September 2015 reviews

Highly recommended this month: Couer de Pirate, Lianne La Havas, Robyn & La Bagatelle Magique

Well worth your while: Battles, Tami Neilsen, Peaches, Telekinesis

Also reviewed: Beirut, Concealer, Carly Rae Jepsen, Katie Moore, Yo La Tengo

Reviewed earlier: The Weeknd

As always, the following reviews ran in September in the Waterloo Record.

Battles – La Di Da Di (Warp)

When Battles made their full-length debut back in 2007, they were the rare prog rock band you could dance to, the rare rock band that successfully incorporated innovative electronics, the rare band whose superior technical skill is matched by their ability to engage and form cohesion from chaos. That album also came out at the height of the George W. Bush era, and more than any actual protest music seemed to embody the infuriating zeitgeist.

Eight years later, La Di Da Di is just as effective. In between there was a transition album where they coped with losing an intergral founding member, but here the trio come out swinging—through trippy time signatures, of course, with the monstrous drumming of John Stanier (Helmet, Tomahawk) holding down the kit. Guitarist Ian Williams and bassist Dave Konopka rarely conjure any sounds their instruments are supposed to. Together, it sounds a bit like a heavy metal drummer playing Afrobeat while an Indonesian gamelan band wrestle with a German electronic group on top of him—less entertaining, perhaps, but a fascinating flurry of sound, rhythm and melody that functions far better than you might expect.

These Battles are not lost. (Sept. 17)

Battles play Lee’s Palace on Oct. 1

Download: “FF Bada,” “Summer Simmer,” “Tricentennial”

Beirut – No No No (XL)

Zach Condon is a happier man, and it sounds like it. He’s been making music professional since his late teens, when his debut, 2006’s Gulag Orkestar, became an unlikely underground hit, marrying Eastern European brass melodies to plaintive ukulele folk songs. Ten years down the road, he’s been divorced, collapsed on the road from exhaustion, and about a year decided his creative well had run dry.

Thankfully, that’s not the end of the story. With the help of his bandmates, he started to take himself less seriously and lighten up, and his fifth album is more upbeat, hopeful and playful than anything he’s ever done. There’s more electric piano than accordion, more—wait for it—funk in the backbeat, and rich vocal harmonies backing up Condon’s sad-sack croon. (Sept. 24)

Beirut play the Danforth Music Hall in Toronto on Nov. 13.

Download: “Gibraltar,” “No No No,” “Perth”

Coeur de Pirate – Roses (Dare to Care)

Beatrice Martin is related to neither Swedish hitmaker Max Martin Coldplay’s Chris Martin. But Beatrice, a.k.a. Coeur de Pirate, has just made an album full of songs that those men would kill to have in their own repertoire. The Quebecois artist has sold a million records in her own province and France, and is the only Francophone artist in recent memory to attract any significant notice in English Canada (she sold out Massey Hall in Toronto last year). Now, with her first album of original music featuring songs in English—seven of 10 here—Coeur de Pirate is poised for a major crossover.

Approximately 95 per cent of what you read every week in this column is the entirely subjective opinion of some guy who’s had a pathological addiction to new music for 35 years. But this is an objective fact: Roses is packed with future hits.

Martin is all of 25 years old, but writes like she’s studied Brill Building and Broadway and pop masters for decades. Everything here sounds enormous, Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound updated for 21^st-century fireworks displays. Traces of modern R&B form the rhythm tracks, where Martin nods to her love of The Weeknd (she once covered his “Wicked Game”) and Rihanna (replicating the “Umbrella” beat on “I Don’t Want to Break Your Heart”). Meanwhile, tracks like “Undone” are the kind of stadium pop that Bono has been trying to chase for the last 20 years, the kind that Katy Perry might make if her songs weren’t stuffed with sonic steroids. Even the sparse ballads (“Oceans Brawl,” “Cast Away,” “Tu oublieras mon nom”) boast melodies meant to be sung by thousands in unison.

For many of my favourite Quebecois artists, I can usually understand that their music itself, not just the language, sounds slightly foreign to English Canadians. That’s no excuse this time. (Sept. 3)

Couer de Pirate play the Phoenix in Toronto on Oct. 7.

