Well, another week’s worth of posts slipped through my grasp until I could take a minute on the weekend to capture them, this time as I can barely hit the keyboard after smashing rocks and bricks all day yesterday. ONE of these days I’ll get into the rhythm and start dropping these posts in the moment. (Although, thinking about picking the kids up from daycare is almost as good as actually doing so, right?) So here’s what I’d thought about sharing before — if it’s old news and you don’t care anymore, blame the government. Otherwise, enjoy!
Tuesday:
NIN dropped the first song from its upcoming EP, Add Violence (out Friday), and it’s a smoldering five minute gem, with Reznor’s “Closer”-era piano plinking along amidst the swirling typhoon of vocals and strings. It’s immersive and atmospheric, as some of his best stuff tends to be — it actually wouldn’t sound out of place at the end of Downward Spiral, serving the same purpose as “Hurt” did there, giving a cool, bracing pool to sink into after the chaos and flames of the remainder of the album.
This EP is the second in Reznor’s planned trilogy of EPs, this one coming on the heels of last year’s, Not the Actual Events, with the third installment expected soon. The first one had a couple good ones on it, so we’ll see how this one sounds Friday. In the meantime…
Wednesday:
Pitchfork dropped this teaser for the Keys’ frontman Dan Auerbach’s latest side project (yes, this is in addition to his recently released solo album and his other side project The Arcs), a soundtrack to an upcoming graphic novel, Murder Ballads. The graphic novel is apparently about a record company guy who meets a couple blues musicians and then… stuff happens — killing and slow jams, I’m assuming, based on the title.
Will at least be worth a look, though, based on this offering, a track between Auerbach and Louisiana bluesman Robert Finley whose gravely, soulful voice sounds great on the upbeat number. This thing screams being used for the intro to some new TV drama — season three of True Detective maybe? Check it out in the meantime:
Friday:
Last up is the new video from Grizzly Bear and the latest single from its upcoming album, Painted Ruins, due out in August. They’ve released a mixed bag of previous tracks so far, “Four Cypresses,” “Mourning Sound,” and “Three Rings,” but this one is a lovely successor to the tracks on 2012’s excellent Shields (which ranked #3 on my year end list). The video also captures some of the greatest hits of wifey’s and my weekend cosplaying and relaxation, so it’s nice to see that catching on as well. Enjoy!
One of the sole perks of going a week on 2-3 hours of sleep a night thanks to my bodywide conflagration (aside from posting some more here) is catching up on some shows, albeit through the bleary eyed fog of 3am. Thanks to last night’s episode I polished off the 4-part HBO documentary, The Defiant Ones, which details the multi-decade partnership between famed producers Dr Dre and Jimmy Iovene.
Iovene of course is the old school, big label name known for his work in the 70s/80s w/ artists like John Lennon, Stevie Nicks, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, and U2 who subsequently teams up w/ Dre in the 90s as the latter king of gangsta rap was departing the seminal NWA. From that point the pair go on an unparalleled blitz, collaborating and breaking such monster acts as Snoop Dogg, Tupac, Eminem, NIN, and Marilyn Manson, among others. It’s an interesting watch — it meanders a bit too much at times into the business side of things (I could give a shit about contract negotiations and label swaps and selling headphones — it’s the music that matters to me), but does a good job giving insight into the creation of some of the biggest albums/acts in recent history.
Episode 3 in particular is the one to watch if you’re short on time — it does a good job reminding you of the tremendous amount of quality music coming out in the early 90s and the excitement surrounding so many of those acts. From the enormous debut of The Chronic (which I still remember hearing for the first time, having found a scratched up copy of it on the side of the road while on a jog and then obsessively listening to the skipping tracks in my room until I could get a new copy) to the thrill of discovering guys like Snoop and Tupac shortly thereafter and similarly having my head wrecked. Or remembering how much flack there was for acts like NIN and Manson and how intense (and ultimately deadly) the East Coast/West Coast beef was. (I actually wish they’d focused a little more on the former duo, since Manson in particular gets relative short shrift here and those two were equally enormous parts of the early 90s.)
