The following reviews ran in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record and Guelph Mercury in August and late July.
Bahamas – Pink Strat (Nevado)
Afie Jurvanen has spent the last few years playing guitar in Feist’s band, and as you might expect, there’s plenty of tasty, subtle guitar playing that is set to spacious, drowsy ditties that go down like sangria on a summer night, with appearances by Feist and some Great Lake Swimmers. What makes it even better is that Jurvanen is also a seductive singer who you can’t help but falling for, even if he croons, “Take me home/ I’ll be yours until morning/ and then leave without warning.” Many of these 12 songs are equally ephemeral, yet entirely satisfying nonetheless. (July 23, K-W Record)
Black Mold – Snow Blindness is Crystal Antz (Flemish Eye)
It’s almost better if you don’t know that this is the work of Chad Van Gaalen, the Calgarian singer/songwriter who builds instruments, records the kitchen sink at home, dabbles in electronics and does animation on the side. Here, there is nary a trace of the inventive and supremely melodic bedroom rock that colours the rest of his discography so far. In fact, an acoustic guitar doesn’t even show up until the second last track; his distinctive voice is nowhere to be heard.
Black Mold is where Van Gaalen immerses himself in synthetic soundscapes, both vintage and modern, spanning everything from Tangerine Dream up to the art school approach of Matmos to the stuttering glitches of Venetian Snares. (Little wonder that one track is titled: “Finally Someone Invented a Teleporter!”) Though he’s toyed with these textures on his singer/songwriter records, here he surrenders himself entirely—with the deceptive exception of opening track “Metal Spider Webs,” set to cello, upright bass, clarinet and Moog synthesizer. Melody is in short supply, or at least overwhelmed by pitched-up percussion and sound snippets, but such is Van Gaalen’s ear-tickling density of delights that it barely matters. (Aug. 13, K-W Record)
Chairlift – Does You Inspire You (Sony)
Chairlift won the lottery by having their song ”Bruises” (“I tried to do handstands for you”) used in an iPod commercial; its buoyant ’80s synthpop groove and charming male/female duet—the twee-est tune since Peter Bjorn and John’s “Young Folks”—is by far the main attraction on this, their uneven debut album. But there is plenty of goodness to be found here, even if the Eurocentric duo—originally from Colorado, now in Brooklyn—are at best batting .500. Vocalist Caroline Polacheck sings convincingly en francais in “Le Flying Saucer Hat”; the closing “Ceiling Wax” is space-y cinematic science fiction soundtrack material. Chairlift are never short of melody; their stumblings usually depend on how cutesy they get, with lyrics like: “the most evident utensil is none other than a pencil/ not a multi-coloured stencil.” Not that it really matters, as they’ve already scored one of the most delightful singles of 2009 (actually 2008, as this is a major label re-release) with “Bruises.” (Aug. 13, K-W Record)
Coralie Clement – Toystore (Compass)
The title Toystore refers to the fact that this trilingual French singer decided to set her third album to a sonic backdrop of instruments like the alto half-violin, a baby Farfisa organ, and slide flute—along with more “real” instruments often pegged as child-like: ukulele, xylophone, melodica and penny whistle. But there’s nothing naïve or childish about Clement’s music itself, which is confident adult pop drawing from French chanson, torch songs, jazz and folk. And when she decides to get sultry, as on the not-so-romantic duet with Etienne Daho, “Je ne sens plus ton amour,” there’s definitely no childplay involved. Babymaking, maybe. (Aug. 13, K-W Record)
Dead Weather – Horehound (Third Man)
Sex. Death. Mothers. Devilish dalliances. Ponies. The Dead Weather has it all, set to heavier-than-thou psychedelic blues.
Bandleader Jack White has always injected Zeppelinesque flourishes into his main gig, the White Stripes, so the sound of the Dead Weather isn’t a huge surprise. But White doesn’t want to be Jimmy Page—he wants to be John Bonham.
White takes drum duties here, ceding the guitar to Dean Fertita of Queens of the Stone Age. Bass is handled by Jack Lawrence from White’s first side project, the Raconteurs—which White followers should know this band trumps on every level. Lead vocals are in the sexy, sweaty hands of Alison Mosshart of The Kills, who slinks and snarls her way through this material. Together, they have instantly combustible chemistry; judging by the way they throw themselves into every ferocious note heard here.
Yet for all the monstrous moments scattered throughout Horehound, they’re interspersed with subtle, spooky touches and the occasional softer moment. Fertita spends almost as much time playing raunchy organ as he does guitar. As producer, White leaves plenty of space between every groove. This is by far the most fascinating and intricate production job of his career, as the instrumental “3 Birds” shows, partly because unlike his other projects, this band arrived with a total carte blanche, a freedom he uses wisely—and after carefully choosing his colours, there’s plenty of white space (no pun intended) remaining.
White shares many of the lead vocals with Mosshart, but she’s the one selling much of this material. “I always get the things I want,” she insists, and it’s hard to imagine anyone standing up to her after hearing her sing lines like: “I’d like to grab you by the hair and hang you up from the heavens.” (July 30, K-W Record)
John Doe & the Sadies – Country Club (Outside)
The Sadies are not only a powerhouse band on their own, but they also have a secondary career as a backing band that brings out the best in the bandleaders who hire them. That should be the case here with John Doe, who is best known as one half of the dynamic duo that fronted the ’70s L.A. punk band X; he’s spent much of the past 20 years as a rootsy singer/songwriter. The Sadies know both sides of his musical personality intimately. And yet Country Club is tepid and tame, with little of the fire and magical mystery that the Sadies do so well; shockingly, this sounds like any group of competent, faceless studio musicians. Doe is mostly singing covers, and as a vocalist he doesn’t have the kind of interpretive gifts to make that work—in fact, he often sounds as bored as we are. “Are the good times really over for good?” he asks, on Merle Haggard’s song of the same name. It certainly sounds like it here. (Aug. 27, K-W Record)
Jessie Evans – Is it Fire? (Fantomette)
Jessie Evans is a San Francisco singer from a bunch of bands you and I have never heard of. Her solo debut is out on an obscure indie label. But it doesn’t take long to fall under the sway of her electro-mambo rhythms, brought to life with her torchy vocals and melodic tenor saxophone lines. The latter conjures instant images of Martha and the Muffins, Romeo Void or any other early ’80s new wave bands (or even Condition, one of my personal favourites from the Canadian underground of that decade), though the drum machines, synth bass and electronic shadings are decidedly modern. Marimbas and accordions add to the exotica vibe that arrive via the Latin rhythms and occasional Spanish lyrics. She gets some help from former Siouxie and the Banshees member Budgie, as well as Calexico trumpeter/keyboardist Martin Wenk—a combination that hints at the breadth of influences at work here. Though the component elements of her sound are easily identifiable, Jessie Evans is one of a kind. (Aug. 13, K-W Record)
Fiery Furnaces – I’m Going Away (Thrill Jockey)
I’m Going Away appears at a time when the Fiery Furnaces seem to have exorcised their excesses and are poised to start anew. To prove it, singer Eleanor Friedberger pens all the lyrics this time out; until now, her pen had been largely dormant since her contributions to the debut, Gallowsbird Park. And not surprisingly, her comparatively simpler approach to wordplay gives these songs more room to breathe; there’s even a drum solo, reinforcing the fact that their incredibly dextrous touring band is playing an increased role in composition. There are still the abrupt tempo shifts, nods to vaudeville and rock operas, and other oddities, but Matthew seems to have chilled out somewhat.
The side effect of whatever ADD drug they’re on is that the highs are not as high as on past records. Instead, like fellow Chicagoans Wilco, they’ve settled into an almost comfortable groove that suits them well, even if it means leaving their more dramatic days behind. (Aug. 6, K-W Record)
The Flatlanders – Hills and Valleys (New West)
This slipped under the radar when it was released in March—but then again, this Texan trio of songwriters Joe Ely, Butch Hancock and Jimmie Dale Gilmore has always operated on the down-low. They formed 40 years ago, but only became an active recording band in the last decade, after each of them had achieved solo success. Together, they bring out the best in each other; Ely claims that the three of them might spend days refining one line of a verse, and that attention to craft is clear.
These sixtysomething songwriters don’t have anything to prove to anyone, but Hills and Valleys is a tour-de-force of honky-tonkin’ heartbreak and resilience. But other than the multitude of musical strengths on display, it’s the topical lyrics—at once contemporary and timeless—that sets it apart from just any pack of geezers getting together for laughs. The opening track, “Homeland Refugee,” details the ironic phenomenon of reverse migration away from the economic wasteland that is modern California, back to Texas where this generation’s grandparents once fled for the land of milk and honey.
These gentlemen have seen a lot of hills and valleys in their lifetime, but with this album they’re standing on top of a mountain. (Aug. 20, K-W Record)
Friends in Bellwoods II – Various Artists (Out of This Spark)
Two years ago, Out of This Spark was a new record label that launched with a compilation—that’s a story that’s common enough. But Friends in Bellwoods was a shockingly strong and consistent collection that documented a tightly knit Toronto group of musicians—with its tentacles in various southern Ontario communities, as well as Ottawa and Montreal—and helped introduce artists such as the D’Urbervilles, Rural Alberta Advantage, and Sebastien Grainger, as well as slightly better-known artists such as Gentleman Reg, The Acorn and Snailhouse.
All those artists return, along with new friends Basia Bulat, Timber Timbre, Final Fantasy, Bruce Peninsula and Great Lake Swimmers.
But with the exception of Snailhouse and Rural Alberta Advantage—both of whom deliver knock-out songs that stand with their best—the returning artists and marquee names all take a back seat to newcomers—and complete unknowns—such as Kite Hill (Ohbijou’s Ryan Carley), Sylvie Smith (ex-Barmitzvah Brothers, now of The Magic), Le Pigeon (featuring members of City and Colour and Rheostatics), Kate Rogers, Lisa Bozikovic, Low Notes, and Hooded Fang.
Special mention also goes to the D’urbervilles for their spirited cover of Timber Timbre’s brooding “Magic Arrow”; for all the community spirit and cross-pollination demonstrated here, it’s shocking that this circle of artists doesn’t dip into their collective songwriting pool more often.
Like any sequel, Friends in Bellwoods II doesn’t share the consistency and novelty of its predecessor, but it’s still an essential guide to one of the most creative communities in the country right now.
The album will be launched in Toronto on Friday, August 28 at Lee’s Palace, with Ohbijou, Bocce, Forest City Lovers and Evening Hymns. An all-day event will take place at the Tranzac club on Saturday, August 29 featuring Tusks, The Acorn, Great Bloomers, Kate Rogers, Bellewoods, Kite Hill, Lisa Bozokovik, The Low Notes, Snowblink, Emma McKenna, The Phonemes, The D'urbervilles, Sebastien Grainger, Bruce Peninsula, Dinghies, Kids on TV and more.
The launch continues in Guelph on September 17 at the E-Bar, featuring the D’urbervilles, Bocce and Evening Hymns, and in Waterloo at the Grist Mill on September 18 with the D’urbervilles and Evening Hymns. (Aug. 27, K-W Record)
Helado Negro – Awe-Owe (Asthmatic Kitty)
Brazilian tropicalia music is usually breezy and escapist in the first place, but in the hands of Helado Negro—who sing in Spanish, not Portugese—it’s a hallucinogenic, psychedelic experience for a mind-meltingly hot summer’s day. Bossa nova rhythms, acoustic guitars, clarinets, pipe organs, drum machines, subtle electronics and percussion all bleed together in the sun-baked vision of bandleader Roberto Carlos Lange, with some help from occasionally collaborator Guillermo Scott Herren of Prefuse 73. Little of it makes any sense; none of it has to. Aside from music, Lange has a background in visual arts and mixed media, which goes a long way in crafting this evocative and unique musical vision. (Aug. 6, K-W Record)
Jónsi & Alex – Riceboy Sleeps (XL)
Jónsi Birgisson is the alien-voiced singer of Sigur Ros, the Icelandic band who manage to make the saddest music in the world sound inspiring and triumphant. And while their latest album found them in a—relatively—upbeat mood, Birgisson had to shelve all that eternal sadness somewhere. Here, he collaborates with his partner Alex Somers to make largely ambient, droning music employing Sigur Ros’s string section (and band in their own right) Amiina and a choir. If you’ve ever found Sigur Ros to be mildly morose, Riceboy Sleeps will be insufferably slow and plodding, as nine-minute tracks go nowhere fast, not even terribly interesting as atmospheric music. For bona fide fans, well, Riceboy Sleeps is just like Sigur Ros—without the vocals, the melodies, the chord changes or most of the instruments. (July 30, K-W Record)
La Roux – s/t (Universal)
Yacht – See Mystery Lights (DFA)
The death of writer/director John Hughes has launched a sepia-toned and affectionate remembrance of his ’80s output, which—like many cultural iconography from the ’80s—is likely better appreciated from a distance rather than realizing how dated and awkward they really were. (With the awesome exception of Prince, of course: see below.)
Yacht and La Roux both revel in ’80s aesthetics; for La Roux this extends deep into singer Elly Jackson’s fashion sense as well. And while at several points in the last 10 years this might have been perceived as fresh or novel, the ’80s revival is well past its best-before date at this point. There are, of course, many acts who continue to spin creative sonic silk out that decade’s sow’s ear—Bat for Lashes and Fever Ray being the best examples in 2009. Yacht and La Roux are not in that company.
La Roux is the more popular of the two, with a high profile in its native U.K. and a recent nomination for that country’s Mercury Prize; they’ve also charted here in Canada. And yet this debut album sounds like a rejected demo from 25 years ago, full of the kind of songs that would be shoehorned into quick-buck carbon copies of John Hughes’s iconic films. The best song here, “Bulletproof,” is the only one that betrays any of Elly Jackson’s personality, and even then it only makes you want to reach for your old Yazoo records. If La Roux is to be taken seriously, then revisionist history will start claiming Heaven 17 were the misunderstood pop geniuses of the past 30 years.
Yacht are only slightly more interesting, if only because their circle of friends appears to wield some influence. One half of the duo, Jona Bechtolt, came up in Oregon’s lo-fi indie pop scene revolving around K Records, originally as one half of The Blow. And this new Yacht album is out on DFA Records, home of LCD Soundsystem, which has been responsible for some of the most exciting (albeit retro) dance music of the last decade.
Yet Yacht sound simply torn between these two worlds, trying to write twee pop songs on the one hand—with the deadpan vocals of Claire Evans feigning disinterest—and trying to sneak on to the dance floor with retro-futurist grooves that ultimately fall flat. As a result, it sounds like pop music for people who are bored of pop music; dance music for people who are bored of dancing. Which means that Bechtolt is just asking for trouble when he make the chorus of an eight-minute song out of the repeated phrase “it’s boring/ it’s boring/ it’s boring.” (Aug. 20, K-W Record)
Lightning Dust – Infinite Light (Jagjaguwar)
Amber Webber is one of the most distinctive female voices in Canada, but only here, on her second album fronting Lightning Dust, has she truly come into her own. As the female foil in the dude-fest that is psychedelic rock powerhouse Black Mountain, her supporting role doesn’t do full justice to her range and abilities. On the first Lightning Dust album, she played the part of a mournful maiden wallowing in despair.
As its title might suggest, Infinite Light is a much more luminous affair. Webber and her co-conspirator Joshua Wells keep things sparse, using little more than acoustic guitars and keyboards, but a song such as “The Times” manages to rock out using only piano power chords, bongo and a shaker. She’s still at her best on slower, noir-ish numbers that owe a debt to Nick Cave, like “Honest Man,” a duet with Wells, or the lovely, string-laden ballad “Take It Home.” But it’s when she stretches out on songs like “I Knew,” a barnburning country stomp recast for ’70s keyboards and an insistently pulsing drum machine, that she truly shines and shows off her versatility. (Aug. 6, K-W Record)
Major Lazer – Guns Don’t Kill People… Lazers Do (Downtown)
As a DJ, Diplo is one of the most influential figures of the last five years, for bringing beats from Brazil to the world, for helping launch the career of M.I.A., for putting his hometown of Baltimore on the musical map, for a steady stream of remixes, and for a lovely, understated album recorded for Ninja Tune.
As one half of Major Lazer, Diplo joins DJ Switch (M.I.A., Santigold) for a Jamaican vacation, recording at the legendary Tuff Gong studio. There, they set out to make a dancehall record—though one that was clearly made by insatiable scavengers of sound. On the opening track, “Hold the Line,” a Dick Dale guitar riff sets the tone, while horses and loons (!) and cellphones bleat and beep in the background underneath duelling dancehall MCs.
Soca, hip-hop and Brazilian beats all work their way into the mix, making Major Lazer the ideal summer mix tape. Not everything works, of course: there’s one awful excursion into Autotuned pop, and a couple of tracks delve into dancehall’s raunchier and violent side. But those are offset by the jazzy jaunt of the giddy "Mary Jane," the futuristic spy movie sounds of "Lazer Theme," and the sweet roots reggae sounds of "Can’t Stop Now."
Plenty of non-Jamaican artists have flirted with radical reinventions of dancehall (i.e. The Bug), but Major Lazer is one of the few to make a pop record in this genre that is as joyous as it is daring. (July 30, K-W Record)
Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band – Outer South (Merge)
As Bright Eyes, Conor Oberst has been a prolific one-man songwriting machine since he was 13 years old. Ironically, now that he’s started performing under his own name, he’s allowed his new bandmates in on the songwriting process, which means that Outer South—credited to Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band—features shared vocals and, frankly, songs that aren’t up to Oberst’s own standards. There are times when this is glaringly obvious—one song’s nasal chorus offers to “sleep on the air mattress with you.” But for the most part, even the weaker songs here—including some of Oberst’s—are buoyed by the Mystic Valley’s classic rock perfectionism. This is an outfit that sounds like Oberst locks them in a sauna shack for 12-hour rehearsals, working out dual guitar harmonies and vocal arrangements until their fingers bleed and their throats are shredded; every one of these dudes is a killer player, but there’s no showboating here—they’re all part of the team. Though it’s understandable that he would want to show them off, Outer South would benefit from some brevity; without a knockout track or two to match Oberst’s best, they may as well be treading water. (Aug. 27, K-W Record)
The Prince Brothers – From This Place (myspace.com/princebrothers)
The Prince Brothers may not be part of any cool clique in Toronto’s music scene, but their musical strengths speak for themselves. They specialize in straight-up ‘70s-style AM piano pop with rich harmonies and occasional country and cabaret touches—something that their peers like Ron Sexsmith, Danny Michel and countless others specialize in. Both Bryan and Eric Prince are fantastic singers, and know how to write melodies to wrap their pipes around; pianist Ben Kobayashi is an integral part of the arrangements, as responsible as the two vocalists for bringing each song to life. The only thing holding them back is that they work in an extremely crowded genre of similar mainstream acts; but they can rest assured that their songwriting chops alone are head and shoulders above the crowd. (Aug. 27, K-W Record)
Purplish Rain: A Tribute to Purple Rain – Various Artists (spin.com)
Yeah, yeah, Michael Jackson, Thriller, whatever. Have you actually listened to that album lately? (Judging by his sales figures this summer, you probably have.) A quarter century later, you can still judge a music fan on whether they’re a Michael Jackson person or a Prince person, just as the boomers had their Beatles vs. Stones wars to supposedly define a cultural divide. Both Jackson and Prince were bicultural aliens, musical omnivores and total freaks. One was sexually neutered; the other was sexually explosive. One was a chameleon who wanted to fit in everywhere; the other made everything else fit into his vision.
Which brings us to the 25th anniversary of Prince’s Purple Rain: an amusing trifle of a movie, its soundtrack is a towering classic, for reasons better suited to an essay than a brief review. The quality of this online-only tribute album is but a small testament to Purple Rain’s endurance. There are no huge names here; instead, a parade of unconventional artists take Prince’s stubborn streak to heart and reinvent his masterpiece on their own terms.
None attempt to match Prince’s bombast, with the exception of the Riverboat Gamblers’ admirable punk take on “Let’s Go Crazy.” The Twilight Singers transform “When Doves Cry” into a piano ballad, focusing on the anguish that made the single an unlikely Top 40 hit in the first place. Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings turn “Take Me With U” into a vintage soul rave-up; Mariachi El Bronx re-imagine “I Would Die 4 U” in a Mexican setting, somewhat less successfully. Lavender Diamond takes the longing of the title track, strips the histrionics and substitutes a subtlety that makes it sound like a simple John Lennon ballad—which in many ways, it is. Others (Of Montreal, Chairlift, Craig Wedren) are more faithful, but no less effective.
Best of all: it’s free (unlike Prince’s own myriad online adventures in marketing). Go to spin.com/prince; the password you need to know is “keyboardist.” (Aug. 20, K-W Record)
Jay Reatard – Watch Me Fall (Matador)
It’s easy to write off a guy who calls himself Jay Reatard. (Needless to say, it’s not his given name.) His earlier garage punk records were driven by adrenalin and little else, though they nonetheless managed to build considerable expectation for this, his first proper album for one of the biggest indie labels in the U.S. For his moment in the sun, Reatard steps up his game while maintaining his lo-fi aesthetic and proto-punk urgency, although now his songwriting is considerably stronger, lightning-quick acoustic guitars strum underneath white noise guitar solos, and Reatard’s vocals draw heavily from British Invasion-era ’60s pop. Only three of these 12 songs are over three minutes long (and even then not by much), but Reatard (do people call him that to his face?!) packs each one full of 50 years of rock’n’roll history, from rockabilly to psychedelia to punk to goth to ’90s indie rock, with maximum melody and energy at ever turn. Original? No, but this is record collector rock at its finest. (Aug. 27, K-W Record)
Rock Plaza Central - … At the Moment of Our Most Needing (Paper Bag)
It’s too bad we know that Rock Plaza Central are a group of normal Torontonians led by ex-Maritimer Chris Eaton. Because otherwise, it would be easy to imagine this album as the product of an isolated commune somewhere north of Bancroft, where everyone is raised on a diet of banjo and brass and British folk harmonies.
This, their second proper full-length as a full band, achieves a unique mystique that doesn’t fall into easy categorization: this exists removed from even the freakier sides of current folk music, to say nothing of alt-country or rock. “Handsome Men” makes lyrical references to the Rheostatics and Gordon Lightfoot, and “The Hot Blind Earth” is an obvious musical nod to Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir.” At once atmospheric and droning yet triumphant and propulsive, it’s captivating as it draws you closer in; this is not an album of background music that makes an easy first impression.
Eaton is known for being a wordsmith—his last album had a narrative concept, and he’s written two novels—but here he lets his bandmates do most of the storytelling, with Fiona Stewart’s violin in particular acting as responsible for the album’s emotional tenor as Eaton’s own voice. That warbly voice can be off-setting, but he gets plenty of vocal assistance from his motley crew, who turn the kernels of his songs into mantras sung in five-part harmony: “Don’t you believe the words of handsome men”; “When we fall far from the light/ will it make our darkness bright.” (July 23, K-W Record)
Superchunk – Leaves in the Gutter EP (Merge)
Spoon – Got Nuffin EP (Merge)
Iconic indie label Merge Records celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, and two of its latest releases are by veteran acts who show no sign of becoming dusty artifacts.
Superchunk have been laying low for the past six years, in part because half of the band have day jobs running the increasingly successful label. The last time we heard from them, they were moving away from their scrappy ’90s buoyant punk into mid-tempo songs decorated by acoustic guitars and synths. It was a maturity that suited them well, although now that they’re invigorated by the end of a long layoff, all the energy of their earlier work is again at the forefront. “Learned to Surf”—which appears in both a rocking and acoustic version—stands among their best singles, and the rest of this brief comeback also bodes well for an upcoming full-length expected later this year.
Spoon’s new EP is more like an old-fashioned 7” single: one pop song and two b-sides that pull apart and stretch the band’s already deconstructionist take on rock music. The title track is little more than a pulsing bass-and-drum pattern over which singer Britt Daniel croons while piano and ’80s-style guitar dance around underneath; hopefully there’s a LCD Soundsystem remix in the works. “Tweakers” is little more than a cut-and-paste rhythmic experiment; “Stroke Their Brains” shows that even when Spoon is on autopilot they’re still unique and entirely satisfying. (Aug. 6, K-W Record)
Wye Oak – The Knot (Merge)
More than a few musicians who start their career on a noisy bent end up adding a country twang to their sound. For young Baltimore duo Wye Oak, however, they like to throw it all against the wall at once, with songs that confound any genre expectations at all. On their superior second album, The Knot, they write dreamy songs that ache with melancholy, occasionally coloured with violin and pedal steel, but there’s always a crash of distortion waiting around the corner. Jenn Wasner’s vocals are oblivious to anything her partner Andy Stack throws at her; she sounds like a solo sad girl in her bedroom, despite the towers of guitars surrounding her. Fans of Low and Yo La Tengo will find plenty to love in the sound here, even though the songwriting doesn’t really fit into any easy category. Wye Oak’s debut was slightly promising if not generic indie rock; The Knot is the work of an accomplished, unique act. (July 30, K-W Record)
Showing posts with label Fiery Furnaces. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fiery Furnaces. Show all posts
Friday, August 21, 2009
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Eyeful of reviews, fall 07 p1
In the interest of further housecleaning, here are some reviews from Eye Weekly that I've neglected to post this past fall. Because their website is still under major construction, the full text is included here, with a link to the unGooglable original review.
More will follow tomorrow, with some live reviews after that.
In alphabetical order, today's serving includes: Bella, Mark Berube, Buck 65, Vic Chesnutt, Imani Coppola, Cuff the Duke, Dragonette, Duran Duran, Fiery Furnaces, Frightened Rabbit, Teki Latex, Bettye Lavette.
BELLA
No One Will Know
(Mint)
**
Vancouver: the city where the 80s never die, especially new wave pop performed by excitable twentysomethings who just saw Pretty in Pink and bought their first synthesizer. To their credit, Bella do this better than most, and actually sound like they could evolve into a multi-dimensional band—as opposed to, say, The Organ, who mastered a rut and never got out of it. But unlike similar retro-miners The Rosebuds or Imperial Teen, who guest here—both of whom remember the 80s first-hand—Bella are little more than promising youngsters. After forty minutes of treading water, nothing gets much deeper here than the title track’s typically non-committal teenage lyrics: “Don’t look at me that way and I won’t look at you/ and no one will know.” Maybe once they’re comfortable enough to make eye contact, Bella will make some real connections. (October 18, 2007)
MARK BERUBE
What the River Gave the Boat
(Kwalu)
****
Vancouver singer/songwriter Mark Berube is much more than another well-traveled dapper dude. Exhibit A: the guy can write a song called “Pretty Little Bird” that is nowhere near as naïve and nauseating as the title suggests. Instead, that track—like many on this album—contains wonderful images and narrative portraiture that suggests he’s studied closely at the feet of Mr. Waits and Mr. Cohen. Berube’s lyrical travels take him to Montreal, Berlin, Vancouver, New York City, Africa and an unnamed battleground on the poignant “War Without End,” which dodges any modern-day specifics and sounds appropriately timeless. Musically, on the other hand, he’s usually at home, parked on his piano stool and conjuring classic cabaret melodies with a rainy West Coast morning outside his door. His good luck streak continues with elegant string arrangements, sympathetic production and a soaring voice that reminds us what Rufus and Hawksley would sound like if they weren’t such drama queens. (September 13, 2007)
BUCK 65
Situation
(Warner)
****
After years of exploring in and outside of hip-hop, Situation marks Buck 65’s return to the genre, with the ace help of Haligonian DJ/producer Skratch Bastid. Yet on the mic, Buck’s decidedly non-hip-hop hobo fogey MC persona persists, this time waxing not-so-nostalgic for the year 1957, a year that he argues defined the cultural shift in post-war America. He has a variety of reasons; many of them seem to stem directly from The Notorious Bettie Page—and not specifics of her subversion or a parade of “scum bags and cum rags,” but actual dialogue from the film. Even without this concept, an occasionally breathless Buck is on top of his lyrical and musical game, incorporating his increasingly catholic tastes with consistently bangin’ Bastid beats. Situation might be his most accessible album to date, but that’s just because he keeps getting better. This career artist continues to be in a class of his own. (October 25, 2007)
VIC CHESNUTT
North Star Deserter
(Constellation)
**
Everything about this album works beautifully—except Chesnutt’s songs themselves. On his thirteenth studio album, the Georgia songwriter shacked up in Montreal with the Constellation Records posse, who provide tasteful and eerie backing to some of Chesnutt’s best vocal performances in years, as coaxed by engineer Howard Bilerman and producer (and Fugazi filmmaker) Jem Cohen. This makes it the best album by Constellation house band A Silver Mt. Zion, but sadly—as has been true for the last ten years or so—Chesnutt’s material doesn’t live up to his early-90s heights, leaving us with an hour of tuneless dirge. Hopefully the experience will kickstart his muse and warrant a return visit; it would be a shame to waste this opportunity. (November 22, 2007)
IMANI COPPOLA
The Black & White Album
(Ipecac)
***
It’s unlikely anyone remembers Imani Coppola as a one-hit youngster who sang “Legend of a Cowgirl” over a Donovan sample in 1997. For those that do, she’s still a savvy eclecticist whose juvenile lyrics distract from her skills as a pop songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. She’s a convincing soul singer (“Let It Kill You”), dabbles in dirty hip-hop (“Keys 2 Your Ass”) and has punk rock sass to spare on the bi-racial rant “Woke Up White.” Now that she’s been rescued from obscurity by Mike Patton—who not only signed her, but employs her as a violinist in Peeping Tom—her genre hopping will reach more receptive ears than the suits who dumped her a decade ago. (November 22, 2007)
CUFF THE DUKE
Sidelines of the City
(Hardwood/Universal)
****
On the opening track “If I Live Or If I Die,” Cuff the Duke singer Wayne Petti clearly has mortality on his mind – both his own, and likely that of his tumultuous band as well. After Petti's refreshing solo acoustic album followed up CTD's flawed but inexplicably popular second album, he and remaining original member Paul Lowman now bounce back with a renewed sense of purpose. Sidelines sparkles with life, succeeding everywhere that the last attempt failed – especially when they merge piano pop with their penchant for guitar epics, which they nail here on “Surging Revival” and “Failure to Some.” Their rootsier leanings lose any final traces of hokiness, and the Calexico-esque horns are a nice touch on the unfortunately titled “Ballad of the Tired Old Man.” They even pull off the unthinkable by bestowing some romantic nostalgia to their hometown on “Rossland Square.” It all adds up to what could be a breakthrough – their Oshawa Tree, if you will. (October 18, 2007) (My cover story on the band in this week's paper can be found here.)
DRAGONETTE
Galore
(Universal)
*
Pop music is never as easy as it looks. And just because ex-folkie Martina Sorbara is now dressing the part of a teen idol doesn’t mean she can blow bubblegum. Any Torontonian with prior knowledge of Sorbara’s past (and partner Dan Kurtz’s time with The New Deal) is likely to charge Dragonette with shameless popportunism. But ultimately it’s the lame material that slays Dragonette: most of these tracks are indistinguishable from Hilary Duff’s attempts to sound “edgy.” Sometimes a pop makeover can invigorate a career (see: Nelly Furtado), and Dragonette’s preliminary UK success suggests that they’re already fooling one market. The only time Sorbara sounds remotely convincing is when she sings: “Wash me/ god, I want to get this off me/ if you want to love me, stop me.” (September 20, 2007)
DURAN DURAN
Red Carpet Massacre
(Epic/Sony BMG)
*
Ever since they reformed the original line-up, all the dough they raked in on those reunion tours probably went towards hiring the triumvirate that brought sexy back: Danjahandz, Timbaland and Justin Timberlake himself. All three men sound like they were hired just to be namedropped in the marketing material; Timberlake, for example, didn’t seem to have the guts to cut off Andy Taylor’s awful guitar solo on “Falling Down.” Timbaland’s vocal cameos might be embarrassing, but at least they distract from the fact that no one bothered to auto-tune Simon LeBon’s increasingly wretched voice. It’s not a coincidence that the best track here is a Danjahandz instrumental; unfortunately for Duran Duran, that’s not going to sell a lot of concert tickets. (November 15, 2007)
FIERY FURNACES
Widow City
(Thrill Jockey)
***
Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger joke that they wrote this new album with the help of a Ouija board. For better and worse, it certainly sounds like it. Musically, the Friedbergers filter Wings and Zeppelin riffs and rhythms through synths and Chamberlain organs, with results that are consistently fascinating and ridiculously unpredictable, a crash course of tangential fantasies that miraculously flow together thanks in part to drummer Robert D’Amico and Eleanor’s convincing charisma. Unfortunately, Matthew uses the same scattershot approach to unleash a confounding lyrical onslaught for his sister to sing, which at times crowds out almost any pleasure to be found. When she’s denied a melody, the frantic words-per-minute rate is a waste of Eleanor’s increasingly versatile range. Thankfully, Widow City mostly sticks to the unlikely sweetness of 2006’s Bitter Tea—especially on the bonafide pop song “Ex-Guru,” which new labelmate David Byrne has already covered. (October 18, 2007)
FRIGHTENED RABBIT
Sing the Greys
(Fat Cat)
*
These are certainly greys, all right. This timid band of Glaswegians wield beige and banal indie rock guitars that try to prop up flaccid melodies and arrangements that shouldn’t have made it past the basement. This isn’t even fey enough to be friendly for the cardigan crowd. Even the titles here will have you instantly counting sheep: “Be Less Rude,” “Music Now” and, of course, “Yawns.” More offensive than Frightened Rabbit itself is the fact that the usually reliable Fat Cat Records has been signing even more snoozers like this (Tom Brosseau, David Karsten Daniels). (November 22, 2007)
TEKI LATEX
Party La Plasir
(EMI)
*
Teki Latex, known to some as an MC in franco hip-hop kings TTC, deserves one star for hiring Feistian producers Gonzales and Renaud Letang to navigate his foray into commercial pop music. Decked out in the most garish neon colours imaginable—as seen in the video for “Les matins de Paris”—the tone deaf Teki has zero personality as a pop singer on titles like “Disco dance with you” and “J’aime la pop music.” He enlists Feist to hide under her Peaches-sidekick alias Bitch Lap Lap, rapping in French and chanting: “The shit is the ish/ the ish is the shit.” Were it not for that stunt casting, it’s highly unlikely this would ever have been exported outside of France. (November 22, 2007)
BETTYE LAVETTE
The Scene of the Crime
(Anti/Epitaph)
**
The crime in question here is how this ended up being such a waste of time. Bettye LaVette is a 61-year old soul singer who isn’t on a comeback trail; she’s still arriving after languishing in obscurity after scoring one teenage hit in 1962. In 1972, she would record her debut album at the legendary Muscle Shoals studio for Atlantic Records—who promptly shelved the album. (It finally surfaced on a French label in 2002.) This new album pairs her with the Drive-By Truckers, whose Patterson Hood grew up at Muscle Shoals, where his father was a co-owner and bassist. Recorded back at Muscle Shoals, LaVette herself is in killer form, snarling like a spurned sexpot (and recalling recent reissues by fellow underdog Betty Davis). Yet everyone around her is far too reserved—intimidated, even. Instead of lighting a fire under her ass, they leave her dramatic vocals hanging out to dry on top of deadly dull bed tracks. The only time they connect is on the autobiographical “Before the Money Came (The Battle of Bettye LaVette),” which she co-writes with Hood. Otherwise, when she sings “You Don’t Know Me At All,” you have to wonder how intently she’s looking at the band. (September 20, 2007)
More will follow tomorrow, with some live reviews after that.
In alphabetical order, today's serving includes: Bella, Mark Berube, Buck 65, Vic Chesnutt, Imani Coppola, Cuff the Duke, Dragonette, Duran Duran, Fiery Furnaces, Frightened Rabbit, Teki Latex, Bettye Lavette.
BELLA
No One Will Know
(Mint)
**
Vancouver: the city where the 80s never die, especially new wave pop performed by excitable twentysomethings who just saw Pretty in Pink and bought their first synthesizer. To their credit, Bella do this better than most, and actually sound like they could evolve into a multi-dimensional band—as opposed to, say, The Organ, who mastered a rut and never got out of it. But unlike similar retro-miners The Rosebuds or Imperial Teen, who guest here—both of whom remember the 80s first-hand—Bella are little more than promising youngsters. After forty minutes of treading water, nothing gets much deeper here than the title track’s typically non-committal teenage lyrics: “Don’t look at me that way and I won’t look at you/ and no one will know.” Maybe once they’re comfortable enough to make eye contact, Bella will make some real connections. (October 18, 2007)
MARK BERUBE
What the River Gave the Boat
(Kwalu)
****
Vancouver singer/songwriter Mark Berube is much more than another well-traveled dapper dude. Exhibit A: the guy can write a song called “Pretty Little Bird” that is nowhere near as naïve and nauseating as the title suggests. Instead, that track—like many on this album—contains wonderful images and narrative portraiture that suggests he’s studied closely at the feet of Mr. Waits and Mr. Cohen. Berube’s lyrical travels take him to Montreal, Berlin, Vancouver, New York City, Africa and an unnamed battleground on the poignant “War Without End,” which dodges any modern-day specifics and sounds appropriately timeless. Musically, on the other hand, he’s usually at home, parked on his piano stool and conjuring classic cabaret melodies with a rainy West Coast morning outside his door. His good luck streak continues with elegant string arrangements, sympathetic production and a soaring voice that reminds us what Rufus and Hawksley would sound like if they weren’t such drama queens. (September 13, 2007)
BUCK 65
Situation
(Warner)
****
After years of exploring in and outside of hip-hop, Situation marks Buck 65’s return to the genre, with the ace help of Haligonian DJ/producer Skratch Bastid. Yet on the mic, Buck’s decidedly non-hip-hop hobo fogey MC persona persists, this time waxing not-so-nostalgic for the year 1957, a year that he argues defined the cultural shift in post-war America. He has a variety of reasons; many of them seem to stem directly from The Notorious Bettie Page—and not specifics of her subversion or a parade of “scum bags and cum rags,” but actual dialogue from the film. Even without this concept, an occasionally breathless Buck is on top of his lyrical and musical game, incorporating his increasingly catholic tastes with consistently bangin’ Bastid beats. Situation might be his most accessible album to date, but that’s just because he keeps getting better. This career artist continues to be in a class of his own. (October 25, 2007)
VIC CHESNUTT
North Star Deserter
(Constellation)
**
Everything about this album works beautifully—except Chesnutt’s songs themselves. On his thirteenth studio album, the Georgia songwriter shacked up in Montreal with the Constellation Records posse, who provide tasteful and eerie backing to some of Chesnutt’s best vocal performances in years, as coaxed by engineer Howard Bilerman and producer (and Fugazi filmmaker) Jem Cohen. This makes it the best album by Constellation house band A Silver Mt. Zion, but sadly—as has been true for the last ten years or so—Chesnutt’s material doesn’t live up to his early-90s heights, leaving us with an hour of tuneless dirge. Hopefully the experience will kickstart his muse and warrant a return visit; it would be a shame to waste this opportunity. (November 22, 2007)
IMANI COPPOLA
The Black & White Album
(Ipecac)
***
It’s unlikely anyone remembers Imani Coppola as a one-hit youngster who sang “Legend of a Cowgirl” over a Donovan sample in 1997. For those that do, she’s still a savvy eclecticist whose juvenile lyrics distract from her skills as a pop songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. She’s a convincing soul singer (“Let It Kill You”), dabbles in dirty hip-hop (“Keys 2 Your Ass”) and has punk rock sass to spare on the bi-racial rant “Woke Up White.” Now that she’s been rescued from obscurity by Mike Patton—who not only signed her, but employs her as a violinist in Peeping Tom—her genre hopping will reach more receptive ears than the suits who dumped her a decade ago. (November 22, 2007)
CUFF THE DUKE
Sidelines of the City
(Hardwood/Universal)
****
On the opening track “If I Live Or If I Die,” Cuff the Duke singer Wayne Petti clearly has mortality on his mind – both his own, and likely that of his tumultuous band as well. After Petti's refreshing solo acoustic album followed up CTD's flawed but inexplicably popular second album, he and remaining original member Paul Lowman now bounce back with a renewed sense of purpose. Sidelines sparkles with life, succeeding everywhere that the last attempt failed – especially when they merge piano pop with their penchant for guitar epics, which they nail here on “Surging Revival” and “Failure to Some.” Their rootsier leanings lose any final traces of hokiness, and the Calexico-esque horns are a nice touch on the unfortunately titled “Ballad of the Tired Old Man.” They even pull off the unthinkable by bestowing some romantic nostalgia to their hometown on “Rossland Square.” It all adds up to what could be a breakthrough – their Oshawa Tree, if you will. (October 18, 2007) (My cover story on the band in this week's paper can be found here.)
DRAGONETTE
Galore
(Universal)
*
Pop music is never as easy as it looks. And just because ex-folkie Martina Sorbara is now dressing the part of a teen idol doesn’t mean she can blow bubblegum. Any Torontonian with prior knowledge of Sorbara’s past (and partner Dan Kurtz’s time with The New Deal) is likely to charge Dragonette with shameless popportunism. But ultimately it’s the lame material that slays Dragonette: most of these tracks are indistinguishable from Hilary Duff’s attempts to sound “edgy.” Sometimes a pop makeover can invigorate a career (see: Nelly Furtado), and Dragonette’s preliminary UK success suggests that they’re already fooling one market. The only time Sorbara sounds remotely convincing is when she sings: “Wash me/ god, I want to get this off me/ if you want to love me, stop me.” (September 20, 2007)
DURAN DURAN
Red Carpet Massacre
(Epic/Sony BMG)
*
Ever since they reformed the original line-up, all the dough they raked in on those reunion tours probably went towards hiring the triumvirate that brought sexy back: Danjahandz, Timbaland and Justin Timberlake himself. All three men sound like they were hired just to be namedropped in the marketing material; Timberlake, for example, didn’t seem to have the guts to cut off Andy Taylor’s awful guitar solo on “Falling Down.” Timbaland’s vocal cameos might be embarrassing, but at least they distract from the fact that no one bothered to auto-tune Simon LeBon’s increasingly wretched voice. It’s not a coincidence that the best track here is a Danjahandz instrumental; unfortunately for Duran Duran, that’s not going to sell a lot of concert tickets. (November 15, 2007)
FIERY FURNACES
Widow City
(Thrill Jockey)
***
Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger joke that they wrote this new album with the help of a Ouija board. For better and worse, it certainly sounds like it. Musically, the Friedbergers filter Wings and Zeppelin riffs and rhythms through synths and Chamberlain organs, with results that are consistently fascinating and ridiculously unpredictable, a crash course of tangential fantasies that miraculously flow together thanks in part to drummer Robert D’Amico and Eleanor’s convincing charisma. Unfortunately, Matthew uses the same scattershot approach to unleash a confounding lyrical onslaught for his sister to sing, which at times crowds out almost any pleasure to be found. When she’s denied a melody, the frantic words-per-minute rate is a waste of Eleanor’s increasingly versatile range. Thankfully, Widow City mostly sticks to the unlikely sweetness of 2006’s Bitter Tea—especially on the bonafide pop song “Ex-Guru,” which new labelmate David Byrne has already covered. (October 18, 2007)
FRIGHTENED RABBIT
Sing the Greys
(Fat Cat)
*
These are certainly greys, all right. This timid band of Glaswegians wield beige and banal indie rock guitars that try to prop up flaccid melodies and arrangements that shouldn’t have made it past the basement. This isn’t even fey enough to be friendly for the cardigan crowd. Even the titles here will have you instantly counting sheep: “Be Less Rude,” “Music Now” and, of course, “Yawns.” More offensive than Frightened Rabbit itself is the fact that the usually reliable Fat Cat Records has been signing even more snoozers like this (Tom Brosseau, David Karsten Daniels). (November 22, 2007)
TEKI LATEX
Party La Plasir
(EMI)
*
Teki Latex, known to some as an MC in franco hip-hop kings TTC, deserves one star for hiring Feistian producers Gonzales and Renaud Letang to navigate his foray into commercial pop music. Decked out in the most garish neon colours imaginable—as seen in the video for “Les matins de Paris”—the tone deaf Teki has zero personality as a pop singer on titles like “Disco dance with you” and “J’aime la pop music.” He enlists Feist to hide under her Peaches-sidekick alias Bitch Lap Lap, rapping in French and chanting: “The shit is the ish/ the ish is the shit.” Were it not for that stunt casting, it’s highly unlikely this would ever have been exported outside of France. (November 22, 2007)
BETTYE LAVETTE
The Scene of the Crime
(Anti/Epitaph)
**
The crime in question here is how this ended up being such a waste of time. Bettye LaVette is a 61-year old soul singer who isn’t on a comeback trail; she’s still arriving after languishing in obscurity after scoring one teenage hit in 1962. In 1972, she would record her debut album at the legendary Muscle Shoals studio for Atlantic Records—who promptly shelved the album. (It finally surfaced on a French label in 2002.) This new album pairs her with the Drive-By Truckers, whose Patterson Hood grew up at Muscle Shoals, where his father was a co-owner and bassist. Recorded back at Muscle Shoals, LaVette herself is in killer form, snarling like a spurned sexpot (and recalling recent reissues by fellow underdog Betty Davis). Yet everyone around her is far too reserved—intimidated, even. Instead of lighting a fire under her ass, they leave her dramatic vocals hanging out to dry on top of deadly dull bed tracks. The only time they connect is on the autobiographical “Before the Money Came (The Battle of Bettye LaVette),” which she co-writes with Hood. Otherwise, when she sings “You Don’t Know Me At All,” you have to wonder how intently she’s looking at the band. (September 20, 2007)
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Fiery Furnaces 2006
The Fiery Furnaces recently announced that they signed to Thrill Jockey records and a new album is expected in the fall. They're currently on tour and play the Horseshoe in Toronto on Monday, June 25.
Because they burst out of the gate with five full-length albums in three years (one of which was billed as an EP but clocked in at 45 minutes), it seems like an eternity when one ponders the fact that their latest, Bitter Tea, came out a whopping 14 months ago, followed promptly by a bewildering 2CD solo record by main songwriter Matthew Friedberger--which even this big fan found unlistenable.
Bitter Tea was in many ways their prettiest album, especially on the heels of Rehearsing My Choir, a concept album narrated by their grandmother that alienated most of the critical goodwill they had fostered with the brilliant yet divisive 2004 album Blueberry Boat.
The fact that Bitter Tea went largely unnoticed must have been a signal to the band that they needed to slow down if their audience was ever going to catch up. Much to Matthew Friedberger's chagrin, today's listeners don't have the insatiable appetite that fans of his heroes The Who and The Beatles had in the 60s, when they'd put out at least two albums a year.
And after all, few people fall in love with a Fiery Furnaces album right away. Myself, I had loathed the band (even after seeing them live in the fall of 2003) until a fortuitous Damascene moment with Blueberry Boat several months after it came out (facilitated in part by Spitzer's championing, as well as Patti Schmidt's).
I interviewed Matthew for Exclaim when Bitter Tea came out, for a short piece here. I later used different parts of the interview for an article in Eye Weekly here. He tries to explain the connections and threads between the albums, often admitting that there really isn't any. He has amusing ideas of what "proper music" is. He's also very aware of how insular the band can sound to people who might have better things to do--whatever those might be.
Matthew Friedberger
May 10, 2006
locale: cell phone interview while he walked on a beach in Brighton, UK
I understand that you’re not playing any keyboards on this tour.
Yep. No keyboards until the fall.
Why is that and what happens in the fall?
In the fall maybe I’ll play keyboards and no guitar. The last two records have been all pianos and keyboards. The best way to make them fun for everyone was to play them on guitar. It will be fun for me and fun for Eleanor and, hopefully, fun for the people who have to listen to us.
Is anyone else in the band playing them?
Oh, no. No keyboards!
So it’s a total rock show!
Yeah, yeah, that’s the idea.
This record was made so long ago that it doesn’t feature your current touring line-up, is that correct?
Yeah. On Bitter Tea a fella named Andy Knowles plays a bunch of drum kit stuff, but now we’re playing with Bob D'Amico and Jason Lowenstein [of Sebadoh] who plays the bass. They’re not on the record.
Will they be on a future record? Where are you in the backlog of recording and releasing?
If we record in New York, we’d like to have them play. We have a record half done. We record in August, so I don’t know if we’ll finish that record or start a new one, and use the half-done one for scraps.
This is the softest and the sweetest I’ve known the band to be. Not that previous records are abrasive, but the last one was a bit jarring with tempo shifts and instrumentation shifts in the middle of the song. This one is really quite lovely, even Eleanor’s singing is much softer than her delivery on other records.
She was supposed to sound more understated and impassive. Obviously lots of the sounds are ugly and are meant to be ugly in a pretty way. All the tack piano sounds are meant to be harsh but in a familiar way, so you don’t notice that they’re harsh, piercing sounds, because you recognize them for being little tack piano sounds. It’s meant to be a more lyrical record, as opposed to Rehearsing My Choir, which was more prose-y and not meant to sing along to. Some of these songs are supposed to have choruses.
There weren’t that many on the last record.
No.
Also, lyrically, Blueberry Boat relied heavily on rhyming couplets. At some points I found it really distracting, but someone else [Patti Schmidt] pointed out to me that they act as signposts amidst all the other crazy things going on. There’s a very specific meter there, whereas the new songs don’t use as many couplets. Is that a natural growth or is it conscious?
No, that’s it exactly. Whoever said that to you, that was the idea. The lyrics on Blueberry Boat had to rhyme to be the genre element of the songs, which were going to be obviously all over the place musically. On these songs, a lot of the lyrics that don’t rhyme are very simple. They don’t need to rhyme to make them acceptable as rock lyrics, make them genre-appropriate. The music is much more repetitive on Bitter Tea. Even when it changes, it’s an obvious variation on something before. “Borneo” has lots of pretend-Broadway rhyming.
I’ve read that this was supposed to be a companion piece of sorts to Rehearsing My Choir…
It was supposed to come in the same package, and Bitter Tea was supposed to be the first record. The (closing) song “Whistle Rhapsody” was supposed to be the connecting song. Bitter Tea—as far as I know—is pretty much first person stuff, and then the last song is second, third person. Then it was going to go into the older woman’s proper story on Rehearsing My Choir. That’s how they were intended, even though Rehearsing My Choir was done first.
With the exception of the song you just mentioned, I didn’t see many lyrical connections.
It’s supposed to be the other side of the coin, not the continuing-story-of or the prequel or the sequel. There’s no narrative link between the two records, definitely not.
That’s good, I was worried that I was missing it!
