Australian musician Kevin Parker is a bit of a musical savant. Although Tame Impala tours as a band, the group\'s psychedelic trip-pop is pretty much due to Parker\'s writing, playing, and even producing. Parker sidekick and collaborator Jay Watson shares songwriting credit this time around, notably on two standout tracks: \"Elephant\" (an impossibly delectable blend of Sabbath stomp and Syd Barrett trippy-ness) and \"Apocalypse Dreams\" (a gorgeous, chameleonic tune that reflects Parker\'s noted influence, Todd Rundgren). And though it\'s hard to hear the opening \"Be Above It\" or \"Mind Mischief\" without detecting some *Revolver*- and *Sgt. Pepper\'s*–era Beatles in the songs\' DNA, *Lonerism* is loaded with more synthesizers and ambient sounds than guitars. It\'s definitely a more pop-oriented album than the crunchy *Innerspeaker*, and it reveals another compelling side to Tame Impala. (Check out Watson\'s other band POND, and its LP *Beard, Wives, Denim*, for another dose of satisfying psych-rock.)
With opening track “Shadow,” Wild Nothing’s second studio album *Nocturne* instantaneously dodges any semblance of a sophomore slump. Fans of frontman Jack Tatum’s allegiance to indie-pop’s late 1980s/early 1990s heyday will be pleased to know he’s still very enamored with that special time when England and Scotland were churning out exceptional bands. “Shadow” swirls with vintage dream-pop beauty while chiming on vestiges of that C-86 jangle revisited by 21st century Slumberland bands. But Tatum’s knack for crafting handsomely catchy melodies keeps things sounding fresh, even when sung in a wispy androgynous voice on par with that of a young Bobby Gillespie or Belinda Butcher. The lead guitar melodies nearly upstage those of the vocals in the following “Midnight Song” — another gem that recalls British indie acts of yore, save for some glistening moments that have more in common with The Shins and Beach Fossils. The title-track is a swoon-worthy standout with moody chord changes and icy hints of new romanticism. The gorgeous “Only Heather” boasts hypnotic shoegazing guitar effects.
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West Coast hip-hop elders like Snoop and Dre have virtually anointed Kendrick Lamar to carry on the legacy of gangsta rap. His second studio album *good kid, M.A.A.d city*, conceptual enough to be a rock opera, certainly uplifts the genre with its near-biblical themes: religion vs. violence and monogamy vs. lust. Verbally nimble, Lamar experiments with a variety of different lyrical styles, from the Bone Thugz-type of delivery on “Swimming Pools (Drank)” to the more straightforward orthodox G-funk flow on “m.A.A.d. City feat. MC Eiht.” Like prog rock, Lamar’s tracks have songs within songs—sudden tempo changes with alter egos and embedded interludes, such as unscripted recordings of his parents asking for their car back and neighborhood homies planning their latest conquest. These snippets pepper the album providing an anthropological glimpse into his life in Compton.
After two albums of harmony-heavy dream pop, Beach House continued its dazzling evolution with 2010‘s *Teen Dream*, which we named Best Alternative Album in iTunes Rewind. The ethereal, hypnotizing melodies are as gorgeous as ever on the duo’s forthcoming *Bloom*. From the jump, a sinewy guitar melody gets blanketed by blissful atmospheric mist on “Myth.” While *Teen Dream* introduced more complexity (which is echoed on the weightless, organic melodies floating from composition like “Troublemaker”), *Bloom*’s “On the Sea” proves that Beach House can also drop our jaws (and give us chills) with stripped-down, piano-driven journeys.
Bloom is the fourth full-length album by Baltimore-based Beach House. Like their previous releases (Beach House in 2006, Devotion in 2008, Teen Dream in 2010), it further develops their distinctive sound yet stands apart as a new piece of work. Bloom is meant to be experienced as an ALBUM, a singular, unified vision of the world. Though not stripped down, the many layers of Bloom are uncomplicated and meticulously constructed to ensure there is no waste. Bloom was recorded in 2011 at Sonic Ranch Studios in Tornillo, TX and mixed at Electric Lady in NYC. The band co-produced the record with Chris Coady.
Stepping away from both the pop songwriting machine and his former crew Odd Future’s stoned anarchy, Frank Ocean guides us on a meandering but purposeful journey through his own vast mythological universe on his major-label debut. *Channel ORANGE* breezes from sepia-toned Stevie Wonder homage (“Sweet Life”) to the corrosive cosmic funk of “Pyramids,” which stretches from ancient pharaoh queens to 21st-century pimps. Rendered in pristine detail with calm, dazzled awe, even his most fantastical narratives feel somehow familiar—at once unprecedented and timeless.
