Reviews from the last six weeks in the mainstream daily newspapers the Kitchener-Waterloo Record and Guelph Mercury.
A Hawk and a Hacksaw – Delivrance (Leaf)
When drummer Jeremy Barnes first started playing accordion and writing songs that borrowed heavily from traditional eastern European music, he was very much an interloper trying on a new set of clothes and creating something that didn’t aim to be authentic, but something new entirely. Several albums later, Barnes has been fully immersed in this culture to the point that there are many points on Delivrance where the flying dulcimers, Romanian violins and haunting melodies appear interchangeable with anything by legendary Roma band Tarif de Haidouks. The only time Barnes stumbles is when he sings—in English—in a voice even more nasal than Colin Meloy of the Decemberists, which ruins the illusion; thankfully, he only does this on two of the ten tracks here. (July 9, K-W Record)
Apostle of Hustle – Eats Darkness (Arts and Crafts)
Apostle of Hustle’s Andrew Whiteman has always been an insatiably curious musical soul, and the best and worst thing about him is that he’s tried to do everything. But the older he gets—he’s now 42—the more successful he is at distilling the breadth of his influences into three-minute songs that focus on deceptively simple riffs and rhythms that are packed with attention to minor detail. He’s also getting wonderfully weirder with age: woven through the songs are sound collages that recall the radio art of Negativland, that convey as much thematically as Whiteman’s lyrics do. Musically, dub rhythms, Latin guitars, pop hooks and rock guitars are all rearranged into a unique hybrid driven by the versatility of Whiteman’s powerhouse backing duo of Julian Brown and Dean Stone; each of them is invaluable to the whole, making Apostle of Hustle much more than a solo project outside of Whiteman’s work with Broken Social Scene. Apostle of Hustle pack more into the 30 minutes of this album than most groups do in their entire careers—and still leave the listener space to breathe. (June 11, K-W Record)
Bat for Lashes – Two Suns (EMI)
Ignore the horrible moniker, about which the only positive thing you can say is that it’s purposely vague and lowers expectations considerably. What a pleasant surprise then, to hear Natasha Khan’s musical vision unfold over the course of this, her stunning and singular second album.
Kate Bush comparisons are inevitable, for reasons that start with her operatic, British art school approach to singing and songwriting, as well as the ’80s textures that weave their way through Two Suns. Kate Bush’s influence may be on the rise overall—witness acts like Fever Ray, St. Vincent, My Brightest Diamond, Katie Stelmani—but only Bat For Lashes is fully worthy of ascending to the role of High Priestness of Pop Weirdness.
Listening to Two Suns is like the last 25 years never happened; Khan has emerged with the kind of album that Peter Gabriel should have continued making after his third album. Khan is as delightfully unconventional as Bjork without teetering near the edges of cliffs; she writes songs that fall somewhere between the classical ambition of Rufus Wainwright and the shoegaze-y new wave textures of Robert Smith of The Cure. There’s nothing resembling rock arrangements, but nor does she fall into any other set patterns; each song is a world unto itself, and Khan’s layers of vocals light the path through mysterious forests of sound. (June 11, K-W Record)
Billy Talent – III (Warner)
Billy Talent have platinum albums. They sell out the Air Canada Centre. They’re a #1 act in Germany. They could easily rest on their laurels. Instead, they’re getting better.
Producer Brendan O’Brien (Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam) has clearly pushed every member of this band to be better songwriters and players. Every one of the 11 tracks here boasts the kind of killer hooks that their best singles have always had; don’t be surprised if they spin a half-dozen radio hits out of this record. But even more importantly, they’ve matured to the point where they can maintain their trademark intensity at half their normal tempo—lead single "Rusted by the Rain" being the best example.
Elsewhere, they leave much more open space and use dynamics to help build tension in ways that all the best rock records do—or should, anyway. Other influences have started creeping in: "Tears Into Wine" and "Pocketful of Dreams" have vaguely Celtic guitar melodies. Not that they’ve mellowed: Saint Veronika boasts some furiously arpeggiated metal riffing, and "Turn Your Back" and "Tears Into Wine" are the kind of barnburners that Billy Talent built their reputation on.
Some things don’t change: Ian D’Sa’s one-note backing vocals are still inflected with a hilariously overwrought sense of frustration, like he stubbed his toe immediately before stepping up to the mic. Lead singer Ben Kowalewicz, on the other hand, has moved far beyond his signature screams—which he still lets out of the bag on a couple of tracks here—to become a much more engaging vocalist; he’s no longer a one-trick pony.
This is not just the album that will elevate Billy Talent above their mall punk fan base and present a convincing case for their longevity—this is the rock record for the summer of 2009. (July 16, K-W Record)
Dinosaur Jr. – Farm (Jagjaguwar)
Reunion albums aren’t supposed to sound this good. When a beloved band gets back together, fans usually grant them one grace album for old times sake, but would really prefer it if they sticked to the hits in the live set. Nothing could be further from the truth for ’90s proto-grunge band Dinosaur Jr., who are writing and playing better than they ever did.
J Mascis is one of the only guitarists of that era who ever took guitar solos seriously, not afraid to flex his virtuosity while focusing primarily on feel—like some perverse cross between Neil Young and Eddie Van Halen. Mascis was out of step then as he is now: well over half of the eight-minute track "I Don’t Wanna Go There" is full-on noodling. As always, his slacker snarl is incongruous with his raging rhythm section, and the strength of his songwriting elevates this band from hundreds of others who merely hide between distortion and destruction.
There are no bells and whistles here: this is a straight-up guitar rock record, the kind you need for long summer drives, the kind that reminds you that maybe the ’90s weren’t the musical wasteland that they might seem like now. (July 2, K-W Record)
Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca (Domino)
Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest (Warp)
Dirty Projectors’ singer, guitarist and songwriter Dave Longstreth acts like he’s making up all of his own rules as he goes along, which he may well be; he is undeniably idiosyncratic and unique in ways similar to Bjork or David Byrne (both of whom have sought him out to collaborate), and may well be crazier than both of them put together.
He has an astoundingly versatile and slippery voice, which means that he could easily pull off an R&B ballad if he really wanted to—if he wasn’t trying to simultaneously juggle his interests in British folk, electronic composition, Asian string music and Led Zeppelin III. All these influences are there if you probe deeply enough; yet on the surface, Dirty Projectors don’t sound like anyone else at all.
The track "Remade Horizon" sounds like several disparate African recordings being pulled apart in ProTools: the Soweto-style female vocals, the hi-life guitar lead, the stuttering funk of Afrobeat rhythm guitars. And yet at the same time, there’s nothing remotely African about the end result; it’s a piece of music that could only have come from Longstreth’s oddball vision and reimagining of existing forms.
There’s no question that Longstreth is immensely talented and capable of creating wondrous magic, which makes Bitte Orca is an easy album to respect, but a hard one to love—immediately, anyway. This could easily be either a future classic that will influence generations, or a passing fad for people who like difficult music for its own sake.
Grizzly Bear will likely suffers the latter fate, with the disadvantage of being more overly mannered than the Dirty Projectors, who at least sound like they’re being playful. Grizzly Bear is the epitome of an art school band—deadly serious and downright stuffy, they sound like the taxidermist has already got to them. There’s nothing particularly linear nor repetitious about any of this material; sadly, it lacks any other charms or mystery to make up for that. Lovely though his voice may be, singer Edward Droste is more distracting than anything, if only because his presence gives the listener some expectation of normalcy, instead of the atonal art-folk that is Grizzly Bear’s specialty. (June 18, K-W Record)
Elephant Stone – The Seven Seas (independent)
This Montreal band is named after a Stone Roses song, which explains much of their musical template: early ’90s British guitar textures with nods to dance rhythms and ’60s psychedelia. Bandleader Rishi Dhir knows a lot about the latter, which was the focus of his former band the High Dials. His own studies of Indian classical music also come into play here, and it’s his sitar playing that sets Elephant Stone apart from other Britpop bands, especially on the raga rock of "The Straight Line." But even the tracks that play down that influence have plenty going for them, drawing on early Blur and Spiritualized influences with the help of fellow Montrealers in The Dears and The Besnard Lakes.
(June 18, K-W Record)
Grand Analog – Metropolis is Burning (Urbnet)
Perhaps you’ve been to those workshops at any folk festival where hip-hop artists are paired with local folkies and a funk band and magic is expected to happen—and it rarely does. Grand Analog sound like the product of just such an experiment, but they actually gel their genres together in a seamless summer blend of reggae, pop, funk, and hip-hop, with frontman Odario Williams proving to be a commanding microphone presence whether he’s crooning or rapping. The kazoo solo in the first song—titled, uh, "I Play My Kazoo"—hints that they’re willing to try anything, no matter how ridiculous. Fortunately, it never gets more ridiculous than that; many of these tracks deserve a spot on Top 40 stations, especially the breezy reggae of "Take it Slow" and the electro-’80s R&B track "Stir Crazy," featuring the smooth female vocals of Maiko Watson. (July 2, K-W Record)
Hypnotic Brass Ensemble – s/t (Honest Jon’s)
In a live setting, this Chicago ten-piece will grant you a quick, informal schooling in the possibilities of brass music, from New Orleans to klezmer to funk to hip-hop to jazz. And while all those come into play on this, their first official full-length album, much of this sounds like a sweeping ’70s urban drama with a soundtrack co-written by Curtis Mayfield and Bill Conti (Rocky, An Unmarried Woman). There are more than enough party tunes here to bolster the live show, but this self-titled album is also rich with dynamics, recognizing that the home listeners might not want to be constantly be subjected to the full-blown intensity that is the Hypnotic live show. (July 9, K-W Record)
Iron and Wine – Around the Well (Sub Pop)
The well in question appears to be dry. This is a two-CD compilation of cast-offs from a consistently strong artist; over seven years, Iron and Wine’s Sam Beam has released three full-length albums and three equally worthy EPs. Considering that volume of output, it’s not a sign of weakness that his leftovers are so uninspiring; it is worth wondering, however, whether even Iron and Wine completists need any of the material found here—most of which didn’t cut the mustard the first time around to even appear on CD singles.
Iron and Wine began as a bedroom project, featuring just acoustic guitar and Beam’s hushed vocals, recorded while his baby daughters were asleep. Since then, he’s managed to avoid many singer/songwriter clichés and evolve successfully into a multi-dimensional artist drawing from eclectic textures and rhythms while maintaining a singular sound and identity. Too many of these tracks, however, are still in the solo-man-with-guitar mode, and, by the measure of Beam’s own quality standards on his official releases, the material simply isn’t as strong.
The handful of covers are also uninspiring and predictable—not in their source material (Stereolab, Flaming Lips, New Order) but in the way they sound like every song Sam Beam ever recorded before he evolved into a bandleader.