For all of the noise and nonsense, though, there was some truly tremendous music being made — thanks in no small part to these two gentlemen. It’s part heartening, part dispiriting to hear how frustrated and unhappy both of them were for so long in their careers, despite having tremendous impact and success professionally — nice to know I’m not a whackadoo for feeling the same way in my world, bad to know I could be making millions of dollars and incredible music w/ an army of legends and still feel the same way. If nothing else it’s interesting to hear others talk of that frustration and unhappiness and how they try to manage it in similar ways, too. No easy fixes, but nice to know I’m not alone/off track…
So check it out if you have a chance — the trailer’s below to whet the appetite more if you’d like. Until next time, amici…
Well — since I’m awake for the sixth night in a row in the wee hours of the morning trying (and largely failing) to not claw my skin off thanks to an unrelenting case of poison something or other (acquired not in the deeps of a verdant backwoods cabin but in the rugged middle of my urban backyard — this city truly is a magical place…) — thought I’d post the quick hitters I’d contemplated posting earlier in the week, but didn’t get a chance to. So without any fuss, here’s what I’d planned to post for you during the week. Enjoy!
Sunday:
Wifey found this one and like the author of the hosting link, I have mixed feelings about Macklemore writ large. Love him or hate him (and you often do multiple times in a song, let alone album), you can never question his earnestness — and in this case the love of his grandmother turning 100 is the focus, which comes through loud and clear. A pretty great, touching little video (and not a bad song either) — check it out…
Tuesday:
Stumbled upon this one today in the feed from the upcoming American Epic documentary on PBS (arm your DVRs now) — it’s a nice little duet between Sir Elton from across the pond and fellow iconoclast Jack White. Simple little blues number w/ Elton on the ivories, Jack on acoustic, and lyrics about my beloved brown…
Thursday:
Found this one today on Pitchfork — nice little cover of an old Sparklehorse song by DIIV — which took me to the embedded jump to the article on why it’s been so long since I heard anything from the latter band. Pretty great/sad writeup on the band — I’d listened to them some back in college but lost the thread on them (obviously, as the events of the article are from 2010). The stuff frontman Mark Linkous was going through (and ultimately succumbed to) reminds me a lot of my beloved Elliott. Worth a read (and a listen to the embedded videos while you do)…
Friday:
Fuck. YASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS…
Can’t wait to see these guys again this summer. One of my absolute faves. That’s it for now — back to scratching…
It’s been a rough go lately for a range of reasons, so I figured since it’s time to celebrate our birthday — both of our country and our website — that I’d change things up a little to see if we could get on a better roll. To do so I decided to do something drastic — move the site from its home for nearly a decade and overhaul the format, which is sort of the cyber equivalent of chopping off one’s hair and getting a tattoo after a big breakup. You’ll still see me posting my scribblings on various topics as time/interest permits, but we’ll also throw in some content from other places that I find interesting (or think you will). And as was the original intent of this site, it’s supposed to be a place where multiple voices are heard — so if you’re game to step up and want to be a regular author, you know where to find me — just let me know.
So we’ll see how it goes — wifey (reader 1 of 7) has been on me for a while to take things up a notch here, in part to make it easier to link to social media and whatnot, so you’ll see handy jumps to all your favorites below, as well as some other bells and whistles going forward as I see what this puppy can do. You can still link to the old site here while I transition things over, reminiscing about all the good music (and times!) we’ve shared. So please bear with me as I tweak things here or there, and please blast away on the Twittergrams if you like what you see — maybe 2017 will be the year we break to double digits on readers. Now onto the important stuff…
For the inaugural post for the new digs, I wanted to throw out some recommendations for female artists I’ve been listening to of late, since they’ve been taking it on the chin this week thanks to the tweets and comments of some in hallowed halls. So I’m going to hurl three over the plate in an effort to strike out that type of nonsense — I think you’ll agree the only “crazy” or “dumb as a rock” thing about these ladies is to say that type of shit about them in the first place.
First up is the latest from Hurray for the Riff Raff, the band of folkies from New Orleans with their sixth album overall and first in three years, The Navigator. It’s a bit of a departure from their previous work as they ditch the campfire for a concept album loosely charting the life of lead singer Alynda Lee Segarra. As such it starts in the big city (ostensibly the New York of Segarra’s youth) and the opening tracks talk of the sadness, loss, and bustle of those early years. She sings, “I’ve been a lonely girl, but I’m ready for the world” on “Hungry Ghost,” “lost my good daddy, best friend I ever had” on the beautiful and uplifting “Life to Save,” and “I was raised by the streets, do you know what that really means” on the title track.