© 2012 The Island Def Jam Music Group ℗ 2012 The Island Def Jam Music Group
With disparate contributions from its four members, Grizzly Bear’s sound has long been multifaceted and thoughtfully layered. Repeated listening is frequently rewarded with newly discovered textures and details. “Sleeping Ute” opens *Shields*, the group’s fourth studio album, and is almost like a three-movement piece; alt-country–tinged guitar and bass introduce the song before a swirl of keyboards, buzzy guitars, and thunderous drumming transpires. A vocal and Spanish-style acoustic guitar outro make for an unresolved conclusion. *Shields*\' most straight-ahead modern rock number, “Yet Again,” is in the melodically accessible vein of “Two Weeks” from Grizzly Bear’s previous release, *Veckatimest*. A showcase for multi-instrumentalist Christopher Bear’s tuned percussion and lyrical drumming, “A Simple Answer” is bathed in emotive longing. There’s an addictive new wave pop sound to the nuanced “gun-shy,” while “Sun in Your Eyes” starts and ends as a piano ballad, transforming into a chamber rock *pièce de résistance* in between.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s first proper LP in forever is either a rallying cry released on the cusp of a contentious election cycle or a return to form with the forward momentum of a runaway train. The band of post-rock pioneers certainly isn\'t subtle on *Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!*. As you might imagine, given how…uplifting!…that!…title!…is!, Godspeed’s fourth studio album is heady but hopeful, with an ominous but non-overbearing mood that sounds like the collective’s secular take on a tent revival. With REALLY loud guitars. And divebombing drums. And strings that are plucked, slapped, and sideswiped. Of the two 20-minute pieces here, “Mladic” is the one you might not wanna play at midnight, what with the way it bursts through your speakers screaming after just a few minutes. “We Drift Like Worried Fire,” on the other hand, raises its fists to the heavens while showing the group’s many disciples how instrumental melodrama is done. As for the record’s other pair of tracks, they’re both riff-raking meditations on the Power of the Drone. Guess GY!BE wasn\'t kidding about that whole *Ascend!* thing.
These are the first new recordings by Godspeed You! Black Emperor since 2002. Featuring two twenty-minute slabs of epic instrumental rock music and two six-and-a-half minute drones, ‘ALLELUJAH! DON’T BEND! ASCEND! provides soaring, shining proof of the band’s powerful return to form. Having emerged from hiatus at the end of 2010, GYBE picked up right where they left off, immediately re-capturing the sound and material that had fallen dormant in 2003 and driving it forward with every show of their extensive touring over the last 18 months. The new album presents the fruits of that labour: evolved and definitive versions of two huge compositions previously known to fans as “Albanian” and “Gamelan”, now properly titled as “MLADIC” and “WE DRIFT LIKE WORRIED FIRE” respectively. Accompanied by the new drones (stitched into the album sequence on CD; cut separately on their own 7″ for the LP version), GYBE have offered up a fifth album that we feel is as absolutely vital, virulent, honest and heavy as anything in their discography. We don’t have much time for mythology, but we’d be lying if we said the return of Godspeed You! Black Emperor in 2010 didn’t signify a whole lot to us as a marker from which to look back on the past decade, to reflect on what’s been gained or lost within the confines of independent music culture and what’s been gained or lost in the socio-political landscape writ large. Godspeed’s music will do that to you. It is music that bears witness to, channels and transforms this predominantly terrible, infuriating, venal and nihilistically sad story we’re all living, sharing, resisting, protesting, deconstructing and trying to change for the better. We think GYBE has once again provided a uniquely moving and compelling soundtrack for these acts of analysis, defiance and ascension. * * * Hard to believe a full decade has passed since the release of Yanqui U.X.O., the last album by GYBE. Never a band to care for conventional industry wisdom, Yanqui was released shortly before xmas 2003 with little publicity and no press availability, no marketing plans or cross-promotions or brand synergies, with back cover artwork tracing the inextricable links between major music labels and the military-industrial complex. Driven by word-of-mouth from a passionate and committed fanbase galvanized by the group's sonic vision and its dedication to unmediated, unsullied musical communication, the album found it's rightful audience. To suggest that such simple principles and goals have become harder to maintain and enact a decade later is an understatement. For all the contents and discontents – for all the "content" – of our present cultural moment, the idea of circumventing the glare of exposure, the massaging of media cycles and the calculus of identity management appears quaint, if not futile. But Godspeed is looking to try all the same. The band wants people to care about this new album, without telling people they should or talking about themselves. They want to hold on to some part of that energy that comes with the thrill of anonymous discovery and unmediated transmission, knowing full well that these days, anti-strategy risks being tagged as a strategy, non-marketing framed as its opposite, and deeply held principles they consider fundamental to health as likely to be interpreted as just another form of stealth. Truly, thanks for being open to hearing it.
A NOTE FROM MICHAEL GIRA “The Seer took 30 years to make. It’s the culmination of every previous Swans album as well as any other music I’ve ever made, been involved in or imagined. But it’s unfinished, like the songs themselves. It’s one frame in a reel. The frames blur, blend and will eventually fade. The songs began on an acoustic guitar, then were fleshed out with (invaluable) help from my friends, then were further tortured and seduced in rehearsals, live and in the studio, and now they await further cannibalism and force-feeding as we prepare to perform some of them live, at which point they’ll mutate further, endlessly, or perhaps be discarded for a while. Despite what you might have heard or presumed, my quest is to spread light and joy through the world. My friends in Swans are all stellar men. Without them I’m a kitten, an infant. Our goal is the same: ecstasy!" HOW THE SONGS CAME TO BE The songs The Seer, Ave. B Blues, Avatar, and The Apostate were developed organically as a group in rehearsals and on tour. They morphed constantly throughout the last series of Swans tours, and were captured and lovingly adorned in the studio. The remaining songs on the album were developed from the ground up in the studio with the participation and input of all the contributing musicians, guided by an invisible hand... Recorded at Studio P4 and Andere Baustelle in Berlin, by Kevin McMahon and at Marcata Studio, Gardiner, NY, by Kevin McMahon. Additional recording at Trout Recording, Brooklyn, NY, engineer: Bryce Goggin. Mixed by Kevin McMahon at Marcata. Produced by Michael Gira. FULL CREDITS SWANS Michael Gira voice, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, harmonica, casio, sounds Norman Westberg electric guitar, voice Christoph Hahn lap steel guitars; electric guitar, voice Phil Puleo drums, percussion, hammer dulcimer, voice Thor Harris drums, percussion, orchestral bells, hammer dulcimer, handmade violin thing, vibraphone, piano, clarinet, voice Christopher Pravdica bass guitar, voice, incredible handshake Honorary Swan: Bill Rieflin piano, organ, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, drums, percussion, casio, synthesizer, bass guitar, voice, bird idea SPECIAL GUESTS Karen O lead vocal on Song for a Warrior (Karen appears courtesy Interscope Records) Al and Mimi of Low co-vocals on Lunacy Jarboe backing vocals and voice collage on Piece of the Sky and backing vocals on The Seer Returns Seth Olinsky, Miles Seaton, Dana Janssen (Akron/Family) backing vocals on Piece of the Sky Caleb Mulkerin and Colleen Kinsella of Big Blood accordion, vocals, dulcimer, guitar, piano and assorted other instruments on the Seer Returns Sean Mackowiak (the grasshopper) acoustic and electric mandolins, clarinet, various songs Ben Frost fire sounds (acoustic and synthetic) on Piece of the Sky Iain Graham bagpipes on The Seer Bruce Lamont horns on The Seer Bob Rutman steel cello on The Seer Cassis Staudt accordion various songs Eszter Balint violin, various songs Jane Scarpatoni cello various songs Kevin McMahon additional drums on the Seer Returns, electric guitar, sounds on various songs Bryce Goggin piano on Song for a Warrior Stefan Rocke contra bassoon on the Seer Produced by Michael Gira. Recorded at Studio P4 and Andere Baustelle in Berlin, by Kevin McMahon, assistants Marco and Boris, and at Marcata Studio, Gardiner, NY, by Kevin McMahon. Additional recording at Trout Recording, Brooklyn, NY, engineer: Bryce Goggin, assistant: Adam Sachs. Mixed by Kevin McMahon at Marcata. Mastered by Doug Henderson at Micro-Moose Berlin. Pre-mastering by Jamal Ruhe at West Westside Music. Artwork: Paintings and Swans photo portraits by Simon Henwood.
On *Old Ideas*, his 12th studio album, the iconic singer/songwriter/poet continues his exploration of the spiritual, the sensual, and the cycle of life over the course of 10 songs. His unexcitable, half-spoken baritone is a calming, lyrical guide, with vocalists Dana Glover and The Webb Sisters and longtime collaborators Jennifer Warnes and Sharon Robinson providing tonal contrasts. With dual piano and organ accompaniment, “Show Me the Place” has the solemn levity of a modern hymn. The bluesy “Darkness” and the cabaret-friendly “Different Sides” showcase Cohen’s noirish and uptempo sides. “Banjo\" has a rural North Americana arrangement, appropriately enough, with an unexpected, Dixieland-like clarinet-and-trumpet interlude.
Electronic pop auteur Flying Lotus (a.k.a. Steven Ellison) displays a new clarity of vision on Until the Quiet Comes as he reins in the scattershot tendencies of 2010’s Cosmogramma in favor of a more unified approach. The composer/producer still offers inspired pastiches of jazz, hip-hop and ambient sounds. But where his earlier work could be intentionally jarring, this album takes the listener on a smoothly-sequenced journey through inner landscapes. Ellison is aided by such notables as Erykah Badu (floating diva-like above the tribal groove of “See Thru to U”), Radiohead’s Thom Yorke (making his dark presence felt in “Electric Candyman”) and the Long Lost’s Laura Darlington (cooing her way through the eerie expanses of “Phantasm”). There’s plenty of sinewy pulsation amidst the billowing electronica, supplied by Stephen “Thundercat” Bruner’s insistent bass lines and Ellison’s jittery programmed beats. From the funkified growl of “The Nightcaller” to the robotic munchkin twitch of “Putty Boy Strut” and the sweet psyche-soul of “DMT Song,” Flying Lotus infuses the album with mystical vibes laced with subversive humor. Unearthly yet inviting, Until the Quiet Comes’ sonic spell is hard to resist.
At first blush, Mac DeMarco’s second album, released in 2012, is almost comically unassuming. For starters, it’s called *2*, which is the album-naming equivalent of referring to a pet as “Cat” or “Dog.” Then there’s the cover, which features a black-and-white snapshot of DeMarco, six-stringer close to his chest, flashing a toothy grin and a peace sign in a manner that brings to mind *Fast Times at Ridgemont High*’s chilled-out surfer-dude, Jeff Spicoli. And as for the music itself? Well, there are at least two songs about smoking cigarettes, while another one is simply called “Dreaming”—which, true to its title, sounds like someone lazily looking out the window during a hot summer day. (For what it’s worth, DeMarco has since claimed that most of the record was made while he was in just his underwear.) Of course, all of this plays into the deceptive brilliance of DeMarco’s entire deal: He looks and feels like *just some guy*—your good friend at the bar, maybe, or the lovable class clown from your childhood. And he’s content to let your assumptions take hold as he casually unspools warm, warped guitar baubles that possess a simple and deeply affecting tenderness—not unlike Paul McCartney’s solo work, or the reveries of indie-pop greats Felt. Released the same year as *Rock and Roll Night Club*—DeMarco’s shaggy, after-hours debut—*2* was an undeniable breakout moment for the Vancouver singer-songwriter, who would go on to become one of the 2010s’ biggest indie-rock stars. The album’s 11 songs possess a charming timelessness to them, like floating down a lazy river in a big inner tube. The lovely and romantic “My Kind of Woman” is the closest we’ll likely get to a modern indie-music standard, while the peppy beat and tangled guitars of “Freaking Out the Neighborhood” represents *2*’s most explicitly *rock* moment, as DeMarco offers a lyrical apologia to his assuredly weary mother: “I know it\'s no fun/When your first son/Gets up to no good.” Such a sentiment is key to understanding DeMarco’s appeal—and it sums up the essence of *2* as a whole: His goofball side may be endearing and immediately apparent, but the more he hangs around, the radiance of his sincerity grows brighter.