Material from recent years is slightly more rewarding, if only because one can hear Beam breaking his own formula and arriving at the subtle dub reggae and psychedelic textures that coloured 2007’s The Shepherd’s Dog. (June 11, K-W Record)
Jennifer LFO – Songs from the Alien Beacon (Kanda Kid)
“How close can you get without f---ing up the friendship?” So asks Jennifer LFO on one of the catchiest songs on her debut album (under this name, anyway; she used to record under her given name, Jennifer Foster). But the question may well be metaphorical, as throughout this album she takes her pop songs and stretches them into ’70s prog territory, with tasteful heaps of sonic decoration courtesy of her producer Michael Philip Wojewoda, and a cast of Toronto all-stars. Together, they push this material to extremes and then pull it back to a more straightforward piano ballad or three-chord rocker. Foster’s lyrics stray from conventional fare as well, which makes her all the more believable when she sings: “I know the girl you look for/ you won’t find her too soon/ She’s teaching string theory on Saturn/ she’s playing her synth on the moon.” (July 16, K-W Record)
La Patere Rose – s/t (Grosse Boite)
La Patere Rose could hail from no other place in Canada except Quebec: an eccentric and girlish vocalist/keyboardist (nom du rock: Fanny Bloom) who is well-studied in chanson, absurdist pop and cabaret, backed by two gents (noms du rock: Roboto et Kilojoules) who ensure that no two songs sound alike. If acclaimed acts like Fiona Apple or Regina Spektor were actually as unpredictable and unusual as they’re made out to be, they still wouldn’t sound as inventive as La Patere Rose, especially when Bloom starts shrieking like a theremin on La Marelle. This isn’t dark and mysterious like Bat For Lashes; it’s too goofy for that. It’s not abrasive or aiming for any kind of shock factor, and it’s too off-kilter to be safe and radio-friendly. And once you’re through figuring out everything that it’s not, it’s just to best revel in their unusual pleasures. (July 2, K-W Record)
Lee Harvey Osmond – A Quiet Evil (Latent)
It’s one thing when a veteran artist returns under a new guise and puts out the best record of his career. It’s another thing entirely when he ropes in a group of all-stars who rally for the cause and sound creatively re-energized in ways that their main projects haven’t in quite a while.
Tom Wilson has been the bandleader of Junkhouse, one third of Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, and put out solo albums; here, he enlists Cowboy Junkies’ Michael Timmins as producer and engineer, the Skydiggers’ Josh Finlayson on bass, and various people drawn from each of those three men’s extended musical families. Together, the music they make as Lee Harvey Osmond is a dark and spooky Canadian gothic roots gumbo: sombre folk meets swampy blues meets late-night ambient country music all made for midnight drives, with covers of Lou Reed and David Wiffen thrown in for good measure.
Though Wilson may be front and centre, Lee Harvey Osmond is very much a collective effort, and it succeeds just as much on atmosphere and Timmins’ arrangements as it does on the songs co-written by Wilson with many others. The decades of experience shared between these players works magic when it sounds like they crashed in the studio after a long night of whiskey and decided to let their imagination run wild. This isn’t so much “dad rock” as it is “creepy, weird old uncle music”—and it suits Tom Wilson perfectly. (July 9, K-W Record)
Micachu – Jewellery (Rough Trade)
Micachu is as wonderfully weird as the Dirty Projectors’ Dave Longstreth, but makes music for a much more raucous dance party. Bandleader Mica Levi sticks to 4/4 rhythms and conventional harmony, but her unusual approach to sound sculpture finds her constructing pop, punk and dance music from clipped samples, toy instruments, and any household item that can be transformed into percussion. She gets help from producer Matthew Herbert, who uses a similar approach in his own politically charged electronic jazz and performance art; here, however, he applies his attention to unusual detail toward much more visceral thrills. Micachu doesn’t have any agenda except playful tomfoolery—which makes Jewellery one of the most delightful debuts of the year. (June 18, K-W Record)
Moby – Wait For Me (EMI)
Moby’s landmark album Play turns 10 years old this year. And though its sound quickly became a cliché, it’s worth noting that when it was released, Moby had given up hopes of pop stardom, and made the album as a personal project. And as he admits now, he’s spent much of the last decade trying to second-guess the marketplace and somehow replicate its success. He hasn’t failed per se, but nothing he’s done in the past decade is remotely remarkable—or memorable.
Until this. Wait For Me was recorded at home, and his only motivation was to make an personal album that wasn’t tailored to any pop radio standard. And lo and behold, it’s a lovely, warm, engaging album, which in part revives the template of lush strings and gospel vocals heard on Play, but with nary an uptempo beat to be found; the liveliest number is the only one sung by Moby himself, and it’s about as cheery as Joy Division. Wait For Me is a luxurious mind massage that sounds like Brian Eno producing Pink Floyd. For the most part it’s too sumptuous and sedate to be co-opted by lifestyle advertising, like much of Play was; it is much more intimate and interior—and ironically, by pleasing no one else but himself, Moby may have made his most universal album in a decade. (July 9, K-W Record)
Stuart Murdoch – God Help the Girl (Beggars Banquet)
Belle and Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch woke up one morning and heard his songs being sung by an all-female chorus, which prompted this, his first solo album, on which he writes the songs and hires various ladies to sing them. The material here sounds like it’s from a ’50s stage play; there’s nary a sign of rock nor R&B influence, instead relying on featherweight piano melodies with saccharine strings and mannered, polite vocals. Belle and Sebastian don’t exactly boast a muscular reputation either—much of their discography is on the lighter side of twee—but this material might be too well-scrubbed for even that band’s biggest fans. It doesn’t help that a couple songs from the last B&S album, their punchy pop masterpiece The Life Pursuit, are recast here in considerably weaker versions; other songs are feeble rewrites of earlier B&S classics ("Lazy Line Painter Jane," "I’m Waking Up to Us") set to new lyrics. That the songs aren’t up to Murdoch’s recent standards is one thing; the fact that none of these arrangements and vocalists are particularly compelling is another. (July 9, K-W Record)
Nomo – Invisible Cities (Ubiquity)
Nomo are a Chicago band who started out playing relatively straightforward Afrobeat, but are all over the map on their latest album. And that’s a good thing. Their horn section is unleashed to allow for jazzier excursions, the rhythm section has become more muscular—even if many of the tempos are slower this time out—and the synths and treated kalimbas that colour around the edges help define the 21st century funk that Nomo is creating.
This album was spawned from the same sessions as their 2008 release Ghost Rock; that album is a better entry point for beginners. Invisible Cities is less of a party record and more of an esoteric head trip for fans of late ’60s and early ’70s jazz, where dissonance and tension are more prevalent in both the solos and the riffs. And while African influences are still paramount, traces of Balkan brass and Asian scales also creep into the mix. (June 11, K-W Record)
Peaches – I Feel Cream (XL)
In 2009, Peaches should be mouldy by now. And yet on her third album, the Berlin-via-Toronto transplant can be heard crooning: “Seems you got a little bit more than you asked for.” After years of maximum personality and minimal musical promise, that statement finally holds true.
What started as an electro-punk performance art construct, based on dirty beats and dirtier lyrics, turned into an underground pop and fashion sensation. Peaches is many things: proudly pansexual, smart, sassy, “so sexual and so conceptual.” She’s also an unconventionally attractive older woman who invites you to “lick her crow’s feet”—the polar opposite of the parade of Lolitas peddled in the mainstream.
And yet until now, her message of inclusive sexual liberation was articulated mainly through lugheaded repetition of phrases meant to poke and provoke. No matter how addictive her primitive beats and punk rock guitar may have been, Peaches the songwriter was nowhere near as powerful as Peaches the performer.
I Feel Cream isn’t exactly the sound of Peaches cleaning up her act, but it does drop the sillier side of her shock value and ups the musical ante considerably. She’s moved well beyond simple riffs into fully developed pop songs worthy of early Prince ("Mud," "Talk To Me," "Trick or Treat"), and her buzzing synths and dirty techno puts similar acts to shame—including upstart Torontonians like Thunderheist and MSTRKRFT. Lyrically she’s just as brazen and intentionally ridiculous, but she’s digging deeper by cramming each track with hilarious one-liners—instead of milking each one for three minutes at a time.
The early ’00s electroclash trend that she arrived in the middle of may be on the wane, but seeing how she was one of the only bonafide personalities of that era—coupled with the strength of this album—I Feel Cream should rise to the top. (June 4, K-W Record) (June 4, K-W Record)
Royal City – 1999-2004 (Asthmatic Kitty)
Royal City were always bridesmaids back around the turn of the decade. Feist was in their band. Sufjan Stevens, Broken Social Scene and Hidden Cameras opened for them. They were the impetus to launch Three Gut Records, a Guelph label that helped make Toronto cool again and inspired many of that city’s current success stories. Royal City broke up just as the world’s eyes were turning toward Toronto.
But much more important was the legacy of unforgettable shows that live on in memory: sometimes a total trainwreck, often completely brilliant, always indifferent to whatever people might expect. Arriving as the Canadian music industry was collapsing, they offered a complete alternative to everything around them, including many of their squeaky clean alt-country peers. Dissonant and delicate, fragile and ferocious, Royal City conveyed naked emotion, and demanded that you either love or hate them. There was no middle ground.
The three studio albums they left behind all have their charms; 2001’s Alone at the Microphone is a masterpiece. But this collection of odds and sods captures the overall spirit of the band in their raw glory. Some of their best songs never made it onto albums ("O You With Your Skirt," "Postcards"); they appear here along with revelatory alternate takes and covers of Iggy Pop and the Strokes—the latter’s song is turned into a lilting waltz.
The album closes in the most perfect way possible: a long, slow fade of the band singing their eponymous song (inexplicably titled "In the Autumn" here), chanting “c-i-t-y Royal City” as they march on into eternity, oblivious to the fact that the tape is running out, that the audience has gone home, that soon all we’ll have left is cherished memories and a few records. But now we have one more. (June 18, K-W Record)
Sonic Youth – The Eternal (Matador)
Here’s a little secret about the avant-garde: no matter how groundbreaking you were at an early stage in your career, the older you get, the more boring you are. There’s no better example than Sonic Youth, a band who did nothing less than rewrite the rules of rock’n’roll in the late ’80s, by combining the nihilism of the no-wave movement with Rolling Stones riffs, free jazz and hardcore punk rock. At that point in time, nobody sounded like Sonic Youth.
By the mid-’90s, however, everyone was trying to. Their descendents are plentiful, as is Sonic Youth’s discography: both their “official” releases and their myriad side projects and art projects. So plentiful, in fact, that what was once thrilling and mysterious is now almost as innocuous as, well, as a new Rolling Stones album. And the alternative press prove themselves just as gullible as mainstream media when an old warhorse trots on the stage talking about getting back to their roots and referencing earlier, beloved works—a routine Sonic Youth has been milking for at least 10 years now.
There’s something to be said for sticking to your vision, and tracks like "What We Know" and "Anti-Orgasm" will resonate with anyone who’s ever loved the band. But with the group of cultural sponges that compose Sonic Youth, you’d think their palette would be wider at this point. While there’s some comfort in hearing new songs that are interchangeable with anything they’ve done in the past quarter century, it’s neither weird nor accessible enough to excite or polarize fans. It’s just there.
Which, for former revolutionaries, is faint praise that proves most damning. (June 18, K-W Record)
Regina Spektor – Far (Warner)
Regina Spektor must have heard the word “quirky” used often enough to describe her, that she’s decided to tone down her vocal tics on this, her third album. She still specializes in piano songs best suited for the closing credits of movies set in New York City autumns, with a decidedly more reggae lilt to them this time out, however subtle. Musically, Far is impeccable, aided by an ace list of producers: Mike Elizondo (Fiona Apple, Eminem), Jeff Lynne (Tom Petty, Traveling Wilburys), Jacknife Lee (U2, R.E.M.), and returning collaborator David Kahne (VP of Warner Records, incidentally).
It’s Spektor’s lyrics that distract. She’s fine with opening a song with the sentiment: “no one laughs at God in a hospital/ no one laughs at God in a war.” But she starts to get lazy and loopy when she follows it up with the mouthful: “no one laughs at God when it’s getting late and your kid’s not back from that party yet.” Alanis, your ghostwriter is calling. (July 2, K-W Record)
Street Sweeper Social Club – s/t (Warner)
Tom Morello was considered one of the most innovative guitarists of the ’90s for his work in Rage Against the Machine. Since then, however, his career has largely consisted of wasted opportunities: the non-starter supergroup that was Audioslave, an agitprop solo acoustic act called The Nightwatchman, and now a collaboration with MC Boots Riley of political hip-hop crew The Coup. The idea of returning to Rage-style riff-rock with anthemic choruses and fiery rhymes sounds good on paper, yet Street Sweeper Social Club serves as a reminder at how good Rage Against the Machine was at what it did. There are no guitar pyrotechnics from Morello, and Riley’s politics are plodding and punctuated with far too many “motherfuckers” to be taken seriously. Red Hot Chili Peppers b-sides sound better than this, and at least that band's songs are supposed to be about nothing, rather than ankle-deep agitation and leftist suggestions that add up to something neither instructive nor constructive—nor particularly destructive. Just dull. (June 4, K-W Record)
Sunset Rubdown – Dragonslayer (Jagjaguwar)
What instrument would you use to slay a dragon: a piano or a guitar? Why, a guitar of course, which is why Sunset Rubdown’s bandleader and keyboardist Spencer Krug straps one on for the bulk of this, the fourth album for his main musical outlet.
Piano-based songwriters who migrate to the guitar usually do so with mixed results: either they get deliberately reductionist after discovering the power of three-chord simplicity, or they become overly obtuse. Krug uses the guitar every way he can: as harmonic and rhythmic texture, as an adrenaline shot and power boost, and to continue to write the unique songs that set him apart from almost all of his peers.
If parts of Dragonslayer sound slightly more conventional and accessible than previous Sunset Rubdown recordings, all the trademarks are still there: the epic songwriting with plenty of twists and turns, the impenetrably surreal lyrics, Krug’s hiccup-y vocals, the rich harmonies of keyboardist Camille Wynn Ingr, the melodic guitar lines and unconventional drumming. New bassist Mark Nicol brings added depth on his recorded debut with the band.
Krug has a long and dense discography—including two albums with Wolf Parade and two with Swan Lake on top of the Sunset Rubdown output—but Dragonslayer is the album most likely to convert new ones and satisfy old ones. (July 16, K-W Record)
Think About Life – Family (Alien 8)
There are more than enough indie rock bands shouting and screaming about disco infernos, but Think About Life are one of the few who can boast “I’ll set your world on fire” and actually pull it off. This band had extremely shaky beginnings; I’d go so far as to say that they’re one of the worst opening acts I’ve ever seen, back when Wolf Parade took them on tour in 2005. In the time since, Martin Cesar has become not only a wildly engaging frontman, but a serious R&B singer with a killer falsetto. The pop smarts that guitarist Graham Van Pelt put to use in his other project, Miracle Fortress, come to the forefront here and give Cesar some actual hooks to sing. Tracks like "Havin’ My Baby," "Set You on Fire" and "Young Hearts" are all polished enough to be Top 40 hits, or at the very least fodder for a N.E.R.D. remix.
And while much of Family is fodder for an all-night dance party, Think About Life show themselves capable of much more, both texturally and dynamically. They may love their four-on-the-floor beats, but they also love pulling everything apart and tweaking every minor sonic detail, which they do to great effect during the long-decaying closing track, "Life of Crime." (July 2, K-W Record)
Allen Toussaint – The Bright Mississippi (Nonesuch)
There are a lot of musicians vying for the title of Mr. New Orleans, but Allen Toussaint is certainly one of them. The pianist and arranger has been in the employ of all the greats, and though he may not be as recognizable outside musicians’ circles, he’s revered among his peers—and with good reason.
Which is why Toussaint gets help here from the top notch team of producer Joe Henry (who also pens insightful liner notes), clarinetist Don Byron, guitarist Marc Ribot, bassist David Piltch, trumpeter Nicholas Payton and drummer Jay Bellerose, who help him romp through songs that would be tired standards in anyone else’s hands: "Just a Closer Walk With Thee," "St. James Infirmary," and songs by Duke Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton, and Django Reinhardt.
Toussaint, however, renders all the material here virtually unrecognizable and completely enchanting. The 71-year-old is rhythmically inventive and melodically playful, especially with Thelonious Monk’s title track. And he’s a generous bandleader, though when he grants solos, it’s often his rhythm part that is still stealing the show. (June 4, K-W Record)
John Vanderslice – Romanian Names (Dead Oceans)
John Vanderslice grew up in Florida and lives in California. Little wonder, then, that his music sounds so sunny—on the surface, anyway. Sunny not necessarily in the way of surf rock and saccharine ’70s singer/songwriters—although there are some obvious vocal debts to the Beach Boys here—but in the way that spending too long in the sun can create a squinty, skewed take on reality where the simplest things appear complex and vice versa. There are certainly nods to normalcy in Vanderslice’s delightfully unconventional approach to pop music. But he is a producer first and foremost (Spoon, Death Cab for Cutie), using the studio to play with sound in the subtlest of ways: these are still pianos, guitars and drums, but there’s always something slightly off about them. His songs used to be busier than they had to be; over the course of seven albums, he’s learned to lay back and let the textures set up the action, leaving the melodies plenty of room to drape themselves or two or three chords. His lyrics are imaginative and suggestive, if not downright cryptic; not many songwriters would try and string a chorus out of the phrase: “fetal horses gallop in the womb.” Fewer still would pull it off. At the age of 42, Vanderslice still likes to mess with his formulas—not out of desperation, but because he continues to improve with age. (June 4, K-W Record)
White Rabbits – It’s Frightening (TBD)
White Rabbits are a six-piece rock band with two drummers—yet ultimately, it’s the entire band that thinks like a drummer, approaching their parts rhythmically rather than filling every dozens of tracks with layers of harmonies. Less is always more with this album, which could just as easily been made on an analog eight-track machine, leaving plenty of space for catchy pop hooks, melodic guitar leads, and piano breaks. That this minimalist approach works so well is due in part to producer Britt Daniel, who employs many of the same tactics in his band Spoon; while both bands share an aesthetic and attention to minute detail, White Rabbits sound like Spoon’s slightly weirder cousins—and yet original enough not to be overpowered by Daniel’s shadow. (June 11, K-W Record)
Wilco – Wilco (The Album) (Warner)
Wilco’s dramatic days are over. After years of line-up upheavals, label battles, drug abuse and controversial artistic shifts, this eponymous album marks the first time in ten years that two Wilco albums have been made with the same line-up, which now includes colourful guitar virtuoso Nels Cline. The Wilco heard here is in full-on dad rock mode—even Feist drops by for a duet on the lovely "You and I"—with the more artsy, soundscape-y side of the band fully integrated into ’70s soft rock that serves as perfect comfort food on a summer’s day. Nothing here raises the temperature, but nothing disappoints, either; where 2007’s Sky Blue Sky shared a similar sound, it was too noodly at times and some of the rockers fell flat. Wilco (The Album) sets modest goals and exceeds them. This is their strongest work since the game-changing Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and finds them settling into a new stride that shows how mellowing out doesn’t mean giving up. (June 18, K-W Record)
Showing posts with label sunset rubdown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sunset rubdown. Show all posts
Friday, July 17, 2009
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Springtime 08: New Life, Live Shows
This blog may have been inactive over the last month, but there's been plenty of live action in Toronto that I've had the pleasure to be privy to. As noted here and here and finally here (with my retort in the comments), Destroyer was not one of them. Here's a brief recap.
March 27
Burnt Sugar at Lula Lounge.
This is an arkestra conducted by guitarist and cultural theorist Greg Tate, featuring fine funk and jazz players, yet it never really coalesced in the unexpected ways I expected—if that makes any sense. I was hoping for more sense of rhythmic and harmonic freedom, but instead the band seemed content to ride rather simple grooves that one sympathetic colleague uncharitably described as "jam band territory." The much-ballyhooed "conduction" employed by Tate and his band members didn't seem any different than what every jazz band on the planet does: communicate through eye and hand gestures on stage, with or without a baton in your hand.
There were definitely inspired moments, mostly courtesy of the alien-like MIDI saxophonist and the punchy baritone player. But overall, I much prefer the wilder and more inclusive antics of Toronto's own Dave Clark and the Woodchoppers Association, who have been conducting improv sessions for the better part of ten years now. Anyone who's witnessed the Woodchoppers at the Tranzac, at the old Ted's Wrecking Yard, or Clark's annual Hillside Festival workshops knows exactly what I'm talking about. Clark pushes his players—and often the audience—in every possible direction and isn't afraid to rip everything apart before pulling it back together, making Burnt Sugar seem downright safe in comparison.
March 28
Kalimba Summit: Kahil El'Zabar, Njacko Backo, Laura Barrett, Nifty at Tranzac.
As one can tell from hyper-self-conscious articles like this one, Toronto's indie rock community suffers from a load of white guilt when it comes to building bridges to the rich world music community here. But thanks to the valiant efforts of people like David Dacks of The Abstract Index and, more specifically, Jonny Dovercourt of The Music Gallery and Wavelength, events like this are starting to become more commonplace. And hopefully they become less stilted than much of this evening ended up being.
Nifty is Matt Smith, who formed Les Mouches with Final Fantasy's Owen Pallett back in the early days of Torontopia. His debut album, A Sparrow! A Sparrow!, was one of the most pleasant surprises of 2007, involving sound collage, metallic percussion pieces, aquatic techno and avant-garde folk songs. In many ways, Nifty is everything I always hope Sandro Perri's various projects (Polmo Polpo, Glissandro 70, his self-titled folk material) will be but rarely are to these ears.
Live, however, Smith is stuck behind his sampler, loop pedals and mixing board, with nothing much to focus the eyes on other than his highly questionable 80s fashion choices. And while the reverb-drenched recording rarely gets stuck in a swamp, the live set does exactly that all too often. As for his use of kalimba, it was obviously inspired in part by Congotronics, but he didn't take it far enough in that direction to hold the interest of the audience faction who came to hear the headliners.