It’s on that latter track that the album finds Segarra starting to embrace her Latin roots more, from the audio of the Spanish appliance hawker at the beginning to the hand drums and flamenco-style guitar that follow. It sets the album down a different path, one arguably of Segarra’s later years where her heritage is a stronger part of her identity. You can hear it in several songs after that — sonically you can hear it in “Rican Beach” and “Finale” (whose break just over two minutes in reminds you why Latin music is so primally satisfying at times — TRY not to move…), while you can hear it lyrically in songs like “Fourteen Floors” and the slightly belabored “Pa’lante.” (“My father said it took a million years, well he said that it felt like a million years…just to get here,” from the former tune.)
It’s a satisfying ride. There’s enough of the simple pleasures of old to satisfy previous fans — those just looking for Segarra’s stellar voice to fill their ears with little more than an acoustic to adorn it (“Nothing’s Gonna Change that Girl” and “Halfway There” do so nicely) — while bringing in a range of new sounds and colors to broaden the sound and win over new listeners. A solid effort by Segarra and company — check out some of the highlights below (that’s right, I created playlists people. The future is HERE!):
Next up are a few tracks from Waxahatchee (otherwise known as Katie Crutchfield, who I’ve been listening to a lot lately in anticipation of her upcoming fourth album. (Due out in a couple of weeks.) I’d stumbled on her last year when she covered my beloved Elliott (an ok, grungy version of his classic “Angeles”) and then again this year when she covered Everclear with another fave, Kevin Morby. I dug her voice so started listening to her older stuff and liked what I found — her debut album American Weekend was written after a reportedly devastating breakup, and you can hear every bit of that in the music. It’s a raw, spare record — just Crutchfield, her acoustic, and her audibly damaged heart — but has some lovely melodies as well. Tracks like “Catfish,” “Grass Stain,” “Be Good,” and “Bathtub” are all standouts.
Her next album, Cerulean Salt, finds Crutchfield back on her feet again, trying to put the pieces together with a band this time and the fuller sound (in part fueled by a healthy dose of anger and bitterness) works well. She’s plugged in and pissed off here and calls to mind PJ Harvey or jaggedlittlepill-era Alanis with the venomous force she occasionally wields. Tracks like “Dixie Cups and Jars,” “Lips and Limbs,” and “Brother Bryan” stand out, as do deeper cuts like “Swan Dive” and “Peace and Quiet.”
By her third album, Ivy Tripp, Crutchfield seems to be in a better place, showing some swagger on straight-ahead rockers like “Under a Rock,” “Poison,” and “The Dirt,” while balancing them with softer, more melodic songs like “Grey Hair” and “Summer of Love.” She even throws in a dancy little number like “La Loose,” which wins you over with its Casio-style beat and catchy “hoo hoo hoos” sprinkled throughout. It’s a winning progression since the debut, both in emotions covered and musical range, so it will be interesting to see what the new album holds. Check out a couple highlights from the above albums here:
We’ll close with one of the queens, the ever-enchanting Feist who’s back with her fourth album overall and first in six years, Pleasures. Similar to her last album it’s an interesting mix of her trademark soft, romantic moments and dissonant breaks and flourishes. Take “Any Party” or the album’s second single “Century.” The former starts simple enough, just an acoustic guitar and Feist’s lovely coo telling an anonymous listener she’d leave any party for them, for no party beats their party of two — a sweet, slightly saccharine sentiment that’s nonetheless charming when it comes from her. The song quickly crashes into an electric squall and crashing cymbals, like she’s lashing out after having shown a flash of vulnerability, before settling back down into confessing her love. It follows this push-pull pattern a few more times before ultimately breaking into an odd bit at the end where the listener leaves and drives off (ostensibly to return to the other half of their party of two?)
Similarly, “Century” ebbs and flows with less sentiment and more sonic dissonance than the former before another odd break at the end, this time a spoken word section by former Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker before the song crashes to a close. They’re strange, but not off-putting aberrations that are rather reminiscent of those from occasional collaborator and Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy, who is notorious for taking otherwise beautiful tracks and shattering them with jagged, jarring juxtapositions of noise. (“Misunderstood,” “Via Chicago,” and “Poor Places” being just three of many examples.)
And similar to Tweedy, Feist gets away with it because her voice (and lyrics) are so good — honest lyrics, winning melodies, and a knockout voice. We saw her recently in town and she played this album in its entirety before playing a second concert’s worth of older material and it holds up well live. Tracks like “I Wish I Didn’t Miss You” and “The Wind” shine, as do “Baby Be Simple” and the aforementioned tracks. In addition to an angelic voice, Feist is also a sneakily good guitar player, as demonstrated on the title track and “I’m Not Running Away” (and even moreso live). All in all, it’s another winning package from the lovely Leslie — check out a few of the tracks here:
