and he won the day then, adapting to the situation by dropping the comedy and dragging a startling well of fright and bitterness from the bare bones of his songs amid screeds of improvised noise and rock star posing that eventually had them cheering for a second encore. I imagine taming the grey skies of Barcelona must be a cakewalk compared to that one, and sure enough, after a shaky start, he’s ON, familiar songs, and a few I haven’t heard before, rising majestic as ever amid confused bouts of microphone-clanging, amp-tinkering and phone-throwing, as grim roadies, bewildered passersby and, briefly, an extremely angry-looking old lady in funereal garb, look on impervious from behind the stage. One particularly great moment sees fragments of slick, soft-metal guitar soloing ringing out across the park, apparently from some other, unseen musical performance, and incorporating themselves perfectly into pauses between the drawn-out syllables that comprise the climatic conclusion to ‘The Weight Of My Love’. Toward the end of the set, Broughton traces out the word ‘NATURE’ in the sand in front of the stage, pausing for reflection between each letter, as if he hadn’t yet decided what to write, but thought he’d better follow it through after writing the ‘N’. There’s no encore this time around, and he doesn’t play ‘Another Hole’, but…. y’know, look, I’ve been lucky enough to see this man play about half a dozen times in the past year, and it’s never been less then an astonishing, inspiring experience, so let’s just leave it at that and keep this damn review moving.

Back at the festival proper, Times New Viking are kicking things off to a sparse crowd just after 5pm. Now if you’ll allow me a quick digression, although I’m quite looking forward to seeing TNV, I got issues with them too. I’ve been vaguely meaning to write a bit of a blogpost on the subject of new American bands who seem to be into the idea of releasing unfeasibly shitty sounding records in order, perhaps, to make some kind of contrived point about their authentic, lo-fi rawness. I won’t run down the whole thing here for fear of derailing us completely, but my basic point is:

Times New Viking sound like the kind of band I’d really like – they play short, sharp, noisy, melodic songs with an explosive sense of energy and forward motion that I really dig. But I say ‘sound like’, because on the basis of the LP I have by them, it’s difficult to tell, such is the mess of muffled rehearsal room jams, incomprehensible, distorted vocals and aimless feedback that comprise the majority of it. Now this is an odd argument for me to make, in that I’ve spent the best part of my life listening to demos, bootlegs, home-recorded weirdness and all manner of other distinctly rough recordings and enjoying the hell out of them, but the key there is NECESSITY, as opposed to AFFECTATION, with TNV, Eat Skull and their peers firmly in the latter camp, given the ease with which just about anyone in the Western world can make a serviceable recording of a rock band these days.

I could rant long on the subject, but shall refrain for now. Because, despite the arrogance inherent in submitting an album that sounds about half as good as my band’s one-microphone-in-the-corner rehearsal tapes for mass international distribution, there’s still some kind of kick about Times New Viking’s music that makes me feel really kinda positive about them, even if there are only rare moments in their output where it really comes together. SO, on stage at Primavera: against the odds, Times New Viking seem to be working out a pretty good live approximation of their shitty recorded sound, thanks to a combination of slurred, off-mic vocal yelping, cheap, overdriven equipment, horrible amp settings and hyperactive drumbeats that seem to launch themselves into the fray at random, stopping and starting on a whim with little concern for whether or not anyone else can keep up. Admittedly, one gets the feeling this is far from the best gig they’ve ever played – the band, who’d no doubt kick up a storm playing for free to audience of happy drunks in a garage / house party scenario, seem completely out of their element on a European festival stage, and long gaps necessitated by the guitarist’s chronic string breakage, malfunctioning jack and subsequent inability to stay remotely in tune are pretty cringeworthy for all concerned (although, man, can I ever sympathise).

In between inadvertently essaying the near-autistic lack of communication that can result from the excessive volume and gross apathy of modern day ‘underground rock’ performances though, they do at least manage to bash through their one truly transcendent song, ‘Teenage Lust’ (see below), and a few other good ‘uns, and something at the heart of their high energy / anti-professional approach still chimes with me, although for my money they REALLY need to up their ‘coherent song’ quotient considerably and cut back the ‘chaotic racket’ element if they want to be contenders for our continued attentions.

I think I spent the next hour or so wandering around catching bits of other bands (don’t remember who), before making my way back to the same stage to bag a front row position for what I know in advance is going to be the highlight of my weekend – Silver Jews.

Berman

As with many other listeners I suspect, a true understanding of the genius lurking at the heart of Silver Jews has crept up on me slowly – from loving one song on one album a couple of years ago, I gradually advanced through learning to like the other songs on that album, then getting another album, which I didn’t like at all, until one song kinda grabbed me… and on it goes. But it’s only really over the past three months that the…. obsession? – might as well call it that – with all things Berman has really taken hold for me, after a perfectly timed, random spin of ‘Natural Bridge’ really cemented him for me as one of the only songwriters who can succeed in side-stepping the melodramatic templates of pop narrative and soundtracking the grimmer, less easily expressed ambiguities of life with a depth of wisdom, wit and poetic grandeur that had me practically falling to my knees upon repeated listens, in awe of the fact these songs could even exist. Sounds absurd? – try listening to any 'Jews record (except maybe the sub-par ‘American Water’) across, say, five consecutive days, and tell me I’m wrong. As usual, I probably am wrong, in, like, objective terms, but my conclusions sit right with me, so make of them what you will.

As with all of the music I love the most, it’s extremely difficult to communicate my thoughts on Silver Jews in writing without immediately descending into fanboy superlatives, lengthy lyrical quotations and crude declarations of original genius and artistic primacy that do nobody any favours. But, suffice to say, for the few months culminating in Primavera, it’s been Silver Jews all the way for me – it’s been the only music that makes sense, that can consistently hit home. The fact that they released a brilliant, brilliant new album that ranks amongst their, or anyone else’s, best ever this year probably helps.

So I’m front and centre before the stage fifteen minutes or so before they’re due to go on amid a tightly packed bunch of what I can only assume are other dedicated Jews fans, many of them on their own and busy smoking or staring into space. A woman behind me is carrying on some kind of freaky monologue about drugs and working in a carehome and anal prolapses. I wish she wasn’t.

Maybe it’s just because I’m down at the front with ‘the hardcore’ as it were, but once the band appears, crowd reaction to Silver Jews set seems rapturous throughout. Perhaps it’s a direct expression of appreciation at the sight of a rare, and until recently completely intangible, personage whose cult status and legend of collapse and rebirth proceeds him in the mind of many music fans? Could it be a similar atmosphere taking shape to that engendered when someone like Roky Erickson or Dan Treacy takes the stage – a sort of collective ‘GOOD ON YOU, MAN’, ‘THANKS FOR MAKING IT HERE TO PLAY FOR US’, expressed through applause and whoops a tad more vigorous than that usually afforded yer average middleweight American indie band? Or maybe I’m reading too much into it – maybe people were simply reacting in a wholly natural fashion to the great, great songs, lustily and loudly performed with a rare mixture of professionalism and spirit by the current Silver Jews musicians who, though no doubt exceptional and creative spirits in their own right, play with a hesitancy and sense of purpose that perhaps recalls Brian Wilson’s backing band, or recent line-ups of The Fall. Keeping any hint of personality well hidden, they know their place as builders and masons, laying down blocks just so around the feet of their architect’s vision.

Those who were lucky enough to catch the first ever batch of Silver Jews live engagements a couple of years back happily report a complete transformation in David Berman’s stage presence this time around. By all accounts he has previously seemed distinctly unsure of himself as a live performer, shying from the microphone and struggling to keep up with the tunes on rhythm guitar, but now, perhaps mirroring the overwhelmingly positive feeling of the new album, he seems to have grown to enjoy his role as a roving, instrument-free frontman, sporting a fetching tailored suit (neither rhinestone nor corduroy, fellow lyric-geeks may note) and strutting and posing within the limits of some eccentric set of mannerisms of his own devising, generally owning the stage like some shifty, mid-American Jarvis Cocker. His somewhat theatrical cavorting with his wife Cassie, who shares centre stage on bass, would seem pretty creepy and cloying from most other performers, as he aims particularly swoonsome lyrics from the songs directly at her, circling as if he’s about to make some chivalrous, music hall marriage proposal (It’s hard not to be reminded of “.. I hope I don’t come across as a coyote in your eyes..” from the gorgeous “We Could Be Looking For The Same Thing” on the new record), but Berman has the grace to get away with it, and, having taken us in song through years of wasted promises and oblique misery, why shouldn’t he present his happiness in love to the world without shame, like living proof of battles fought and won?

Inevitably, the soundmix is pretty unsatisfactory from where I’m standing – the guitars are very loud, and Berman’s vocals are drowned out entirely (apparently they were more audible to those further back in the crowd). But that’s ok as, given my recent mainlining of all the records, I can fill the lyrics in myself word for word, as can many of those around me, creating the distinctly weird experience of seeing Berman strut his stuff on stage whilst we, the fans, provide his voice.

Naturally they play the lion’s share of ‘Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea’, and all the ‘hits’ from ‘Tanglewood Numbers’. “Random Rules” and “Smith & Jones Forever” from ‘American Water’ are thrown in, and the sublime ‘Bright Flight’ is represented by a damn-near tearfully triumphant “Tennessee” and, oddly, one of my favourites, “Horseleg Swastikas”, which with it’s brutally perfect ruminations on the state of depression seems a strange choice for the outgoing, upbeat new Jews to revisit. Nothing from ‘Natural Bridge’ gets played, but maybe that’s just as well. Then - “Punks In The Beerlight” – man, could there be a better set-closer, for any band, anywhere, or a stronger sentiment on which to bow out at the end of an artistic work? On record, it seemed to leap out of nowhere - the most heartbreakingly obvious yet utterly unexpected thing for Berman to write after a few years beneath the world’s radar; a lost Springsteen arena anthem for failures everywhere. And finding it’s true home here, about as close to an arena as it’s ever likely to get, crowd participation is unthinking and automatic, and I wonder how many of the no doubt thoughtful, well-heeled, lyric-analysing types around me are able to take the opportunity to call a certain someone in their own lives to mind as they shout along, in riotous conclusion: I always loved you to the max.

So that’s that. I’ve witnessed what I came here to witness, and whatever happens next is just gravy. Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks are about to start though, so it’s going to be some pretty top notch gravy…. and indeed it is, as they proceed to choogle their way gamely through most of the new album, along with a few random selections from the earlier solo-Malkmus discography (‘Loud Cloud Crowd’ and ‘Dark Wave’ and ‘Jenny & The Ess-Dog’ all got an airing I seem to recall). And after settling myself into a “wow, check THAT bit out” instrumental interplay-noting type rock headspace, and remembering not to expect ANYTHING in the way of showmanship, coherent communication or crowd-pleasing antics from Steve, it’s tons of fun, a particular highlight being Janet Weiss’ muscular drumming, given a freer reign here than that allowed in her various other combos, as she drags the band by the shirttails through the odd troughs and furrows of ‘Hopscotch Willie’ and ‘Real Emotional Trash’.

Malkmus

Again though, the set is somewhat marred by the Curse of the Bad Mix, rendering vocals invisible, guitar chords a deafening wash of treble and, in this case, bass that is way, WAY too loud, unleashing shuddering feedback that has me trying to enjoy a few songs with fingers jammed in my ears for protection. I mean, getting deafened at a *Stephen Malkmus* gig would just not be cool, would it?

Mid-set, a confused exchange ensues between Joanna Bolme and the swathes of audience who are gesticulating to her to turn the fuck down. Misunderstanding slightly, she’s all, like, “what?? you think my bass playing is awful? - fuck you!”, and understandably seems quite upset, before bashing into the next song with even more ear-damaging vigour. By the time the audience succeed in getting their point across, a bad atmosphere has already settled, and it’s one that isn’t much helped by Malkmus mumbling about how it’s supposed to be loud and asking different sections of the audience whether they’re also getting too much bass. “Yes” being the general consensus, a *slight* volume adjustment is brokered, but generally things still sound as if an elephant has sat on the mixing board, spoiling what was otherwise an extremely fine hour of music.

We sit out Mission of Burma for some reason, which is a shame, I’ve been getting a bit back into their stuff recently and would have quite liked to see them. As midnight arrives, I troop off to watch Shellac in preference to Dinosaur Jr on the impeccable indie-bore logic that I’ve seen Dinosaur Jr before, but have never seen Shellac. God knows, rewind four or five years and I would have jumped over the moon at the chance to see Shellac; they never seemed to tour back then, and a Peel tape of a live performance was one of my favourite ever angry-boy listens for a while. That said, I can scarcely claim I still have much time for this kind of thing just at the moment. I haven’t stuck on a record by an Albini-led band since god only knows when in fact.

So I don’t know the extent to which I’ve changed, or they’ve changed, or whatever, but despite being enthusiastically received by everybody else in one of most densely packed crowds of the weekend, this whole Shellac business seems a bit of a drag. I seem to remember, on the evidence of my old Peel tape, they used to flail through emotionally-flattening songs like ‘Song Of The Minerals’ with bursts of shattered glass, metallic skronk and lurching, desperate beat-downs, constantly threatening to send the whole mess over the edge into chaos. Here at Primavera in 2008 though, it’s hard to detect much of that spirit. The essential ‘howling, cathartic release’ aspect of their work seems to have been severed somewhere along the way, leaving a lumbering shell of uptight, masculine repression-rock, each song seeming little more than an excuse to grind through Meaty Shellac Riff # 12 for a few minutes, endless variations on ‘My Black Ass’ furrowing brows from here to eternity. ‘Prayer To God’ – obviously their high point as a band by many, many miles – is tossed off without fanfare halfway through, whatever weight it may once have carried reduced to a mere trudge through the tune. Denied their build-up/release safety valve, Shellac just leave us stranded in The Man-Zone; not a place where we can see the good, noble side of man-ness, or – as in Albini’s best work – the bad, unhinged side of man-ness, but just a deathly dull thud of the featureless, functional man-ness that leaves us feeling like clumsy, unfeeling golems, rewiring valve amps, in an airless room, forever.

It’s probably just me though. Wrong atmosphere, wrong period of my life.. etc. Still though, one has to applaud the band’s efforts to overcome the deadening, masculine grind their music can engender by way of some prime ANTICS; Bob Weston calls Scout Niblett on-stage to answer the audience’s questions, then declare that he can’t hear them, and dismisses her – ha ho - and the most interesting part of the set comes during ‘End Of Radio’ – more of a spoken word / performance art piece than a song – wherein Todd Trainer roams the stage with an unmiced snare drum as Albini expounds on it’s acoustic properties and the miraculous nature of it’s electronic amplification. The set concludes with Albini, Weston and friends theatrically dismantling Trainer’s kit piece by piece as he attempts to play a Bonham-esque solo on it, leaving him sitting alone on his drum-stool, waving his sticks in the air until they carry him off too. All this is jolly good fun, and it’s nice of them to put in the effort. But it’s still somewhat akin to discovering that the workmen drilling up the road outside your house have a good sense of humour.

After that I ended up watching most of the Tindersticks set from a distance. I’ve never really been into them, so most of it was spent talking or staring at the ground. They sounded nice in the background, exactly as they have done at so many dinner times at my Mum’s house over the years.

Then some stuff happens. I don’t remember what really. Then the next thing I recall, it’s about 2:30am and I’m forming part of some kind of freaky human snake with various people, weaving toward the centre of the dense crowd watching Animal Collective. Though fairly exhausted and confused by this circumstance, I’m delighted to note that they’re playing ‘Chocolate Girl’, a tune off my favourite album of theirs, ‘Spirit They’ve Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished’ from way back in 2000. Animal Collective have never struck me as the kind of band to revisit old material, or even to throw any recognisable songs at all into their concerts, so this makes me weirdly happy. And indeed, they actually go on to play (‘recreate’ might be a better term) a whole bunch of hits, including the bulk of ‘Strawberry Jam’ and a couple of numbers from Panda Bear’s ‘Person Pitch’. Which is nice.

Animal Collective

I find that, whether live or on record, Animal Collective can be a bit of an all-or-nothing prospect re: enjoyment. Either things go right and you’re ENTRANCED (as I was throughout their gig in Elephant & Castle last year, during which they played ninety solid minutes of glorious, harmonious, utterly unrecognisable racket), or, through no fault of your own, you just can’t hit ‘the zone’ and you’re left unmoved, as I am throughout the Primavera set. That’s cool though. It’s good just to be here witnessing all this stuff. Look - there they are! Three distant, silhouetted figures hunched on stage, rendered both ‘popular’ and ‘influential’ to an extent that still seems utterly absurd according to conventional music-world logic, given the odd and unconventional nature of their music. They’re backed by crazy light set-ups, big screens….. thousands of people apparently getting the hell down to a darkened, static stage, flashing, multi-coloured alien strobes and a bloody-mindedly positive, tidal throb of massed rhythm and wonky melody that sounds like the combined essence of Terry Riley, Lee Perry and Brian Wilson forced through a blender of digital effects patches; undifferentiated, overwhelming, hypnotic, vast and endless, yet still somehow undeniably POP. Go figure. I think this is the kind of set that would appeal to the kind of people who enjoy taking drugs in the middle of big music festivals. What’s not to love, you might well ask. And…. that’s about… all I can think to .. say, .. on the matter… (collapses).

Cut to me begging a lady working behind the near-sold out bar for something, anything alcoholic she can give me for my last two drinks tokens, and getting rewarded with a generous dose of neat whisky in a coca-cola cup for my troubles. God bless ya! Various shades of fairly straight up dance music boom from a couple of stages, accompanying those who feel like making it through the rest of the morning. I don’t. Having been watching live music more or less continuously for over twelve hours, I think I’ve done my duty.

So that was Primavera. It was pretty good fun all in all. I don’t know whether or not I really felt at home with the whole deal, or whether I’d make the effort to go again, but, as my tombstone is likely to eventually read: I sure saw some good bands.

Mp3s >

David Thomas Broughton – The Ever Rotating Sky
Times New Viking – Teenage Lust
Silver Jews – Horseleg Swastikas
Silver Jews – Punks In The Beerlight
Shellac – Song of the Minerals
Animal Collective – Chocolate Girl

Labels: Animal Collective, Darren Hayman, David Thomas Broughton, festivals, live reviews, Primavera, Shellac, Silver Jews, Stephen Malkmus, The Jicks, Times New Viking

Classic Rock Renegades # 1

Ok, forget the promised second half of that previous post – it was going to be a bunch of self-pitying nonsense anyway, and I’m not really feeling it enough to bother writing it, and have forgotten what it was going to consist of anyway really. A good demonstration of why I should never trail forthcoming posts.

Instead, some record reviews! Of the 2008 releases I’ve lent an ear to thus far and enjoyed, one of the running themes seems to be that of bands/people reclaiming the legacy of mainstream ‘70s American rock in all its glorious excess. Nothing new there of course – has there been a time in the past 30 years when at least SOME cool kids weren’t busy digging on Creedence and The ‘Dead for the basic fact that they’re *really good*? - but some of this year’s crop is notable insofar as they seem to be doing something bold and interesting re: turning their post-historic influences into awesome 21st century records, rather than just serving up some more fun retro guitar chuggin’. It would of course take a right fool to try and tie this vague observation into any kind of nonsense zeitgeisty theory about the current musical climate, so unless the Guardian Guide want to pay me to knock out some ill-informed bullshit about beards and floral shirts and the top 5 LPs to get wasted to (highly unlikely), I won’t bother if that’s alright with you.

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks – Real Emotional Trash (Matador/Domino)

Were this not the work of a man with so much history and expectation still hanging over him, we might even be able to appreciate it for what it is. And what it is is an extraordinary, bold and deeply STRANGE concoction of sweet, stoned fuzz and vertiginous audiophile thunder, cross-pollinating full band progressive rock blowouts with more hallucinatory, laugh-out-loud wordplay than ever before, all assembled like some grand architectural folly, with Malkmus’ perfectionist production aesthetic searching the studio console as usual for some manner of rock perfection that is never quite ‘old’, never quite ‘new’, but is certainly pretty oblivious to the social/cultural context of making a record in 2008. The results are meandering and monstrous in equal measure, an hour or so of genuinely multi-faceted, imaginative music that makes perfect, goofy rock n’ roll sense but is at same time completely off the map, answerable to nothing except the inscrutably odd logical-musical pathways of the hallowed Malkmus brain.

Previous solo Malk escapades may have paid reference in passing to such comfortingly dusty fetishes as Turkish psych, obscure folk rock and European prog – which you’d think all the cool kids would have lapped up but apparently not – but it’s only on ‘Real Emotional Trash’ that he’s really dared to step fully out of his own ‘indie’ shadow, putting together the kind of powerhouse band you kinda suspect he’s always wanted to have backing him up (that’s veteran Jicks Joanna Bolme and Mike Clark, with Janet “she-is-so-awesome-we-don’t-even-need-to-bother-pointing-it-out” Weiss taking over on drums of course), and playing a brand of big-in-every-sense, capital letters Rock Music whose central axis veers between CLASSIC on one hand and WEIRD on the other, and proceeds to take no prisoners.

Perhaps this a reaction to some extent to the negative reaction unfairly afforded to 2005’s ‘Face The Truth’, a slightly patchy but ultimately really, really great album on which Steve seemed to be attempting to channel some of his energies back into the more concise DIY pop-craft of earlier days, knocking out at least five or six absolute gems of songs that I’d contest stand up to anything he wrote during the ‘90s. Aside from anything else, it must be very frustrating to him to realise that for this to be readily and loudly acknowledged, all he’d have to do is call up a few of the boys and stick ‘Pavement’ on the front of the CD case, but the party line on solo Malk is cemented, so reaction from indie-world to his fine efforts remains a collective ‘meh’.

I mean, seriously guys, I can understand why all the prog stuff on ‘Pig Lib’ might have been an eye-opener to some, but it seems like the guy can do no right in the eyes of a lot of former fans, which I just don’t get. Spend some quality time with any of these records (just like you probably had to do with ‘Wowee Zowee’ or ‘Brighten The Corners’ back in the day), and you’ll soon remember why there was a time when he could do no wrong.

Anyway, in all likelihood reaction to the last album had nothing whatsoever to do with the direction the new Jicks stuff has taken, but it’s a point I wanted to bring up anyway, cos I really love ‘Face The Truth’ and ‘Pig Lib’ and I’ve still got a chip on my shoulder about how so many people seemed to dismiss them. But nonetheless, there’s a definite feeling on ‘Real Emotional Trash’ that this time Steve’s got his Orange amp and his boutique fuzz pedals and fingers itching to get busy. His scrabble board keeps on delivering the goods, he’s got a band behind him who could chase Robert Fripp round a labyrinth all day, and he’s gonna fuckin’ JAM, regardless of what anybody wants or expects. And I for one say: bring it on Steve, I can dig it!

And boy, does he ever. The opener here, "Dragonfly Pie", sounds almost as if Leslie West reformed Mountain, and asked Steve to stand in on vocals. And that’s majestic, twiddley "Nantucket Sleighride" Mountain too, rather than proto-metal "Mississippi Queen" Mountain. And if you have any idea what I’m talking about, you can consider this review closed and go buy the album – you’ll dig it. A frankly astonishing number entitled "Hopscotch Willie" follows, towing a similarly convoluted musical line as Steve unfolds some sort of grotesque crime caper over the course of seven minutes, ending with a body at the bottom of the cliffs and the titular villain “prancing like a pitbull, minus the meat” as the cops close in amid a head-spinning whirl of repetitive chanting and a cacophony of high-end guitar licks and wonky analogue synth tones. The jury’s still out in my head as to whether all this is good or bad, but truly, I don’t think I’ve heard anything quite like it in my life, and that’s gotta be worth something.

Shorter tunes such as "Out Of Reaches" and "Gardenia" stick to a slightly more palatable off-kilter indie-rock framework, allowing a bit of a breather from the mutant-prog blowouts. The former is the closest thing the album has to offer to a straight, emotional song, although its point is somewhat lost amid the typically OTT arrangements, whilst the latter is incongruously jaunty and concise, sounding rather uncannily like a song The Shins never got around to recording for 'Chutes Too Narrow'. Although I’ve always thought that The Shins sound very much like a conscious attempt at Pavement-lite, so probably best not get started on that whole ‘snake swallowing its own tail’ reverse-influence malarkey.

Brief diversions aside though, it’s time to hold on tight as the relentless cavalcade of bizarro formal left-turns continues, serving to foreground steaming heaps of the kind of bitchin’ lead guitar work that in a slightly different world could well invite the approval of the dad-rock / guitar wank press (ooh - impeccable tone!). Marimba and/or xylophone also seems to feature prominently, record collectors of a certain stripe might like to note, and, as previously mentioned, synths and electric organ are all over the shop too, exploring some squelching, burbling Krautrock-ish terrain that would probably be manna from heaven to many out there who’d never be caught dead looking at a Stephen Malkmus record.

Another thing that helps set ‘Real Emotional Trash’ apart from pop/indie routine is the seemingly deliberate inconsistency of pace and density both across the album and within individual songs, reminiscent of the kind of sprawling post-San Fran Ballroom concert album rock with which I suspect Malkmus shares more than a passing affinity. Many of these songs are pushed across the five/six minute mark by painstakingly arranged passages which initially seem inexplicably dull, serving almost to lure the listener into a false sense of security before the next outbreak of inexplicable musical/lyrical madness hurtles around the bend. The eleven minute title track is a case in point, and probably the song on the album that I’ve returned to most. After a promising start, the band’s focus simply seems to wander off and, after half a dozen listens, I honestly couldn’t tell you a thing about what happens between about minutes two and six. Then, just when your attention’s starting to terminally drift, Weiss picks up the tempo and Malkmus’ litany of geographical/culinary ephemera starts to get a bit more strident – hello, something’s happening here! Then just when you’re getting comfortable with the thundering early-Can style groove the song has become during minutes six to eight, things go completely off-road, launching headfirst into a crazed downhill slalom, with howling pterodactyl guitar lines discordant synths cleaving in from nowhere as Steve yelps “down in Sausalito we had clams for dessert / you spilled chardonnay on your gypsy skirt!”, kicking off several minutes of utterly disorientating, over-stimulated heavy metal (‘70s definition) chaos.

The reviewer at Dusted seems certain that this song is an exploration of the development of Southern Californian culture through the 60s/70s. Or at least, I think he does; I’m not really sure where the guy’s coming from in that review to be honest, but it seems a fair observation. Conversely, Plan B’s review picked up on the prevalence of glossolia and baby-talk chanting on the album (cf: ‘Hopscotch Willie’, ‘Elmo Delmo’) by way of suggesting that these songs are coloured by Steve’s experience of fatherhood. Myself, there’s no way I’d dare to approach most Malkmus songs the way that Fluxblog often does, attempting to relate them back to some core element of the man’s personality/emotions/life, and ‘Real Emotional Trash’ finds the meaning behind his lyrics more barbed and opaque than ever, even whilst his quotient of verbal imagination and creeping black humour has gone through the roof.

Framed around the kind of overtly complex rock manoeuvring that, however enjoyable in its own right, often seems almost autistic in it’s avoidance of emotional engagement with the lyrics, this album could well be a nadir for those who value Malkmus primarily as an empathetic pop songwriter. Admirably accomplished though the album may be, I know from the start there’s nothing here that’s going to slowly rattle my heartstrings the way that "Freeze The Saints" or "Malediction" from ‘Face The Truth’ did, and it would certainly take a braver listener than I to try to decode the intentions of a man who routinely spits out verses like “It’s warm for a witch trial don’t you agree? / cold are the hands that will never touch me / you’ve got the energy of a classic creep / sex vibe for miles and shark eyes asleep”, as much as I may applaud him for sending such inexplicable pronouncements spiralling off into the ether as I stand there doing the housework or scratching my nose or whatever I happen to be up to at the time.

For, much in keeping with the lofty and blunted feeling of the ‘70s rock from which it takes so much inspiration, there’s no way this album is going be anybody’s early morning / late night “I gotta hear that ONE SONG RIGHT NOW” musical pacifier. This disc is strictly for the afternoons – the mundane, emotionally neutral stretches of weekend blank canvas where you can stick on a record from the start to finish, then put on another one (maybe this one) as you clean house or drink tea or think about maybe going to the shops and notice that, oh, actually, it’s gone a bit overcast outside, and hopefully all the rich, fuzzy musical shenanigans piping out the speakers on your portable hi-fi will help your troubles recede and render the mundane kinda cool as it slowly seeps into your head, colouring the atmosphere in pleasing shades of brown and red and purple. And, y’know, that’s a really great thing I think – I really wish I had more time for the kind of calm, groovy music listening that albums like this demand. I’m aware that I use melodramatic songs and howling mad rock n’ roll and jazz as a coping/survival mechanism way, way more than is strictly healthy, and sometimes it’s good to have some engaging & awesome new music like this that I can get down with on that simple, pleasurable music-for-it’s-own-sake middleground.

Or, as a review of the album in the New York Times that I googled up and promptly lost concluded rather more bluntly; "It's like being hit over the head with a deadpan". Yes, not a bedpan or a dustpan - a deadpan. And we wonder why some guys get paid to write about music and some don't... genius in action.

MP3 > >Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks – Baltimore

Labels: album reviews, classic rock, Stephen Malkmus, The Jicks