Download: “Carry On,” “I Don’t Want to Break Your Heart,” “Drapeau blanc”

Concealer - Feted: fetid (Coax)

Cowboy goth? Sure, why not. Edmonton’s Mark Davis and MissMannered call their new project “heavy wave.” Davis comes from a country rock background, having spent the better part of a decade in acclaimed roots band Old Reliable, and with three most excellent solo albums under his belt, all of them as melodic as they are morose. That tone continues here, but synth player Missmannered (Sean Picard) amps up the atmosphere, until it sounds like Townes Van Zandt being produced by the Jesus and Mary Chain.

The duo behind Concealer admit they’re an odd couple. As Davis told the Calgary Herald, “I’m the older, stoic, stay-at-home roots-rock guy, and Sean is more of a young, flamboyant, gay socialite DJ/makeup artist.” But that’s only in person. What we hear here is an entirely natural synthesis, one that finally takes Davis out of the alt-country ghetto where he’s been pigeonholed.

Concealer’s only real fault is that the sonic palette is limited: Davis plays mainly bass and drum machine, Missmannered plays synths, and the tone is—shall we say—consistent, and rather dreary. Davis’s melodies carry the day, however, as they always do. It’s exciting to hear him trying on different clothes, but I hope he throws them in the laundry once in a while. (Sept. 24)

Download: “Horns and Crown,” “Your Master’s Wishes,” “Throw Me to the Lions”

Carly Rae Jepsen – E.MO.TION (Universal)

Guilt free! That’s what Carly Rae Jepsen offers fans of bubblegum who find Katy Perry too tacky, Taylor Swift too cloying. Jepsen scored a massive hit a few years back with “Call Me Maybe,” and here the 30-year-old B.C. singer is out to prove that she has staying power. She most certainly does: there’s at least four or five songs here likely to linger around the charts for the next year, with the help of collaborators Sia, Vampire Weekend, and the producers behind Haim, Solange Knowles and, yes, Katy Perry and Taylor Swift. It’s a sugar rush, and it’s a good one. But the new Robyn EP that dropped last month is a much better bet. (Sept. 10)

Download: “E.MO.TION,” “Run Away With Me,” “Gimmie Love”

Lianne La Havas – Blood (Warner)


“Unstoppable”? You bet. That’s the name of the lead single from this British singer’s second album, produced with predictable class and bombast by Paul Epworth (Adele, Florence and the Machine, U2). On it, she rides a slinky, seductive groove while harps and strings swirl around her and she unleashes her unbelievable voice, a set of pipes that wows everyone within earshot.

This 25-year-old has made a modern R&B record that’s completely out of step: she’s not retro enough to be lumped in with Leon Bridges or Sharon Jones; she’s not weird enough to join Miguel and The Weeknd. Her music is as slick as Sade and delicate as Feist’s Let It Die, but she can belt it out Broadway-style, like Janelle Monae.

Most important, she’s (almost) as fantastic a songwriter as she is a singer. That title track could be the next great James Bond theme (for which Sam Smith has been tapped instead, alas), while the ballad “Wonderful” is one of the most sensual songs in recent memory (“electricity lingers in our fingers”). Mary J. Blige should be covering “Grow” on her next album. R&B and ornamental pop songs are balanced by songs based around just her guitar, while “Never Get Enough” alternates between verses with acoustic guitar playing bossa nova, and heavy choruses rich with distorted vocals and industrial synths.

Is there anything this woman can’t do? No wonder Prince is such a huge and vocal fan. Soon you will be, too. (Sept. 17)

Lianne La Havas plays the Danforth Music Hall in Toronto on Oct. 2.

Download: “Unstoppable,” “Tokyo,” “Wonderful”

Katie Moore – Fooled by the Fun (Club Roll)

Outside of Montreal, where she’s been a musical MVP for a decade now, few people know Katie Moore unless they’ve seen her sing with Socalled’s raucous live show, always go to Pop Montreal every September, are acutely tuned into that city’s roots scene, or closely follow Patrick Watson, Plants and Animals, or the Barr Brothers. To be fair, her heartbreaking voice has always been better than any record on which she’s put her own name—until now.

Fooled by the Fun was recorded live in a studio, and an all-star cast of Montreal musicians—including Socalled on electric piano, which casts a warm and earthy early ’70s vibe over the whole affair—bring the best game to Moore’s songs, which have improved so much over the years that a Tracy Chapman classic (“Baby Can I Hold You”) fits in seamlessly with the original material. Moore’s voice is still the primary selling point, however, a perfect balance of humility and confidence, not unlike Emmylou Harris. Montreal may be a big city, but it’s not big enough to contain a voice like Moore’s. (Sept. 3)

Download: “Talked All Night,” “Leaving,” “Find You Near”

Tami Neilson – Dynamite! (Outside)

The hottest country artist from New Zealand is Canadian. Tami Neilson grew up playing in her family band—that would be the Neilsons—in Canada in the 1990s, before moving to New Zealand to start her adult career. There, she’s won no fewer than five nods for Country Album of the Year at that nation’s equivalent of the Junos or Grammys, among other laurels. This, however, is the first time one of her solo records is getting a Canadian release. It couldn’t possibly be a better introduction.

Nielsen is a throwback; everything here is steeped in ’50s rockabilly and Nashville, and she’s got it down pat: the bare-bones production, the ace band, and a showstopper of a voice that could fill any room without a microphone. Her lyrics might be well-worn tropes—songs about a heart the size of Texas and lipstick on your collar—but the melodies, arrangements, and especially her vocals are all fantastic.

Let’s hope for a 2016 summer tour with Lindi Ortega, to see two of this country’s best belters duke it out. (Sept. 17)

Download: “Walk (Back to Your Arms),” “Dynamite,” “Running to You”

Peaches – Rub (XL)

When this provocative performer debuted with The Teaches of Peaches in 2000, it was a fascinating feminist art project dressed up in a libidinous electro sheen. Yet everything about it seemed destined to be dated: the minimalist production, the songs consisting of little more than one-joke catchphrases, the fact that it arrived in the midst of the short-lived electroclash movement.

And yet: 15 years later, The Teaches of Peaches has just been nominated in the 2000s category for the Polaris Heritage Prize; it remains beloved and respected and influential. That same week, Peaches released this, her fifth album, which proves—six years after her last album, I Feel Cream—that she’s still more than relevant, still pushing herself, still pushing buttons. And still, of course, NSFW.

She’s still tossing off silly jokes like “Dick in the Air” and “Vaginoplasty” (“Catch the whiff coming off my midriff!”), but she also turns up the heat on the title track (“whistleblow my clit”), and gets downright dark on “Free Drink Ticket” and “Dumb F--k,” tracks where her lyrics take more disturbing turns. Even on the lighter tracks, though, her lurid bathhouse soundtrack is always fuelled by an empowered female gaze and increasingly clever—though never subtle—turns of phrase. Part of the reason Peaches continues to endure is that she’s improved as an MC. “Use a thumb, or take a fist / Roll with it, Sisyphus / no hissy fit”; “Take it like a real woman, not Ayn Rand.” Feist and Kim Gordon show up as guests, but Peaches is more than juicy enough on her own. (Sept. 24)

Peaches plays the Phoenix in Toronto on Oct. 20.

Download: “Close Up,” “Dick in the Air,” “Free Drink Ticket”

Robyn & La Bagatelle Magique – Love is Free EP (Universal)

It’s been five long years since Robyn dropped her pure pop masterpiece Body Talk. Her somewhat abstract 2014 EP with Rokysopp was interesting, but the intention was not to deliver any of the club hits she’s known for. Now comes this new collaborative EP, with her touring keyboardist and the Swedish producer Christian Falk, best known for producing the 1994 hit for Neneh Cherry and Youssou N’Dour, “7 Seconds.”

There are five tracks here, each aiming for maximum punch, each designed specifically for the dancefloor. “Got To Work It Out,” with its dabs of Daft Punk and ABBA, could easily have fit onto Body Talk; the title track echoes vintage house and boasts a strange Spanish rap interlude; a previously released, faithful cover of Arthur Russell’s “Tell You (Today)” (it appeared on a Russell tribute album for the Red Hot organization last October) dabbles in jazzy Latino disco with a big brass section. And if Canadian opposition parties were remotely hip, they’d license “Lose Control” for an anti-Harper ad this election season: “If you can’t control it, you just don’t like it.”