No. Bitter Tea—there is some thing where it was supposed to be a young girl writing songs as opposed to an old woman telling stories. That’s the way the records were meant to be related—or not related!
Rehearsing My Choir wasn’t an at-home listening record to me; I listened to it the most in my car, when I could devote attention to it on a long drive and absorb the whole thing. It functioned more of a radio play as sorts. There are moments on Bitter Tea and Blueberry Boat that work that way as well. Does radio drama have any appeal to you? I’ve heard you talk about programme music before.
I think radio drama stuff is fun. There are different ways you can tell stories besides a proper ballad. If you’re going to tell stories on a record that aren’t proper ballads, presumably a lot of it will sound like a radio play or remind people of that. If you don’t have the car driving by, you’ll have something that will maybe suggest the car driving by. Maybe it’s the opposite of the car driving by! Once you start to talk at all, it’s going to remind you of [radio plays]. I don’t know what to say about that necessarily.
For Rehearsing My Choir, it was such an insular record, I just thought in terms of how it was going to be. I didn’t think in terms of how people were going to convince themselves that they weren’t wasting their time listening to it. Do you know what I’m saying?
That’s a challenge with all music, really.
Yeah, it’s always a challenge. Because there are a lot of other things that maybe you should be doing. For me I didn’t think of it as a radio play at all. I thought of it as a record that my grandmother’s going to be talking on. Anything one would say after the fact would just be… after the fact. You can make a record easily for $6000. How much does it cost to make a movie or a TV show? You can write a story for even cheaper, but rock records—people like ‘em and buy lots of ‘em. What’s supposed to be a difficult rock record can sell many thousands of copies. What’s supposed to be a difficult book will sell much less.
People get dropped for selling 10,000 records, but if you sell 10,000 books, that’s a best seller.
Maybe rock records are a good form to tell stories because you can do it in more idiosyncratic ways than you can with visuals. A lot of people should be interested in trying to tell stories with just audio recordings. You can do that on rock records with proper rock music, or between things like on Rehearsing My Choir. That’s not proper rock music—I mean, I think of it as proper rock music, but I understand when other people say it’s not.
But all that’s after the fact. I thought my grandmother’s voice would be striking on a record. All the decisions past that—like she’s going to talk but not sing, or it’s going to be not songs but this kind of little anecdotizing—they were made as a consequence of figuring out how best to use her presence on a rock record.
Have you thought about doing that without lyrics, just an instrumental audio tale?
Oh, well, you mean music? (laughs) No, I have not for myself. On Bitter Tea and Rehearsing My Choir there are a lot of cheap and amusing ways that the music continues the story. On Blueberry Boat there’s a lot of that too. I have these two solo records coming out, and one of them is a story record with lots and lots of music telling the story.
But I wouldn’t want to just have the music, because my understanding of instrumental rock music should be a visceral kind of experience, otherwise it’s not proper rock music. That’s how I think of it, like instrumental metal bands, or bands like the Shadows.
I had read that the second disc of your solo record will be more electronic and experimental.
It’s not electronic—it’s all played stuff. There’s lots and lots of things where there are three (lyrical) lines, and then the music goes on for three minutes, and it’s meant to show what’s happening. It’s meant to be the equivalent of the visuals. There’s a lot of that. But it’s definitely not ‘music’ (laughs)—proper music. It’s a rock record that tells a story, and here’s a part where the music is illustrating the story.
The obvious question with this record is about all the backwards voices and instruments on this record—it’s everywhere!
That was an idea we had on the principle of the thing, that backwards instruments and especially backwards voices, are beautiful, proper, normal rock sounds, and they should be as prevalent on a record as electric guitar. But voices especially sound so nice backwards. It’s such a physical thing. If you see a film of someone moving backwards, it’s fun but it’s not as physical as hearing a voice backwards. It’s a real pleasure. You hear time running back when someone talks backwards.
Anyway, so we thought—or rather, I thought and Eleanor agreed—that as a matter of principle, no matter what people think of what we’re doing, to have backwards things on the record. It gives it a pulpy gloominess. We wanted the record to have this morbid thing, but not in a goth-y or Black Sabbath heavy metal way. Backwards vocals were an obvious way to do that.
Is there a lyrical intent?
There is an excuse in individual songs as to why it’s backwards. In “Blackheart Boy” she’s in a bad situation and the backwards voice is her having a little daydream, and the singing is much smoother so presumably it’s a happy daydream, until she wakes up into the annoying synth and having to sing the situation she’s in.
In the beginning of the “Vietnamese Telephone Ministry” it sounds like you’re singing about someone named Sidney Falson.
That’s the fun about backwards vocals, is you can make up what it says and see what it sounds like.
It could all be about Satan for all we know.
That song is overly despairing, and is therefore devilish in that way. That’s a song that is Satanic in that it gives up to despair.
Speaking of that song and Satan, I was researching this morning and found one guy [goodhodgkins.com] who took the trouble of researching all the proper nouns on Bitter Tea. All the street addresses and everything else. [found here; not sure why the original post is gone.]
Someone did that? Wow.
He says that all the street addresses are in L.A., that they’re “non-profit faith-based centres.”
Well, they’re churches—that’s usually the proper term for them! (laughs) Obviously the Vietnamese Telephone Ministry itself is not a church. I hope people don’t call the number, because it is the wrong number.
Apparently an elderly Spanish-speaking woman picks up the phone.
Yeah, I hope people don’t bother her. It was serendipitous that I wrote it down wrong. It’s better that it’s wrong because there will be no help on the other end of the line.
What about this poor woman? You knew this would happen.
I didn’t think people would call, actually. I guess that was stupid of me.
People are still calling 867-5309!
Well, that was a hit record that was much bigger than this album will be.
I was reading some fan sites, and some people were musing that this might be the final Fiery Furnaces record.
Oh no, no, not at all. We didn’t make a record in the winter because Bitter Tea hadn’t come out, and we didn’t want to have another year-long wait between records coming out. I don’t know if we will or not, but we could have a record coming out in January. We might wait and record properly in the winter, for a variety of reasons. And I recorded a solo record because I felt that I need to keep my credentials as a songwriter, and I knew Fiery Furnaces weren’t going to make a record then. I had a vacation and figured I’d better do something.
-end-
Because they burst out of the gate with five full-length albums in three years (one of which was billed as an EP but clocked in at 45 minutes), it seems like an eternity when one ponders the fact that their latest, Bitter Tea, came out a whopping 14 months ago, followed promptly by a bewildering 2CD solo record by main songwriter Matthew Friedberger--which even this big fan found unlistenable.
Bitter Tea was in many ways their prettiest album, especially on the heels of Rehearsing My Choir, a concept album narrated by their grandmother that alienated most of the critical goodwill they had fostered with the brilliant yet divisive 2004 album Blueberry Boat.
The fact that Bitter Tea went largely unnoticed must have been a signal to the band that they needed to slow down if their audience was ever going to catch up. Much to Matthew Friedberger's chagrin, today's listeners don't have the insatiable appetite that fans of his heroes The Who and The Beatles had in the 60s, when they'd put out at least two albums a year.
And after all, few people fall in love with a Fiery Furnaces album right away. Myself, I had loathed the band (even after seeing them live in the fall of 2003) until a fortuitous Damascene moment with Blueberry Boat several months after it came out (facilitated in part by Spitzer's championing, as well as Patti Schmidt's).
I interviewed Matthew for Exclaim when Bitter Tea came out, for a short piece here. I later used different parts of the interview for an article in Eye Weekly here. He tries to explain the connections and threads between the albums, often admitting that there really isn't any. He has amusing ideas of what "proper music" is. He's also very aware of how insular the band can sound to people who might have better things to do--whatever those might be.
Matthew Friedberger
May 10, 2006
locale: cell phone interview while he walked on a beach in Brighton, UK
I understand that you’re not playing any keyboards on this tour.
Yep. No keyboards until the fall.
Why is that and what happens in the fall?
In the fall maybe I’ll play keyboards and no guitar. The last two records have been all pianos and keyboards. The best way to make them fun for everyone was to play them on guitar. It will be fun for me and fun for Eleanor and, hopefully, fun for the people who have to listen to us.
Is anyone else in the band playing them?
Oh, no. No keyboards!
So it’s a total rock show!
Yeah, yeah, that’s the idea.
This record was made so long ago that it doesn’t feature your current touring line-up, is that correct?
Yeah. On Bitter Tea a fella named Andy Knowles plays a bunch of drum kit stuff, but now we’re playing with Bob D'Amico and Jason Lowenstein [of Sebadoh] who plays the bass. They’re not on the record.