Laura Barrett has single-handedly brought the kalimba to the attention of Toronto's indie community, and it's safe to say that she was the impetus for this evening's programming. Her two EPs to date don't do proper justice to what she does and where she's going: her crazy busy kalimba playing is the perfect complement to her abstract sense of melodics that recalls late-period Joni Mitchell—in a good way—and the new material, due out this fall, showed her continuing to grow away from her cutesy beginnings.
Barrett claims to have felt a bit out of place on a bill with Njacko Backo, an African-Canadian from Cameroon who fronts a band called Kalimba Kalimba—obviously not a newcomer to the instrument. Backo also spends part of his time performing and teaching for school children, a trait that came across all too well at this performance. His lyrics were simplistic and sadly often cloying. He appeared to be having some rhythmic difficulty perhaps due to a bad monitor mix, and the way he joked about bullying the audience into crowd participation had the counterintuitive effect of feeling uncomfortable.
The evening took a total shift when Kahil El'Zabar took the stage. A tall, cool and commanding figure, he took a markedly different approach than everyone on stage before him. El'Zabar plays the blues, sparse and full of soul, and without the busy rhythms that mark most kalimba playing. He has the demeanour of a seasoned jazz dude, the kind who can casually remind you that he's played with everyone from Paul Simon to Nina Simone to Pharoah Sanders without seeming like a total jackass. He works himself into a trance, to the point where he's humming gutturally and practically twisting his head around Stevie-style, lost in the moment and pulling us in with him. It had been a long night at that point, but there wasn't any question of anyone bailing early once El'Zabar cast his spell.
He made a great speech (among many) that gave Laura Barrett some props and then invited everyone on stage for a final jam. The collaboration was less remarkable than we'd hoped, and perhaps a visibly unimpressed Njacko Backo did the right thing by curtailing it early on. But it was worth trying—as was this bill, which if nothing else introduced Barrett and El'Zabar to new audiences and each other. More culture clash, please.
March 31
Sunset Rubdown at Lee's Palace.
I've seen Sunset Rubdown plenty of times, including very early band incarnations at tiny gigs in Montreal. I've even seen them plenty of times at Lee's Palace; this would be my third time. And because I somehow postponed spending any serious time with the latest album—Random Spirit Lover, which came out last fall—this gig wasn't on my radar at all. Until, that is, my old friend Mark "The Nooch" Nichol wrote and asked if I was coming; he's the latest addition to his Mile End Sunday soccer mates in Sunset Rubdown, playing kalimba, bass, and percussion, and I had yet to see him in the band.
The Nooch did not disappoint, and neither did the rest of his new crew. They're packing more muscle now that there's a bass being traded about on stage. Camille Wynn-Ingr still sounds magical harmonizing with Spencer Krug, who remains one of the more endearingly awkward men currently fronting a powerhouse band. And the two dudes trading guitar and drum duties take an inventive approach to both instruments that elevates the arrangements far above the realm of rote rock bands.
The new material is better than I remembered the album sounding, especially the song that Helen Spitzer always thinks sounds like Big Country. And I'm still baffled at the sight of people holding hands, singing and swooning to "Us Ones In Between," though it's a lovely sight.
April 8
Jens Lekman, Final Fantasy at Great Hall
Hearing brand new Final Fantasy material was reason enough to go to this show. Seeing Jens Lekman live for the first time was another. And I'd be lying if I said that the fact that I live about a 30-second walk away from the beautiful, hallowed venue wasn't yet another still.
Despite its beauty, the Great Hall has some serious acoustic problems, which plagued much of the Final Fantasy set. It put off Owen Pallett somewhat and didn't help his nerves about debuting new material that he didn't consider finished works. Not that it mattered: the new songs sound great, punctuated with lots of staccato rhythms he creates by bouncing his bow on the strings, sounding not unlike Japanese kotos. The new album will be called Homeland, due out in the fall, and Pallett described it as being set in a "fictional world where I am the supreme deity." Um, isn't that the case with all narrative fiction, in song lyrics or otherwise?
Jens Lekman had a lot of love from the crowd for his Swedish Jonathan Richman schtick, which would fall flat on its face were he not such a charmer. He's as deadpan as the Flight of the Conchords, and yet because of his ESL lyrics it's not always clear when he's conning you and when he actually thinks he's nicked an awesome rhyme. Either way, his charisma outweighs the cheese, and his way with classic melodies supercedes any other shortcomings. Plus, for this performance he was joined by Final Fantasy's projectionist Steph Comilang, who added visual splendour to the stripped-down set that otherwise featured only a percussionist and the occasional backing tape.
Lekman wrapped up the evening by performing in the park beside the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (I was in bed by that point); something he'd obviously planned from the beginning of the set, and seemed itchy to ditch the formality of the stage show to get to it.
April 10
Hilotrons, Andy Swan at Horseshoe
Ottawa's Kelp Records crew rolled into Toronto with a couple of well-kept secrets, a niche that Kelp seems to have nailed down. It's a specialty that no label aspires to, and while Kelp may be a sensation in their hometown—witness their ability to throw massive weekend-long parties at the city's major venues every April to celebrate their anniversary—they're far under the radar in Toronto.
That's true even of their only Toronto act, singer/songwriter Andy Swan. Changing the name of his long-running band Detective Kalita to The Michael Parks doesn't help, nor does the fact that he just released a solo album under his own name (Andy Swan's Ottawa).
He's got some critics in his corner, he has the undying loyalty of his Kelp peers who talk him up every chance they get, and he has Polmo Polpo's Sandro Perri playing slide guitar for him occasionally. He also has an arsenal of great songs, but not the kind that make an immediate impression or that his modest stage persona is about to give you a major sales job on. Swan is so subtle that it's taken me years to cotton on to what a talent he is; every time I've seen him I fall further under his spell, and this performance sealed the deal. Without a major hustle behind him, Swan can only hope for a Ron Sexsmith-esque career revival a few more albums down the road.
The Hilotrons are major stars in Ottawa, yet rarely play outside the city limits. That should change with the release of Happymatic, a fine pop album that makes you instantly forget about all those other herky-jerky Devo-tees who are giving art-damaged early 80s pop music a bad name.
The Hilotrons boast a bouncy rhythm section capable of twisting beats upside down and around, while vocalist Mike Dubue unleashes synth squiggles in between a pitch perfect vocal performance. We expect so little from male singers in rock band these days, leaving the operatic performances to melodramatic drama queens in moody art rock bands or sensitive folkie acts. Dubue is having none of that. He's a belter who doesn't need multiple takes to get it right; he nails it every time, as does every instrumentalist standing behind him on stage.
I'd heard earlier recordings by this band and found them mildly interesting at best; Happymatic was a pleasant surprise. But nothing prepared me for how jaw-droppingly awesome the Hilotrons' live show is—miss them at your peril. They certainly don't deserve to be relegated to "well-kept secret" status.
April 14: Man Man, Yeasayer at Lee's Palace
Man Man has always sounded insane. Lead singer Honus Honus howls to a point well beyond hoarse while attacking his keyboard; drummer Pow Pow looks like he'd be sequestered in a straitjacket had he chosen any profession other than percussion; the rest of the band look like a ragtag crew of salty sailors with a questionable grip on sanity. And yet the music has always worked: their strange mash-up of klezmer, cabaret, barrelhouse piano, kitchen sink percussion and raunchy blues managed to never get completely unhinged. Until now.
Maybe they've been playing these songs too long on the road and are bored by now, but there was a perverse desire to play everything twice as fast. The manic marimba player looked like he was ready to lose some limbs. As if to compensate, cracks started to show in their collective stamina by set's end, allowing them to play the until-now rare live treat "Van Helsing's Boombox," a track that's as tender as Man Man ever gets.
Not that anyone in the crowd seemed to mind. Word of mouth has built up over the past three years, thanks in part to the fact they now share a label with Tom Waits and Nick Cave, and there were no doubt many newbies who came out to witness the spectacle. The band seemed all to eager to please, pushing everything over the top and barely able to stay in one spot for more than two bars. Honus Honus in particular had trouble focusing on his piano, because he had a perverse desire to smash yet another piece of percussive metal every two bars or so, while the other Men Men pushed their already-ridiculous falsettos well beyond the breaking point.
Man Man on a bad day are still infinitely more entertaining than most of what builds a buzz on the blogosphere these days—which brings us to opening act Yeasayer. This Brooklyn band might be one of the hippest things among those born after 1980, but anyone a bit older than that will be forced to recall Oingo Boingo for the first time in over 20 years. Individually they're amazing players, but that doesn't for a second excuse the monotonous mess they get into. As soon as they took the stage, I realized that I had actually seen them before once, in NYC, and had made a point of forgetting about them. Visually, they're a motley crew, with a preppy vocalist that looks like a young John Linnell from They Might Be Giants, bookended by a Latvian mafia bassist gyrating his hips and a noodly guitarist focusing on his effects. One song with a First Nations vocal feel managed to cut the mustard, but the rest of the set felt downright punishing.
So did Man Man, I'm sure, for some people. Even this day-one fan found them a bit much on this outing, like they were trying to hard to impress the larger audience that had suddenly shown up to see them. Just be yourselves, Men.
March 27
Burnt Sugar at Lula Lounge.
This is an arkestra conducted by guitarist and cultural theorist Greg Tate, featuring fine funk and jazz players, yet it never really coalesced in the unexpected ways I expected—if that makes any sense. I was hoping for more sense of rhythmic and harmonic freedom, but instead the band seemed content to ride rather simple grooves that one sympathetic colleague uncharitably described as "jam band territory." The much-ballyhooed "conduction" employed by Tate and his band members didn't seem any different than what every jazz band on the planet does: communicate through eye and hand gestures on stage, with or without a baton in your hand.
There were definitely inspired moments, mostly courtesy of the alien-like MIDI saxophonist and the punchy baritone player. But overall, I much prefer the wilder and more inclusive antics of Toronto's own Dave Clark and the Woodchoppers Association, who have been conducting improv sessions for the better part of ten years now. Anyone who's witnessed the Woodchoppers at the Tranzac, at the old Ted's Wrecking Yard, or Clark's annual Hillside Festival workshops knows exactly what I'm talking about. Clark pushes his players—and often the audience—in every possible direction and isn't afraid to rip everything apart before pulling it back together, making Burnt Sugar seem downright safe in comparison.
March 28
Kalimba Summit: Kahil El'Zabar, Njacko Backo, Laura Barrett, Nifty at Tranzac.
As one can tell from hyper-self-conscious articles like this one, Toronto's indie rock community suffers from a load of white guilt when it comes to building bridges to the rich world music community here. But thanks to the valiant efforts of people like David Dacks of The Abstract Index and, more specifically, Jonny Dovercourt of The Music Gallery and Wavelength, events like this are starting to become more commonplace. And hopefully they become less stilted than much of this evening ended up being.
Nifty is Matt Smith, who formed Les Mouches with Final Fantasy's Owen Pallett back in the early days of Torontopia. His debut album, A Sparrow! A Sparrow!, was one of the most pleasant surprises of 2007, involving sound collage, metallic percussion pieces, aquatic techno and avant-garde folk songs. In many ways, Nifty is everything I always hope Sandro Perri's various projects (Polmo Polpo, Glissandro 70, his self-titled folk material) will be but rarely are to these ears.
Live, however, Smith is stuck behind his sampler, loop pedals and mixing board, with nothing much to focus the eyes on other than his highly questionable 80s fashion choices. And while the reverb-drenched recording rarely gets stuck in a swamp, the live set does exactly that all too often. As for his use of kalimba, it was obviously inspired in part by Congotronics, but he didn't take it far enough in that direction to hold the interest of the audience faction who came to hear the headliners.
Laura Barrett has single-handedly brought the kalimba to the attention of Toronto's indie community, and it's safe to say that she was the impetus for this evening's programming. Her two EPs to date don't do proper justice to what she does and where she's going: her crazy busy kalimba playing is the perfect complement to her abstract sense of melodics that recalls late-period Joni Mitchell—in a good way—and the new material, due out this fall, showed her continuing to grow away from her cutesy beginnings.
Barrett claims to have felt a bit out of place on a bill with Njacko Backo, an African-Canadian from Cameroon who fronts a band called Kalimba Kalimba—obviously not a newcomer to the instrument. Backo also spends part of his time performing and teaching for school children, a trait that came across all too well at this performance. His lyrics were simplistic and sadly often cloying. He appeared to be having some rhythmic difficulty perhaps due to a bad monitor mix, and the way he joked about bullying the audience into crowd participation had the counterintuitive effect of feeling uncomfortable.
The evening took a total shift when Kahil El'Zabar took the stage. A tall, cool and commanding figure, he took a markedly different approach than everyone on stage before him. El'Zabar plays the blues, sparse and full of soul, and without the busy rhythms that mark most kalimba playing. He has the demeanour of a seasoned jazz dude, the kind who can casually remind you that he's played with everyone from Paul Simon to Nina Simone to Pharoah Sanders without seeming like a total jackass. He works himself into a trance, to the point where he's humming gutturally and practically twisting his head around Stevie-style, lost in the moment and pulling us in with him. It had been a long night at that point, but there wasn't any question of anyone bailing early once El'Zabar cast his spell.
He made a great speech (among many) that gave Laura Barrett some props and then invited everyone on stage for a final jam. The collaboration was less remarkable than we'd hoped, and perhaps a visibly unimpressed Njacko Backo did the right thing by curtailing it early on. But it was worth trying—as was this bill, which if nothing else introduced Barrett and El'Zabar to new audiences and each other. More culture clash, please.
March 31
Sunset Rubdown at Lee's Palace.
I've seen Sunset Rubdown plenty of times, including very early band incarnations at tiny gigs in Montreal. I've even seen them plenty of times at Lee's Palace; this would be my third time. And because I somehow postponed spending any serious time with the latest album—Random Spirit Lover, which came out last fall—this gig wasn't on my radar at all. Until, that is, my old friend Mark "The Nooch" Nichol wrote and asked if I was coming; he's the latest addition to his Mile End Sunday soccer mates in Sunset Rubdown, playing kalimba, bass, and percussion, and I had yet to see him in the band.
The Nooch did not disappoint, and neither did the rest of his new crew. They're packing more muscle now that there's a bass being traded about on stage. Camille Wynn-Ingr still sounds magical harmonizing with Spencer Krug, who remains one of the more endearingly awkward men currently fronting a powerhouse band. And the two dudes trading guitar and drum duties take an inventive approach to both instruments that elevates the arrangements far above the realm of rote rock bands.
The new material is better than I remembered the album sounding, especially the song that Helen Spitzer always thinks sounds like Big Country. And I'm still baffled at the sight of people holding hands, singing and swooning to "Us Ones In Between," though it's a lovely sight.
April 8
Jens Lekman, Final Fantasy at Great Hall
Hearing brand new Final Fantasy material was reason enough to go to this show. Seeing Jens Lekman live for the first time was another. And I'd be lying if I said that the fact that I live about a 30-second walk away from the beautiful, hallowed venue wasn't yet another still.
Despite its beauty, the Great Hall has some serious acoustic problems, which plagued much of the Final Fantasy set. It put off Owen Pallett somewhat and didn't help his nerves about debuting new material that he didn't consider finished works. Not that it mattered: the new songs sound great, punctuated with lots of staccato rhythms he creates by bouncing his bow on the strings, sounding not unlike Japanese kotos. The new album will be called Homeland, due out in the fall, and Pallett described it as being set in a "fictional world where I am the supreme deity." Um, isn't that the case with all narrative fiction, in song lyrics or otherwise?
Jens Lekman had a lot of love from the crowd for his Swedish Jonathan Richman schtick, which would fall flat on its face were he not such a charmer. He's as deadpan as the Flight of the Conchords, and yet because of his ESL lyrics it's not always clear when he's conning you and when he actually thinks he's nicked an awesome rhyme. Either way, his charisma outweighs the cheese, and his way with classic melodies supercedes any other shortcomings. Plus, for this performance he was joined by Final Fantasy's projectionist Steph Comilang, who added visual splendour to the stripped-down set that otherwise featured only a percussionist and the occasional backing tape.
Lekman wrapped up the evening by performing in the park beside the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (I was in bed by that point); something he'd obviously planned from the beginning of the set, and seemed itchy to ditch the formality of the stage show to get to it.
April 10
Hilotrons, Andy Swan at Horseshoe
Ottawa's Kelp Records crew rolled into Toronto with a couple of well-kept secrets, a niche that Kelp seems to have nailed down. It's a specialty that no label aspires to, and while Kelp may be a sensation in their hometown—witness their ability to throw massive weekend-long parties at the city's major venues every April to celebrate their anniversary—they're far under the radar in Toronto.
That's true even of their only Toronto act, singer/songwriter Andy Swan. Changing the name of his long-running band Detective Kalita to The Michael Parks doesn't help, nor does the fact that he just released a solo album under his own name (Andy Swan's Ottawa).
He's got some critics in his corner, he has the undying loyalty of his Kelp peers who talk him up every chance they get, and he has Polmo Polpo's Sandro Perri playing slide guitar for him occasionally. He also has an arsenal of great songs, but not the kind that make an immediate impression or that his modest stage persona is about to give you a major sales job on. Swan is so subtle that it's taken me years to cotton on to what a talent he is; every time I've seen him I fall further under his spell, and this performance sealed the deal. Without a major hustle behind him, Swan can only hope for a Ron Sexsmith-esque career revival a few more albums down the road.
The Hilotrons are major stars in Ottawa, yet rarely play outside the city limits. That should change with the release of Happymatic, a fine pop album that makes you instantly forget about all those other herky-jerky Devo-tees who are giving art-damaged early 80s pop music a bad name.
The Hilotrons boast a bouncy rhythm section capable of twisting beats upside down and around, while vocalist Mike Dubue unleashes synth squiggles in between a pitch perfect vocal performance. We expect so little from male singers in rock band these days, leaving the operatic performances to melodramatic drama queens in moody art rock bands or sensitive folkie acts. Dubue is having none of that. He's a belter who doesn't need multiple takes to get it right; he nails it every time, as does every instrumentalist standing behind him on stage.
I'd heard earlier recordings by this band and found them mildly interesting at best; Happymatic was a pleasant surprise. But nothing prepared me for how jaw-droppingly awesome the Hilotrons' live show is—miss them at your peril. They certainly don't deserve to be relegated to "well-kept secret" status.
April 14: Man Man, Yeasayer at Lee's Palace
Man Man has always sounded insane. Lead singer Honus Honus howls to a point well beyond hoarse while attacking his keyboard; drummer Pow Pow looks like he'd be sequestered in a straitjacket had he chosen any profession other than percussion; the rest of the band look like a ragtag crew of salty sailors with a questionable grip on sanity. And yet the music has always worked: their strange mash-up of klezmer, cabaret, barrelhouse piano, kitchen sink percussion and raunchy blues managed to never get completely unhinged. Until now.
Maybe they've been playing these songs too long on the road and are bored by now, but there was a perverse desire to play everything twice as fast. The manic marimba player looked like he was ready to lose some limbs. As if to compensate, cracks started to show in their collective stamina by set's end, allowing them to play the until-now rare live treat "Van Helsing's Boombox," a track that's as tender as Man Man ever gets.
Not that anyone in the crowd seemed to mind. Word of mouth has built up over the past three years, thanks in part to the fact they now share a label with Tom Waits and Nick Cave, and there were no doubt many newbies who came out to witness the spectacle. The band seemed all to eager to please, pushing everything over the top and barely able to stay in one spot for more than two bars. Honus Honus in particular had trouble focusing on his piano, because he had a perverse desire to smash yet another piece of percussive metal every two bars or so, while the other Men Men pushed their already-ridiculous falsettos well beyond the breaking point.
Man Man on a bad day are still infinitely more entertaining than most of what builds a buzz on the blogosphere these days—which brings us to opening act Yeasayer. This Brooklyn band might be one of the hippest things among those born after 1980, but anyone a bit older than that will be forced to recall Oingo Boingo for the first time in over 20 years. Individually they're amazing players, but that doesn't for a second excuse the monotonous mess they get into. As soon as they took the stage, I realized that I had actually seen them before once, in NYC, and had made a point of forgetting about them. Visually, they're a motley crew, with a preppy vocalist that looks like a young John Linnell from They Might Be Giants, bookended by a Latvian mafia bassist gyrating his hips and a noodly guitarist focusing on his effects. One song with a First Nations vocal feel managed to cut the mustard, but the rest of the set felt downright punishing.
So did Man Man, I'm sure, for some people. Even this day-one fan found them a bit much on this outing, like they were trying to hard to impress the larger audience that had suddenly shown up to see them. Just be yourselves, Men.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Sunset Rubdown
I learned a long time ago not to trust first impressions.
The first few times I saw Wolf Parade live, back in 2003, I was immediately struck by the songs and stage presence of Dan Boeckner, and equally befuddled and annoyed by the songs and vocals of his co-frontman Spencer Krug, which I thought were aimless, proggish anti-pop. I think it was only after hearing their EP (the one that was consistently in print, unlike the earliest demos) that I started to come around, and by the time Apologies to the Queen Mary came out in 2005, I'd totally fallen for every aspect of Krug's songwriting: his way with melody and countermelodies, his penchant for minor keys, his way of conjuring what sounded like old sea shanties and filtering them through a fractured new wave lens.
That said, it also took me a long time to get used to his other songwriting outlet, Sunset Rubdown. The hodgepodge debut album, Snake's Got a Leg, was a soupy, lo-fi mess, with minor gems scattered throughout its generous tracklist. And when I first saw the project live, it featured a rock band line-up that just made it sound like a poor man's Wolf Parade, with all the songs deemed too weird for that band.
Once again, I was dead wrong. On both 2006's Shut Up I Am Dreaming and the subsequent tour, Sunset Rubdown carved out their own unique identity. The band was dextrous and inventive with its textures. Krug's songs were overflowing with ideas and pop hooks--often inside one single track--but never felt suffocating. Because it came out at a time when Wolf Parade was still building on its momentum, the album was unfairly shrugged off as a side project and sadly forgotten about by the time year-end lists and prizes were being doled out.
In the meantime, Boeckner's new solo project Handsome Furs arrived in my mailbox today (it's out May 22 on Sub Pop), Wolf Parade have started recording a new album, and there's a new Sunset Rubdown album in the can and set for a fall release. Currently, SR are touring with Xiu Xiu, which brings them to Lee's Palace in Toronto on Thursday. Hopefully we'll get a peek at the new material.
This email conversation took place almost exactly a year ago for this article in Exclaim.
Sunset Rubdown
April 17, 2006
email interview, conducted immediately before a Wolf Parade show in New York City
The name Sunset Rubdown goes back how far?
It originated on a beach about 7 or 8 years ago, when a friend and I were watching the sunset, and ended up petting this stray dog, describing it at the time as a “sunset rubdown.” Ever since then I’ve used the name for solo recordings and performances, no matter what the style of music. The origin is actually kind of wholesome and innocent, yet somehow sexuality or even perversion of some sort is hinted at in the phrase. I like this vagueness and contradiction. I’ve had people tell me that it’s “gross,” or “sounds like the name for music that you snort coke to.” I think that’s funny.
Snake’s Got a Leg was culled from different sources, no? How old was some of that material?
Yes, it was. There was a set of 5 mini CDs that I put together about two years ago now. Each cd was about 20 minutes long and featured a different style of music. One was acoustic guitar songs, one was distorted keys and drums, one was instrumental electronic, etc. I was doing them DIY, trying to put them in nice little packages and all that, so only ended up making maybe 20 sets because the process was so labor intensive. It was just a little project that I wanted to try and I didn’t hate the results. It was in doing those mini CDs that I became okay with the idea of putting two or more versions of the same song out there. I would write a song on piano, then rewrite it on guitar, for example, and often the results were different enough that I didn’t feel like I had to decide which version was better, but rather put them both out there. Hence the mini CDs of different styles containing different versions of the same songs. So in that way the project made sense to me and seemed like a fun idea.
But then Global Symphonic heard them and wanted to release the songs, and logistically it’s sort of impossible for a small label like them to release 5 mini CDs. So I had to try to make a sort of “best of” compilation of all the discs, and the idea didn’t translate. It was an annoying process trying to figure out what songs I liked best while still trying to represent the original idea, and then form it into a cohesive record. Basically it didn’t work. Besides trying to get all these different styles to flow nicely together, there was also the problem of differing sound qualities. All the songs were produced lo-fi, granted, but at least on the original mini CDs the sound quality, though poor, was consistent on each disc and in my mind created a mood. But trying to sequence all those different song styles together with all their differing production qualities just made for a really convoluted record. Snake’s Got a Leg is just all over the place, I know, and in the end I was really hesitant about putting it out there at all, but it ended just being one of those “fuck it” situations. So I wasn’t really surprised at the mixed reviews and actually agreed with what the more negative ones had to say about the record, but on the other hand I don’t regret it. It is what it is.
Anyway, most of those songs were written and recorded in 2003, with some of the more electronic stuff going back anywhere between a year and 3 years before that – old computer music I had laying around that I thought would maybe be okay to share (or maybe not).
I was surprised to see SR become a full rock band, which seems to invite obvious Wolf Parade comparisons—in a live context, anyway. Why did you want to go with that format?
Basically, I wanted to hear the songs live, and I wanted to bring some other brains into the mix. I like a lot of layers and I can’t do it all myself in a live setting, and bringing in other people obviously helps to push the songs to places that wouldn’t have occurred to me if I were working alone. So it started with just the four of us learning to play these songs live, then naturally there is a desire to record the material, so we made a full band record. In the future, Sunset Rubdown will probably continue to put out a mix of both solo and full band recordings, because I really enjoy both formats.
The most obvious question I guess is why not just bring these songs that I want to hear in a live setting to Wolf Parade. Sometimes I write songs that I want to hear in a way other than what Wolf Parade would do to them. That band is like a giant 5 man amplifier, most times. And with all the same components in place at all times, there is a certain sound that is unavoidable no matter what the original idea might have been. And that’s fine, that’s what Wolf Parade does, but I don’t always want to hear everything I write subjected to that same format. The song “I’ll Believe in Anything” is a good example of what Wolf Parade does to a song. The original Sunset Rubdown piano version is quiet and slow, and the Wolf Parade version is loud and blown out. And it’s not like I went to practice that day and said, “Let’s take this piano song and blow the shit out of it.” It’s just what happens naturally. Sunset Rubdown allows for different instrumentation, is consciously more dynamic and spacious than Wolf Parade, and in general, slower.
I enjoy both bands and what they do, as I believe both have their place, and I don’t mind if there are comparisons. There are and will be obvious similarities because I write songs and sing in both bands, but I believe the two bands are different enough to justify their coexistence.
I saw what I think may have been one of the first full-band Sunset Rubdown gigs at ZooBizarre, but I don’t recall when that was. When did you debut the line-up?
I can’t remember exactly. ZooBizarre was our second show. The first was at Casa del Popolo opening for Telefauna and They Shoot Horses… I think it was in June or July of 2005.
How is it that your band is mostly comprised of Victoria ex-pats? Did you play with any of them in B.C.?
No. I hadn’t even met any of the Sunset Rubdown kids until after I was living in Montreal. The fact that two are from Victoria is entirely a coincidence, or some sort of socio-political B.C. migration to anglophone / francophone segregated Mile End type thing that is not worth getting in to. I myself only lived in Victoria for a year. The Sunset Rubdown practices were the first time I had played with any of them.
Do you think keyboard players naturally write in a different style than guitarists? Do keyboards naturally lend themselves to different melodies, harmonics and arrangements?
It’s hard to imagine a song like “Swimming,” for example, on guitar. How often do you write songs on guitars?
Yeah. I mean, of course I don’t think that guitarists think any differently than keyboardists, but I think the instruments themselves – the physical layout – demand or lend themselves to different results, but not anything too drastic. For me lately I’ve been really interested in guitar, doing most of my writing there, but I almost always take what I write on guitar and rewrite it on the piano, or vice versa, and every time I make that translation I come up with something that I wouldn’t have otherwise. It’s really interesting for me to play with that difference in ideas that a specific instrument gives birth to, both in structure and in voicings of chords/ harmonies. I used to write mostly on piano, but like I said, lately it’s been a lot of guitar.
Shut Up is probably about a 50/50 mix. But I’m not a very good guitar player. I would be curious to see what a song like “Swimming” sounds like on guitar, but these stubby piano fingers just aren’t fast enough for that yet.
Re: your writing in Wolf Parade, you told the Montreal Mirror that “the only reason my stuff doesn't come off like totally inaccessible, pretentious synth prog is that Dan helps normalize it, so it creates a good balance." How is it that Sunset Rubdown avoids this
fate?
I’m not sure SR has avoided that fate. It’s not synth prog, because the song styles and
instrumentation are both too removed from that, unlike some of the rock stuff that WP does – synthy stuff balanced out with guitars. But if I had to say what band was more cerebral, it would be SR, and cerebral music can come off as pretentious sometimes. Wolf Parade is more of a straight ahead rock thing, not less intelligent, but perhaps less patient, but there is heart there. Sometimes I worry that a first time listener to SR will find a lack of heart in the music, because it is a little more convoluted. For me there is a lot of heart in SR, but a new listener might have to let it grow on them before they find it, if ever.
What do you think of Handsome Furs? What’s the status of it?
I’ve yet to see it in the fully realized way that Dan intends. I saw him do a solo show a while ago and it was good. He writes songs well suited to his voice and guitar style, but I know he has other things up his sleeve that I’ve yet to see. And I haven’t heard the recording yet, so I really can’t say what I think of it, but I’ll bet I like it.
Why does the glockenspiel appear in so many Montreal bands?
Don’t know.
I feel very torn about the role of vocals on this album. Normally I don’t like it when vocals are too high in the mix; I prefer when they’re on equal footing with the other instruments. The vocal melodies here are very strong, yet I feel I have to fight to make out your lyrics, which are often masked in reverb, and it’s all the more frustrating because I really enjoy your approach to wordplay and narrative. What was your intention with the vocal treatment, both here and on Snake’s Got a Leg?
I think the vocals on Shut Up are higher than Snake’s or the latest EP, which was not such a conscious and intentional thing. I mixed Shut Up very quickly, in 4 days, and probably would have ended up lowering the vox on some songs had I had more time with it. The high vox were apparently just my initial gut instinct, and you can read into that however you like. I find SR to be little more lyrically driven than WP, and so perhaps wanted to have them more out there, though I am still very uncomfortable calling myself a lyricist. It’s something that I’m now working on more consciously than ever, and hopefully they will improve with time. The distortion and reverb on vocals is simply an asthetic that I really like. With Shut Up I tried not to overdo it to the point of incomprehension, but then I have the disadvantage of knowing exactly what I’m saying when I mix the record, and so maybe give the comprehension of lyrics too much benefit of the doubt. I tend to like lyrics either very buried or way up, so I guess the latter is the way I steered with this one, but honestly never gave it too much conscious thought.
Do you like to write with narrative and characters?
Sort of, not really. I don’t know. My favorite songs are definitely NOT the ones where I write from some character’s POV, but I have done it and still play them. I like to write from my own POV in a way that is honest enough that I can live with it, yet not overtly self revealing, and so metaphors and wordplay come in, which are fun to work with. I don’t know. I’m still really trying to figure out what the fuck I’m doing with lyrics.
Why do you like recurring motifs and titles?
The recurring titles are simply the different versions of songs that I want to put out there, like I mentioned above. And motifs, I think, evolve slowly in a connected way that often overlaps. It’s a linear process where things overlap and lead to one another as a person grows as a songwriter. I don’t think it makes natural sense to be writing songs where topics sprout and have no thread within them.
Has Wolf Parade allowed you to be a full-time musician?
Barely…
How does this effect your output and various projects?
It’s good. There is obviously more time to think about projects and writing, but the catch is that you can’t write on tour. Your brain goes numb. I’m writing this interview on tour and perhaps you can tell. I usually gush out a bunch of built up ideas between tours and get them into the practice space or on tape as fast as possible, before we go out again. But yeah, it allows a certain freedom that I don’t take for granted.
How old is Fifths of Seven? Is that a continuing project or was it a one-off?
It was a one off for me, that I did about two years ago now. They are continuing without me but it was never a “band.” It was fun but not enough down my alley to pursue any further.
Has it ever performed live?
Not that I know of.
What’s the status of Swan Lake?
Comes out in late 2006, no plans to tour. We’ll see how this first one goes before thinking of doing it again, but I imagine the three of us will keep working together in one way or another.
What is the instrumentation like?
Sort of what you’d expect. Guitars, drums, keys ... and a GLOCKENSPEIL.
-end-
The first few times I saw Wolf Parade live, back in 2003, I was immediately struck by the songs and stage presence of Dan Boeckner, and equally befuddled and annoyed by the songs and vocals of his co-frontman Spencer Krug, which I thought were aimless, proggish anti-pop. I think it was only after hearing their EP (the one that was consistently in print, unlike the earliest demos) that I started to come around, and by the time Apologies to the Queen Mary came out in 2005, I'd totally fallen for every aspect of Krug's songwriting: his way with melody and countermelodies, his penchant for minor keys, his way of conjuring what sounded like old sea shanties and filtering them through a fractured new wave lens.
That said, it also took me a long time to get used to his other songwriting outlet, Sunset Rubdown. The hodgepodge debut album, Snake's Got a Leg, was a soupy, lo-fi mess, with minor gems scattered throughout its generous tracklist. And when I first saw the project live, it featured a rock band line-up that just made it sound like a poor man's Wolf Parade, with all the songs deemed too weird for that band.
Once again, I was dead wrong. On both 2006's Shut Up I Am Dreaming and the subsequent tour, Sunset Rubdown carved out their own unique identity. The band was dextrous and inventive with its textures. Krug's songs were overflowing with ideas and pop hooks--often inside one single track--but never felt suffocating. Because it came out at a time when Wolf Parade was still building on its momentum, the album was unfairly shrugged off as a side project and sadly forgotten about by the time year-end lists and prizes were being doled out.
In the meantime, Boeckner's new solo project Handsome Furs arrived in my mailbox today (it's out May 22 on Sub Pop), Wolf Parade have started recording a new album, and there's a new Sunset Rubdown album in the can and set for a fall release. Currently, SR are touring with Xiu Xiu, which brings them to Lee's Palace in Toronto on Thursday. Hopefully we'll get a peek at the new material.
This email conversation took place almost exactly a year ago for this article in Exclaim.
Sunset Rubdown
April 17, 2006
email interview, conducted immediately before a Wolf Parade show in New York City
The name Sunset Rubdown goes back how far?
It originated on a beach about 7 or 8 years ago, when a friend and I were watching the sunset, and ended up petting this stray dog, describing it at the time as a “sunset rubdown.” Ever since then I’ve used the name for solo recordings and performances, no matter what the style of music. The origin is actually kind of wholesome and innocent, yet somehow sexuality or even perversion of some sort is hinted at in the phrase. I like this vagueness and contradiction. I’ve had people tell me that it’s “gross,” or “sounds like the name for music that you snort coke to.” I think that’s funny.
Snake’s Got a Leg was culled from different sources, no? How old was some of that material?
Yes, it was. There was a set of 5 mini CDs that I put together about two years ago now. Each cd was about 20 minutes long and featured a different style of music. One was acoustic guitar songs, one was distorted keys and drums, one was instrumental electronic, etc. I was doing them DIY, trying to put them in nice little packages and all that, so only ended up making maybe 20 sets because the process was so labor intensive. It was just a little project that I wanted to try and I didn’t hate the results. It was in doing those mini CDs that I became okay with the idea of putting two or more versions of the same song out there. I would write a song on piano, then rewrite it on guitar, for example, and often the results were different enough that I didn’t feel like I had to decide which version was better, but rather put them both out there. Hence the mini CDs of different styles containing different versions of the same songs. So in that way the project made sense to me and seemed like a fun idea.
But then Global Symphonic heard them and wanted to release the songs, and logistically it’s sort of impossible for a small label like them to release 5 mini CDs. So I had to try to make a sort of “best of” compilation of all the discs, and the idea didn’t translate. It was an annoying process trying to figure out what songs I liked best while still trying to represent the original idea, and then form it into a cohesive record. Basically it didn’t work. Besides trying to get all these different styles to flow nicely together, there was also the problem of differing sound qualities. All the songs were produced lo-fi, granted, but at least on the original mini CDs the sound quality, though poor, was consistent on each disc and in my mind created a mood. But trying to sequence all those different song styles together with all their differing production qualities just made for a really convoluted record. Snake’s Got a Leg is just all over the place, I know, and in the end I was really hesitant about putting it out there at all, but it ended just being one of those “fuck it” situations. So I wasn’t really surprised at the mixed reviews and actually agreed with what the more negative ones had to say about the record, but on the other hand I don’t regret it. It is what it is.
Anyway, most of those songs were written and recorded in 2003, with some of the more electronic stuff going back anywhere between a year and 3 years before that – old computer music I had laying around that I thought would maybe be okay to share (or maybe not).
I was surprised to see SR become a full rock band, which seems to invite obvious Wolf Parade comparisons—in a live context, anyway. Why did you want to go with that format?
Basically, I wanted to hear the songs live, and I wanted to bring some other brains into the mix. I like a lot of layers and I can’t do it all myself in a live setting, and bringing in other people obviously helps to push the songs to places that wouldn’t have occurred to me if I were working alone. So it started with just the four of us learning to play these songs live, then naturally there is a desire to record the material, so we made a full band record. In the future, Sunset Rubdown will probably continue to put out a mix of both solo and full band recordings, because I really enjoy both formats.
The most obvious question I guess is why not just bring these songs that I want to hear in a live setting to Wolf Parade. Sometimes I write songs that I want to hear in a way other than what Wolf Parade would do to them. That band is like a giant 5 man amplifier, most times. And with all the same components in place at all times, there is a certain sound that is unavoidable no matter what the original idea might have been. And that’s fine, that’s what Wolf Parade does, but I don’t always want to hear everything I write subjected to that same format. The song “I’ll Believe in Anything” is a good example of what Wolf Parade does to a song. The original Sunset Rubdown piano version is quiet and slow, and the Wolf Parade version is loud and blown out. And it’s not like I went to practice that day and said, “Let’s take this piano song and blow the shit out of it.” It’s just what happens naturally. Sunset Rubdown allows for different instrumentation, is consciously more dynamic and spacious than Wolf Parade, and in general, slower.
I enjoy both bands and what they do, as I believe both have their place, and I don’t mind if there are comparisons. There are and will be obvious similarities because I write songs and sing in both bands, but I believe the two bands are different enough to justify their coexistence.
I saw what I think may have been one of the first full-band Sunset Rubdown gigs at ZooBizarre, but I don’t recall when that was. When did you debut the line-up?
I can’t remember exactly. ZooBizarre was our second show. The first was at Casa del Popolo opening for Telefauna and They Shoot Horses… I think it was in June or July of 2005.
How is it that your band is mostly comprised of Victoria ex-pats? Did you play with any of them in B.C.?
No. I hadn’t even met any of the Sunset Rubdown kids until after I was living in Montreal. The fact that two are from Victoria is entirely a coincidence, or some sort of socio-political B.C. migration to anglophone / francophone segregated Mile End type thing that is not worth getting in to. I myself only lived in Victoria for a year. The Sunset Rubdown practices were the first time I had played with any of them.
Do you think keyboard players naturally write in a different style than guitarists? Do keyboards naturally lend themselves to different melodies, harmonics and arrangements?
It’s hard to imagine a song like “Swimming,” for example, on guitar. How often do you write songs on guitars?
Yeah. I mean, of course I don’t think that guitarists think any differently than keyboardists, but I think the instruments themselves – the physical layout – demand or lend themselves to different results, but not anything too drastic. For me lately I’ve been really interested in guitar, doing most of my writing there, but I almost always take what I write on guitar and rewrite it on the piano, or vice versa, and every time I make that translation I come up with something that I wouldn’t have otherwise. It’s really interesting for me to play with that difference in ideas that a specific instrument gives birth to, both in structure and in voicings of chords/ harmonies. I used to write mostly on piano, but like I said, lately it’s been a lot of guitar.
Shut Up is probably about a 50/50 mix. But I’m not a very good guitar player. I would be curious to see what a song like “Swimming” sounds like on guitar, but these stubby piano fingers just aren’t fast enough for that yet.
Re: your writing in Wolf Parade, you told the Montreal Mirror that “the only reason my stuff doesn't come off like totally inaccessible, pretentious synth prog is that Dan helps normalize it, so it creates a good balance." How is it that Sunset Rubdown avoids this
fate?
I’m not sure SR has avoided that fate. It’s not synth prog, because the song styles and
instrumentation are both too removed from that, unlike some of the rock stuff that WP does – synthy stuff balanced out with guitars. But if I had to say what band was more cerebral, it would be SR, and cerebral music can come off as pretentious sometimes. Wolf Parade is more of a straight ahead rock thing, not less intelligent, but perhaps less patient, but there is heart there. Sometimes I worry that a first time listener to SR will find a lack of heart in the music, because it is a little more convoluted. For me there is a lot of heart in SR, but a new listener might have to let it grow on them before they find it, if ever.
What do you think of Handsome Furs? What’s the status of it?
I’ve yet to see it in the fully realized way that Dan intends. I saw him do a solo show a while ago and it was good. He writes songs well suited to his voice and guitar style, but I know he has other things up his sleeve that I’ve yet to see. And I haven’t heard the recording yet, so I really can’t say what I think of it, but I’ll bet I like it.
Why does the glockenspiel appear in so many Montreal bands?
Don’t know.
I feel very torn about the role of vocals on this album. Normally I don’t like it when vocals are too high in the mix; I prefer when they’re on equal footing with the other instruments. The vocal melodies here are very strong, yet I feel I have to fight to make out your lyrics, which are often masked in reverb, and it’s all the more frustrating because I really enjoy your approach to wordplay and narrative. What was your intention with the vocal treatment, both here and on Snake’s Got a Leg?
I think the vocals on Shut Up are higher than Snake’s or the latest EP, which was not such a conscious and intentional thing. I mixed Shut Up very quickly, in 4 days, and probably would have ended up lowering the vox on some songs had I had more time with it. The high vox were apparently just my initial gut instinct, and you can read into that however you like. I find SR to be little more lyrically driven than WP, and so perhaps wanted to have them more out there, though I am still very uncomfortable calling myself a lyricist. It’s something that I’m now working on more consciously than ever, and hopefully they will improve with time. The distortion and reverb on vocals is simply an asthetic that I really like. With Shut Up I tried not to overdo it to the point of incomprehension, but then I have the disadvantage of knowing exactly what I’m saying when I mix the record, and so maybe give the comprehension of lyrics too much benefit of the doubt. I tend to like lyrics either very buried or way up, so I guess the latter is the way I steered with this one, but honestly never gave it too much conscious thought.
Do you like to write with narrative and characters?
Sort of, not really. I don’t know. My favorite songs are definitely NOT the ones where I write from some character’s POV, but I have done it and still play them. I like to write from my own POV in a way that is honest enough that I can live with it, yet not overtly self revealing, and so metaphors and wordplay come in, which are fun to work with. I don’t know. I’m still really trying to figure out what the fuck I’m doing with lyrics.
Why do you like recurring motifs and titles?
The recurring titles are simply the different versions of songs that I want to put out there, like I mentioned above. And motifs, I think, evolve slowly in a connected way that often overlaps. It’s a linear process where things overlap and lead to one another as a person grows as a songwriter. I don’t think it makes natural sense to be writing songs where topics sprout and have no thread within them.
Has Wolf Parade allowed you to be a full-time musician?
Barely…
How does this effect your output and various projects?
It’s good. There is obviously more time to think about projects and writing, but the catch is that you can’t write on tour. Your brain goes numb. I’m writing this interview on tour and perhaps you can tell. I usually gush out a bunch of built up ideas between tours and get them into the practice space or on tape as fast as possible, before we go out again. But yeah, it allows a certain freedom that I don’t take for granted.
How old is Fifths of Seven? Is that a continuing project or was it a one-off?
It was a one off for me, that I did about two years ago now. They are continuing without me but it was never a “band.” It was fun but not enough down my alley to pursue any further.
Has it ever performed live?
Not that I know of.
What’s the status of Swan Lake?
Comes out in late 2006, no plans to tour. We’ll see how this first one goes before thinking of doing it again, but I imagine the three of us will keep working together in one way or another.
What is the instrumentation like?
Sort of what you’d expect. Guitars, drums, keys ... and a GLOCKENSPEIL.
-end-
Friday, November 17, 2006
Swan Lake: Spencer Krug
This is the second of three interviews for Swan Lake, the new band for Carey Mercer of Frog Eyes, Dan Bejar of Destroyer, and Spencer Krug of Sunset Rubdown/Wolf Parade. This one runs today because I find myself back in Montreal on an abnormally balmy November morning (it's warmer and sunnier than Ontario today, go figure; yesterday was the most torrential and miserable experience I've ever had making this trip on the 401). Also, because my email interview with Dan Bejar is kind of terrible--entirely because I sent him questions in a rush, before I'd really begun to understand what was happening on Beast Moans, Swan Lake's debut album, and before I talked to Carey and Spencer. That conversation will run on Monday, the day before the album's release, and long after you've absorbed the better two of the three interviews.
The Exclaim piece these interviews were commissioned for hits the streets on Tuesday, November 28. I'll provide the link when it goes up.
Side note: Thanks to Chromewaves for the shout-out yesterday.
The Exclaim piece these interviews were commissioned for hits the streets on Tuesday, November 28. I'll provide the link when it goes up.
Side note: Thanks to Chromewaves for the shout-out yesterday.
Spencer Krug
November 7, 2006
Via phone, from his home in
How is
Pretty much as you remember it. I don’t go out much these days.
Have things calmed down a bit? Are you at home for a while?
Yeah, I’m pretty much done for the winter. Wolf Parade was just in
This record was made when, last March?
February and March. Then a little more mixing… I can’t remember.
I had no idea what it was going to sound like, but when I heard it, it didn’t sound like what I thought it would.
That’s fair.
For some reason I thought it would be more band-like, with drums and such. Did you have any idea what would happen when the three of you sat down in a room?
No. There were thoughts of getting a drummer up to the studio, but it just never happened. And we were fine if it didn’t happen. There were no preconceived notions of what any of it would sound like. Whatever came out was going to be the record. It could easily have gone a completely different way, more like a real band with a drummer on every track and more succinct-sounding songs. But it didn’t! I’m not surprised. I didn’t know what it would sound like, but I’m not surprised at all at how it turned out given what I know of Carey, Dan, and myself and what we like. I knew, for example, that there would be a lot of noodly guitar, because it’s Carey.
One thing that did surprise me is the treatment of the vocals on the record; the lyrics are quite obscured. The voices are more textural than they are lead instruments. It’s less of a songwriter-y record.
I can’t really tell why. You’ve asked me about this before, about why I like vocals up so far in the mix, and I think I answered by saying that I didn’t realize I did. I probably wrote a whole paragraph about it. And Dan does that too in Destroyer. I think Carey got his hands on us. If you listen to Frog Eyes, the vocals are fast and a blur to understand anyway, even if they were up in the mix, so they turn into more of a texture. Carey and I mixed a lot of it together. I don’t have a real aesthetic towards vocals that I lean towards one way or another. There are also points where all three of us are singing—and you just naturally want to turn that stuff down. We’re not trying to make an opera.
The record baffled me quite a bit initially and I keep hearing new things every time I listen to it. At first I thought it was pretty much the three of you in your own corners with your own songs, but the more I hear it the more I notice collaborations and people singing on each other’s tracks. But that doesn’t strike me right away.
Yeah, there’s a lot of things floating around in the mix!
Initially, I thought that Carey’s stuff sounded the most different from Frog Eyes, whereas some of Dan’s songs do sound like Destroyer to me and some of your songs definitely sound like Sunset Rubdown. How do you think all of that worked out?
Carey has another project that he used to do called
Both Carey and Dan have singular visions in their other bands, where they drive everything. You have two other bands: one where you write everything, and one where you and Dan collaborate and modify each other’s songs. How did you find it entering into a writing situation with two other bandleaders? Or is that more natural for you because you do that with Dan?
It was fine. I played with Carey for a long time in Frog Eyes. I’m used to taking directions from him. Frog Eyes is his baby and I’ll write my own parts and be respectful of the fact that it’s his material and I like it and I just do what he tells me. That relationship between him and I is fine. None of us are really megalomaniac control freaks.
Carey actually described you all as tyrants.
Then we’re all totally passive tyrants, with frustration taken out through mockery. We make fun of each other’s stuff a lot. We went into it with open minds and ready to let go of that stuff. In Sunset Rubdown I do like to hold the reigns; I bring stuff to that band that I have very specific ideas for that are already fleshed out. With
Did the three of you share any work habits, good or bad?
No, none at all. We’re pretty different. When it comes to mixing, both Carey and I are workhorses. We’ll sit there for hours and hours. We did some shiftwork: overdubbing, mixing, and erasing it. I’d do that all night and he’d do it all day. At this point Dan was in
A lot of people approach songwriting and recording differently; I was just curious how the three of you did that together.
There’s definitely differences, but nothing that got in the way. The one uniform thing we did was sit down with an acoustic guitar for the first few days and had a round table of pressing record and laying the bare bones of a song down. After that, all rules were off.
Carey told me that if someone told you a couple of years ago that you’d both be playing acoustic guitars that you’d be horrified.
I wouldn’t have, he would have.
He’s just speaking for you, then.
Yeah, not the first time! He shirks the thought of the singer/songwriter open jam night at the coffee shop in
Did making this record illuminate anything in your own work you didn’t realize before, didn’t know was there?
Hmmm. Maybe some different approaches to mixing. It was also further affirmation that you can record tons of shit, tons of tracks on top of each other and then go back later and find the gold. It’s the way you treat the things you want to keep that I might start doing differently because of Carey. I mean, once you’re actually mixing it.
We also talked about how it’s a personal project without particular goals in mind, just three friends seeing what they could do together. Obviously when you make a record like this you’re not thinking about how people will react, but now that it’s done, do you think it’s more of a personal thing or is it something…
You mean, how will we react to how it’s accepted? It felt really free. None of the three of us had aspirations for
Yet.
Who knows?
Going back a fair bit, then, what drew you to these two men? When and why did you realize you had something in common with them musically?
I lived with both of them at different times within a few years of each other. Carey’s stuff I didn’t really like when I first met him. Listening back to it now, The Blue Pine, I find things that I like. But I liked his ideas a lot, and we started playing together when I lived with him. We always clicked musically right away. I was a fan of Destroyer long before I ever played with Dan. I learned about Destroyer and heard it when I lived with him and a bunch of other guys in about ’98, and it took off just after that. This is around the time of Thief. I remember him doing the cover on his computer. It was my last year of school in
That wasn’t all of Frog Eyes, was it?
No, and I was the replacement for Grayson Walker, who didn’t want to go to
Was Michael Rak there too?
No, he didn’t want to go to
Are you back in Frog Eyes now then?
I can’t really speak to that. I will keep playing with Frog Eyes whenever I can. I’m like an honorary member. I’m always welcome.
You talked about how you met Dan, but musically, what do you like and respect about what he does? Or that you think you might have in common with?
Oh, I don’t have anything in common with him musically. It’s his lyrics that get me. I think he’s an amazing lyricist, and the way he delivers them in his heartfelt crooning style. I don’t think there are many songwriters who are poets, for lack of a better word. I know I’m not, and I don’t think Carey is, but his lyrics transcend songs. I like playing with words and making words and phrases as meaningful as I know how, with the syntax and the cadence of a song. But Dan’s stuff remains poetry with that cadence and rhythm to them, and I don’t think many people can do that. He does it really well.
I find it interesting that it’s obviously part of what drew me to him as well, but in pretty much any interview with him—I don’t know if he’s just being self-deprecating, a jester, or whatever—but he gives off the impression that he’s really just putting words together. I guess people try to press him to explain meanings and relationships in his lyrics, and he usually dismisses all of that.
He always will, though.
Most people would at least defend themselves instead of insisting there’s no meaning to their work. I find his reaction quite funny.
It’s not a show. He is truly humble. You just have to make your own guesses. He’s given me the same answers.
I thought he was just trying to throw off people in my profession.
I don’t think he has an agenda in that regard. There’s just certain things that he won’t talk about.
In terms of the division of labour, it sounds like everyone was all over everything, really.
Pretty much. If you hear a screechy electric guitar, it’s Carey.
Are you all the keyboards?
No, Carey did some. Dan did some of the electric guitar. Drums is me and Carey, mostly. I even played some bass, which I never do.
Do you think the record has a unity? Was that a concern when making it?
Do you mean does it stand separate from our other projects?
I think it does that, but in terms of song choices...
Oh, as a single work of art. Lyrically, there was not a lot of collaboration. But we were definitely conscious of making a cohesion to all of it, to make one work rather than a compilation of three guys. Because the lyrics came from three different people, we could only attempt to do that through the music. Really, all you can do is try to stick to the same kind of instrumentation. There’s some stuff we cut because it conflicted with the rest of the record, not because it was horrible. All you can do is try. I don’t know if we succeeded.
I understand that there are plans to revisit this, schedules willing. What kind of life do you think it will take on?
I don’t know. I think it’s going to get crucified, personally. I think it will be a small handful of people who really like it, whether or not they’re already fans of one of the other projects. Hopefully there will be people who just like it for what it is. But on the whole, I have a feeling that it will be really torn apart, and I’m okay with that. I’m interested to see what happens to it that way, but it’s not a one-off. It is a ‘when-time-allows’ thing. Even if it does get totally brutalized, I think we’ll do another one because it’s fun. Whatever label is willing to pay for it!
I’ll admit that I was baffled the first time I heard it, and anyone who reviews it after listening to it only once might not be kind. But anyone who’s an honest fan of any of the three people involved is going to give it a few shakes. I also don’t think it’s any weirder than any given Frog Eyes record, so anyone who likes that band will like this.
That’s true.
I don’t about Wolf Parade or Destroyer fans, though.
Yeah, I’m not sure frat boy Wolf Parade fans will take a shine to it.
They might not Shine a Light, you mean?
(laughs)
-end-
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