The only complaint here is that it’s too short—but with the passing of Falk, who died during recording, this is the last we’ll hear of this trio. He certainly leaves on a high note. (Sept. 3)

Download: “Lose Control,” “Tell You (Today),” “Love is Free”

Telekinesis – Ad Infinitum (Merge)

Practically nobody knows Seattle songwriter and drummer Michael Lerner or his band, Telekinesis; his third album, 2013’s Dormarion, was all but ignored, despite the fact it’s a power-pop masterpiece, the kind that all those people whining about new records by Weezer or Sloan or Ben Folds or Spoon or whomever would be wise to pick up sooner than later.

And so few people will notice or care that Lerner has put his drumsticks down and built a home studio of synths and drum machines. The songs are still there, even if they lack some of the punch of earlier Telekinesis records; you can tell he’s been listening to a lot of Giorgio Moroder and Angelo Badalamenti soundtracks. It’s odd to hear such a great drummer programming Linn drums instead—think of just about any big ’80s hit: “Maniac,” “Take On Me,” “Love is a Battlefield”—but Lerner is clearly out to reinvent himself as a man of many moods, not just a quick sugar rush. (Sept. 17)

Telekinesis plays Toronto’s Horseshoe Tavern on Oct. 25.

Download: “Sylvia,” “In a Future World,” “Farmers Road”

Yo La Tengo – Stuff Like That There (Matador)

This year marks Yo La Tengo’s 30^th year as a band; this album, featuring the return of original guitarist Dave Schramm, is a nod to their 25-year-old album Fakebook, a collection of covers. Of course a band at this stage in their career runs the risk of repeating themselves—and that’s more than the case here. Every one of these songs—by the likes of Hank Williams, The Cure, the Lovin’ Spoonful and obscurities by Antietam, the Parliaments, and the Cosmic Rays—is rendered acoustically, at mostly the same tempo, with the same whispered harmonies. Yo La Tengo have succeeded making full-on mood records before, like 2000’s And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out, but oddly enough they material they choose here—which includes two new songs, and three reworking of earlier material—doesn’t suit the task at hand. It’s all lovely and pleasant, but not particularly revelatory, nor an essential part of their long discography. (Sept. 24)

Yo La Tengo play the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Toronto on Sept. 30. There is a dinner package catered by Fat Pasha available.

Download: “Somebody’s in Love,” “Friday I’m in Love,” “The Ballad of Red Buckets”

Merge XXV

Last month, Merge Records celebrated its 25^th anniversary; I previewed this before the ladyfriend and I headed down for the festival they hold every five years, for some kickball, some Carrburritos, some old friends, and more music over four days than we can properly consume at this point in our lives.

Wednesday, July 23, Carolina Theatre, Durham

Mount Moriah: Star-power lead singer, lose the band. Okay, that's harsh—they're decent players, but they don't bring out anything in Heather McEntire’s songs. Maybe they were playing it tame in the confines of a soft-seat theatre. Or, more likely, they need a producer to come in and kick everyone's asses, because there's a great album somewhere inside this band. Also: unless you can jam like Crazy Horse, it does not behoove you to jam like Crazy Horse. 

Lambchop: a curious band. I don't just mean musically curious, although they’re that, too. I mean curious, as in, it's weird that people love this band so much. On paper, I understand the appeal: oddball old dude starts a living room jam with friends, makes a couple of good records with increasingly lush production, is big in Europe, and keeps on keeping on. Arguably, Lambchop peaked with the 2000 album Nixon, which is why that's the record they performed in its entirety on this occasion. But even revisiting that record now, what was weird and wonderful back then hasn't aged all that well—and not just because Kurt Wagner spent the last 14 years largely squandering Nixon’s capital. The band's 2009 Mergefest show was legendary—it was recently pressed on vinyl—and even converted folks like me. This show, however, was purely only for the faithful. Of which I am not one. Even the reliably witty banter between Wagner and pianist Tony Crow was absent, due to the recital atmosphere. A sleepy start to a great weekend.

Thursday, July 24, Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro

Eleanor Friedberger: I will always love at least 30% of what Friedberger does. Here, she performed solo, except when Telekinesis joined her for her last song, in which she ditched the guitar and transformed from oddball singer-songwriter into the rock star she is.

Telekinesis: Always liked this band—had no idea how much I loved this band. And I’m not just saying that because they threw me the biggest curveball of the whole week, by covering “Don’t Change” by INXS—that terminally uncool relic that happens to be one of my all-time favourites. By that point in the set, however, drummer/singer Michael Lerner had already delivered more than a half-dozen songs that sound like long-lost classics. I said it often in the weeks leading up to the festival, but Telekinesis is easily the most criminally underrated band on the Merge roster, a mainstream breakthrough in the making who should easily take the now-vacant space left by Spoon’s departure.

The Clientele: This band split up after their high-water mark, 2009’s Bonfires on the Heath, an album where the featherweight trio’s sound was bolstered considerably by Mel Draisey on violin and keyboards. Here, they were a trio again, and while I usually fall for their charms at Mergefest, this time left me a bit cold—and more than a bit sedate, seeing them sandwiched between Telekinesis and the Rock*a*Teens.

The Rock*a*Teens: There is nothing remotely sedate about the recently reunited Rock*a*Teens, who take every single song they have and pummel it to the ground until it cries out in ecstasy. I would say that Chris Lopez sings himself hoarse, but he sounded like that from the first note. This Georgia band is beloved south of the Mason-Dixon Line, more than a bit of a mystery everywhere else. This performance, however, undoubtedly turned everyone there into true believers. Maybe they had to go away for all those years to come back with such vigour and abandon; I can’t imagine any band maintaining this kind of intensity for over a decade.

Reigning Sound: "Really, we're a much better band than this,” said Greg Cartwright, after one of several false starts of the evening. “You should come see us again some time." Indeed, I will: the band’s latest, Shattered, is a swoony garage-rock gem, and he’s assembled a fine group of players to deliver it live. Clearly the touring for this, his first record in five years, is just getting under way. He’ll have a well-oiled rock’n’roll machine by the time they hit the Horseshoe in Toronto on October 25.

Superchunk: Oh yeah, these guys. They were awesome, as they always are, even if bassist Laura Ballance no longer performs live with them because 20 years of playing with Superchunk gave her tinnitus (amazing, really, that she’s the only one afflicted of the four). Because this band as predictably good as they've always been, the lady and I cut out early to preserve ourselves for the rest of the weekend.

Friday, July 25, Orange County Social Club, Carrboro

Hiss Golden Messenger: I received this band's upcoming Merge release before the festival; it sounds nothing like the sweaty Southern glorious mess I heard at this show, which was full of saxophone and Waylon Jennings covers and Dylanesque delivery and a guest guitar spot from William Tyler. Never mind this new album, I want to hear what they lay down a year from now.

Friday, July 25, Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro

  

Imperial Teen: Rolling Stone called them “power twee.” I can’t top that.

Mountain Goats: Never liked this band, even if everything about them seems tailored to my taste. Looking forward to John Darnielle’s new novel, however; I suspect that medium suits him much better (for me, anyway).

Wye Oak: Five years ago, this was the most promising new band on the Merge roster, a promise they more than fulfilled on their 2011 album Civilian. Back then, the duo were young nerdlings who hung out all weekend and could be seen front and centre in the audience, watching every act. This time? Mergefest is but one night in a busy tour schedule, a tour where guitar hero Jenn Wasner has shifted to mostly playing bass and keyboards, with new songs that come alive in ways only hinted at on 2014’s transitional release, Shriek. In a week full of old folks, it’s acts like Wye Oak that all but guarantee Merge will be around to celebrate another 10 years, at least. (We’re talking about the music business here. C’mon, I’d hate to be overly optimistic.)

Destroyer: see here.

Saturday, July 26, Cat’s Cradle parking lot, Carrboro

Ex Hex: It was 34 degrees Celsius before the humidity, in a sticky, sunny parking lot outside the Cat’s Cradle in downtown Carrboro on the closing Saturday. Who decided to put on a festival here? The first act of the day I caught, the new power trio fronted by Mary Timony (Helium, Wild Flag), was good—but could have been great. I suspected they were purposely holding back a bit, lest they melt into a puddle on stage. I wanted to dance, but knew that if my tapped my toe in the least, a river of sweat would start pouring down my forehead. These were not ideal rock’n’roll conditions. That said, Ex Hex delivered. I can’t wait to see them with air conditioning so they can turn up the heat on their own terms.