Will they be on a future record? Where are you in the backlog of recording and releasing?
If we record in New York, we’d like to have them play. We have a record half done. We record in August, so I don’t know if we’ll finish that record or start a new one, and use the half-done one for scraps.
This is the softest and the sweetest I’ve known the band to be. Not that previous records are abrasive, but the last one was a bit jarring with tempo shifts and instrumentation shifts in the middle of the song. This one is really quite lovely, even Eleanor’s singing is much softer than her delivery on other records.
She was supposed to sound more understated and impassive. Obviously lots of the sounds are ugly and are meant to be ugly in a pretty way. All the tack piano sounds are meant to be harsh but in a familiar way, so you don’t notice that they’re harsh, piercing sounds, because you recognize them for being little tack piano sounds. It’s meant to be a more lyrical record, as opposed to Rehearsing My Choir, which was more prose-y and not meant to sing along to. Some of these songs are supposed to have choruses.
There weren’t that many on the last record.
No.
Also, lyrically, Blueberry Boat relied heavily on rhyming couplets. At some points I found it really distracting, but someone else [Patti Schmidt] pointed out to me that they act as signposts amidst all the other crazy things going on. There’s a very specific meter there, whereas the new songs don’t use as many couplets. Is that a natural growth or is it conscious?
No, that’s it exactly. Whoever said that to you, that was the idea. The lyrics on Blueberry Boat had to rhyme to be the genre element of the songs, which were going to be obviously all over the place musically. On these songs, a lot of the lyrics that don’t rhyme are very simple. They don’t need to rhyme to make them acceptable as rock lyrics, make them genre-appropriate. The music is much more repetitive on Bitter Tea. Even when it changes, it’s an obvious variation on something before. “Borneo” has lots of pretend-Broadway rhyming.
I’ve read that this was supposed to be a companion piece of sorts to Rehearsing My Choir…
It was supposed to come in the same package, and Bitter Tea was supposed to be the first record. The (closing) song “Whistle Rhapsody” was supposed to be the connecting song. Bitter Tea—as far as I know—is pretty much first person stuff, and then the last song is second, third person. Then it was going to go into the older woman’s proper story on Rehearsing My Choir. That’s how they were intended, even though Rehearsing My Choir was done first.
With the exception of the song you just mentioned, I didn’t see many lyrical connections.
It’s supposed to be the other side of the coin, not the continuing-story-of or the prequel or the sequel. There’s no narrative link between the two records, definitely not.
That’s good, I was worried that I was missing it!
No. Bitter Tea—there is some thing where it was supposed to be a young girl writing songs as opposed to an old woman telling stories. That’s the way the records were meant to be related—or not related!
Rehearsing My Choir wasn’t an at-home listening record to me; I listened to it the most in my car, when I could devote attention to it on a long drive and absorb the whole thing. It functioned more of a radio play as sorts. There are moments on Bitter Tea and Blueberry Boat that work that way as well. Does radio drama have any appeal to you? I’ve heard you talk about programme music before.
I think radio drama stuff is fun. There are different ways you can tell stories besides a proper ballad. If you’re going to tell stories on a record that aren’t proper ballads, presumably a lot of it will sound like a radio play or remind people of that. If you don’t have the car driving by, you’ll have something that will maybe suggest the car driving by. Maybe it’s the opposite of the car driving by! Once you start to talk at all, it’s going to remind you of [radio plays]. I don’t know what to say about that necessarily.
For Rehearsing My Choir, it was such an insular record, I just thought in terms of how it was going to be. I didn’t think in terms of how people were going to convince themselves that they weren’t wasting their time listening to it. Do you know what I’m saying?
That’s a challenge with all music, really.
Yeah, it’s always a challenge. Because there are a lot of other things that maybe you should be doing. For me I didn’t think of it as a radio play at all. I thought of it as a record that my grandmother’s going to be talking on. Anything one would say after the fact would just be… after the fact. You can make a record easily for $6000. How much does it cost to make a movie or a TV show? You can write a story for even cheaper, but rock records—people like ‘em and buy lots of ‘em. What’s supposed to be a difficult rock record can sell many thousands of copies. What’s supposed to be a difficult book will sell much less.
People get dropped for selling 10,000 records, but if you sell 10,000 books, that’s a best seller.
Maybe rock records are a good form to tell stories because you can do it in more idiosyncratic ways than you can with visuals. A lot of people should be interested in trying to tell stories with just audio recordings. You can do that on rock records with proper rock music, or between things like on Rehearsing My Choir. That’s not proper rock music—I mean, I think of it as proper rock music, but I understand when other people say it’s not.
But all that’s after the fact. I thought my grandmother’s voice would be striking on a record. All the decisions past that—like she’s going to talk but not sing, or it’s going to be not songs but this kind of little anecdotizing—they were made as a consequence of figuring out how best to use her presence on a rock record.
Have you thought about doing that without lyrics, just an instrumental audio tale?
Oh, well, you mean music? (laughs) No, I have not for myself. On Bitter Tea and Rehearsing My Choir there are a lot of cheap and amusing ways that the music continues the story. On Blueberry Boat there’s a lot of that too. I have these two solo records coming out, and one of them is a story record with lots and lots of music telling the story.
But I wouldn’t want to just have the music, because my understanding of instrumental rock music should be a visceral kind of experience, otherwise it’s not proper rock music. That’s how I think of it, like instrumental metal bands, or bands like the Shadows.
I had read that the second disc of your solo record will be more electronic and experimental.
It’s not electronic—it’s all played stuff. There’s lots and lots of things where there are three (lyrical) lines, and then the music goes on for three minutes, and it’s meant to show what’s happening. It’s meant to be the equivalent of the visuals. There’s a lot of that. But it’s definitely not ‘music’ (laughs)—proper music. It’s a rock record that tells a story, and here’s a part where the music is illustrating the story.
The obvious question with this record is about all the backwards voices and instruments on this record—it’s everywhere!
That was an idea we had on the principle of the thing, that backwards instruments and especially backwards voices, are beautiful, proper, normal rock sounds, and they should be as prevalent on a record as electric guitar. But voices especially sound so nice backwards. It’s such a physical thing. If you see a film of someone moving backwards, it’s fun but it’s not as physical as hearing a voice backwards. It’s a real pleasure. You hear time running back when someone talks backwards.
Anyway, so we thought—or rather, I thought and Eleanor agreed—that as a matter of principle, no matter what people think of what we’re doing, to have backwards things on the record. It gives it a pulpy gloominess. We wanted the record to have this morbid thing, but not in a goth-y or Black Sabbath heavy metal way. Backwards vocals were an obvious way to do that.
Is there a lyrical intent?
There is an excuse in individual songs as to why it’s backwards. In “Blackheart Boy” she’s in a bad situation and the backwards voice is her having a little daydream, and the singing is much smoother so presumably it’s a happy daydream, until she wakes up into the annoying synth and having to sing the situation she’s in.
In the beginning of the “Vietnamese Telephone Ministry” it sounds like you’re singing about someone named Sidney Falson.
That’s the fun about backwards vocals, is you can make up what it says and see what it sounds like.
It could all be about Satan for all we know.
That song is overly despairing, and is therefore devilish in that way. That’s a song that is Satanic in that it gives up to despair.
Speaking of that song and Satan, I was researching this morning and found one guy [goodhodgkins.com] who took the trouble of researching all the proper nouns on Bitter Tea. All the street addresses and everything else. [found here; not sure why the original post is gone.]
Someone did that? Wow.
He says that all the street addresses are in L.A., that they’re “non-profit faith-based centres.”
Well, they’re churches—that’s usually the proper term for them! (laughs) Obviously the Vietnamese Telephone Ministry itself is not a church. I hope people don’t call the number, because it is the wrong number.
Apparently an elderly Spanish-speaking woman picks up the phone.
Yeah, I hope people don’t bother her. It was serendipitous that I wrote it down wrong. It’s better that it’s wrong because there will be no help on the other end of the line.
What about this poor woman? You knew this would happen.
I didn’t think people would call, actually. I guess that was stupid of me.
People are still calling 867-5309!
Well, that was a hit record that was much bigger than this album will be.
I was reading some fan sites, and some people were musing that this might be the final Fiery Furnaces record.
Oh no, no, not at all. We didn’t make a record in the winter because Bitter Tea hadn’t come out, and we didn’t want to have another year-long wait between records coming out. I don’t know if we will or not, but we could have a record coming out in January. We might wait and record properly in the winter, for a variety of reasons. And I recorded a solo record because I felt that I need to keep my credentials as a songwriter, and I knew Fiery Furnaces weren’t going to make a record then. I had a vacation and figured I’d better do something.
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