Mikal Cronin: Sadly, I missed most of this set for social reasons, but Cronin and his headbanging hippie comrades made his already raucous recordings sound remarkably tame. Why did I skip this, and not Bob Mould? Grrrr.

Bob Mould: Never liked this man’s music, nor understood his iconic status. I was, obviously, in the tiniest minority here.

Teenage Fanclub: If I have to listen to a four-piece rock band in suffocating heat while standing on asphalt, it might as well be venerable masters of songcraft singing in perfect three-part harmony.

Caribou: This was more like it. As much as I love Merge Records’ roster, let’s be honest: there are way too many guitars involved. That made Dan Snaith and company the beautiful black sheep of the festival, delivering hypnotic, psychedelic electronics as the sun went down. This was the four-piece incarnation of Caribou—no horns, sadly—and the tour is just kicking off in advance of the new album, Our Love, out in October. Honestly, they were a bit rusty, and the sound mix was somewhat random. But Caribou had zero problems winning over the rockist crowd, many of whom seemed to have no idea who they were. (Best overheard comment from a new fan: “So, are, like, these guys from Italy or something?”)

Neutral Milk Hotel: Jeff Mangum spent most of the last 15 years as a total recluse, an enigma that only fuelled interest in the 1998 psych-folk classic In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. Mangum was the anti-Kurt Cobain: like Cobain, he was overwhelmed by the demands of, if not stardom, then at least public life and fawning adoration from a cult audience; unlike Cobain, Mangum’s act of refusal did not have a tragic end. It’s okay to say no. Tell the rest of the world to go to hell. Pull a Salinger. You don’t have to end it all.

Cut to 2013: a reunited Neutral Milk Hotel are on the road, even playing some major markets twice, and the mystique is but a distant memory.

Or is it? Before their set here, festival MC Margaret Cho announced that the band requested that no photos or videos be taken during their performance. That usually goes over like a lead balloon (pity the poor security guards asked to enforce this, which they did), but surely a group of fans like the ones gathered here, people for whom music and the strange people who create it are integral to their lives, would respect such a request? Largely, yes, except for the usual smattering of libertarians drawn to indie culture, who found the whole thing pretentious—even if it’s entirely in character from a guy who didn’t want to be seen for the better part of a decade. Some people who should know better really got themselves in a twist about this.

I’m not a fan, even though I’ve come to appreciate Aeroplane over the years; Mangum’s voice is still a subjective hangup for me—too emo, for starters. For me, the pleasure of this set was not just witnessing history and seeing a bunch of fans’ dreams come true, but specifically people who were barely alive when Aeroplane come out—a quintet of teenage girls standing in front me, for example—who joined arms and swayed and sang along at full volume to this mysterious music. Mangum, though he looks like he’s been living in the Louisiana swamps for quite a while, doesn’t act like a reluctant performer at all; I was kind of shocked by how at ease he was with rote stage banter. The rest of the band—including drummer Jeremy Barnes, who’s spent years playing accordion as A Hawk and a Hacksaw (which I much prefer)—all looked delighted to be there, singing along off-mic and delivering intense, physical performances when the mood called for it. The most affecting moments were the intimate interludes when NMH became a brass band (“The Fool”), accompanied by Barnes on accordion and (who I think was) his Hacksaw bandmate Heather Trost on violin.

Because Aeroplane is so well-known and beloved, the only truly revealing moment of the show was “Little Birds,” a song about an abusive father that stands as the only post-Aeroplane NMH song ever released (long bootlegged, it finally appeared on a seven-inch single in 2011). In that moment, we were reminded that this art was—is—the product of a damaged man, or at least a man who’s faced a few demons in his life and sought solace in art.

No matter how curious we may be, it’s really none of our business what Jeff Mangum was up to all that time, what he plans to do next or why he’s touring with his band this year. Maybe he’s just in the right mental space to do so again. Maybe he or someone he loves has medical bills to pay (this is America, after all). Maybe he’s doing it just to shut everyone up and collect a paycheque.

The latter, of course, is unlikely. There was no better act with which to close a celebration Merge Records’ 25^th anniversary, with which to contemplate art, commerce, compromise and creative triumph, all under a Carolinian moon.