With fizzled record deals and forced image makeovers in his past, a frustrated Miguel Jontel Pimentel took control of his career and creativity on *Kaleidoscope Dream*. As a result, his second album not only sounded utterly singular—a swirling, moody mix of hip-hop, rock, and psychedelic soul—but it also placed the Southern Californian singer in a vanguard of new artists redefining the idea of the male R&B star (see also Frank Ocean, the Weeknd). Though just as sex-obsessed as the smooth lovermen who came before him, Miguel here projects a far more fractured and colorful view of romance tinted by deep self-reflection, hallucinogenic augmentation, and spiritual yearning. All of which tracks for a guy who grew up idolizing artsy types like Prince, Bowie, and Hendrix, but whose voice happens to sound like crushed velvet. To that last point, there’s “Adorn,” a tribute to wholehearted love that evokes Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing” and shows just how sweet a Miguel album of simple, throwback R&B would be. But *Kaleidoscope Dream* is not that album—and it’s better for it. The next song, “Don’t Look Back,” lays shuffling ’60s pop over throbbing electro-house as Miguel warns a partner to run before the moon turns him into a womanizing beast. And then comes “Use Me,” where, over a plush blanket of grinding guitar, he cops to being nervous in bed. Whether he’s likening coitus to ballet (“Arch & Point”) or vamping with Alicia Keys over a tumbling drum loop (“Where’s the Fun in Forever”), Miguel proves himself a thrillingly unpredictable host. It’s no wonder this breakthrough LP led to sonic trysts with artists as wide-ranging as Kendrick Lamar, the Chemical Brothers, and Beyoncé.
In the \'00s, Ariel Pink home-recorded a number of murky and intriguing cassettes. Cobbling together several influences but transcending the hollowness of pure retro imitation, Pink created wonderfully eccentric pop. With the 2010 release of his 4AD debut, *Before Today*, his distinct songwriting and arranging skills were professionally produced for the first time, and the results were impressive. (His band, Haunted Graffiti, is perfectly tuned into Pink’s aesthetic.) 2012’s *Mature Themes* is a fine follow-up. The Beverly Hills native has always had a zany side, and it\'s in evidence here. (Some passages evoke Frank Zappa, another musician with a wiseass sense of humor and a taste for pastiche.) The album opens strongly with “Kinski Assassin,” which features a delightful sense of wordplay and a hook that stays with you. A number of other songs are good, and *Mature Themes* closes strongly with a cover of Donnie & Joe Emerson’s “Baby.” The original could almost be a \'60s low-rider ballad, but it actually was recorded in the late \'70s in the Pacific Northwest. Pink’s version nicely echoes the dreaminess of the Emersons’ smooth jam.
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Shintaro Sakamoto was a leading force in Japan’s Yura Yura Teikoku, a band that delighted in exploring the wandering, loose styles of vintage American rock. From psych-pop to stoner rock, YYT clearly studied the sounds of the ‘60s and, more so, the ‘70s. On this solo outing by Sakamoto, the guitarist/vocalist/composer jumps wholly (and without irony) into ‘70s AM radio, with songs recalling artists like War, Todd Rundgren, and Bread. “In a Phantom Mood” is breezy and catchy (it’s saying something that even with Japanese lyrics, many of these songs stay with non-Japanese speakers), and the flighty guitars and sunny female backup vocals carry a Tropicalia flavor. The easy, flowing funk on songs like “You Just Decided” and “Mask on Mask” features congas and guitar effects not heard since 1974, while “A Stick and Stones” slows down the show to a minimal, sensuous beat woven with not much more than a spare bass line, a cymbal, and restrained keyboard tones, yet it feels quite substantial. If these soulful, laidback grooves had been made by a Brooklyn band, they’d be on the year-end favorites lists of bloggers everywhere. Go ahead, be brave.
Although Chromatics have substantially changed their lineup since 2002, their 2012 configuration shows a huge development in both musicianship and songwriting. Now with deadpan chanteuse Ruth Radelet on the mic, *Kill for Love* opens with her demure vocals giving “Into the Black” even more tension than on Neil Young’s 1979 recording. The title track blends Italio Disco flourishes with \'90s-inspired indie rock, as Radelet contrasts a catchy vocal melody with a coolly aloof performance. She looks toward Velvet Underground–era Nico for inspiration in “The Page,” most noticeably when singing “I could be your mirror” over cold, gothic guitars that sound imported from The Cure’s *Disintegration*. “These Streets Will Never Look the Same” taps into every young woman’s desire to be Stevie Nicks, with a muted “Edge of Seventeen” guitar stutter that sounds identical to the original.
'I Know What Love Isn't' came out of a break up which isn't a new story. He fell in love and it didn't work out. It borrows sparingly from the vast and colorful palette of sounds he created on 'Night Falls Over Kortedala'. 'I Know What Love Isn't' has strings but not a string section, an upright piano not grand, a single saxophone, gracenotes from a flute, a lot of tambourine. Combined in exact proportions with Lekman's melancholy abstract lyrics, the songs evoke the classic sound of the Brill Building in it's heyday. Lekman is a storyteller of the highest caliber, letting his delicate vignettes unfold to show the wonder that lies in the mundane. That's what 'I Know What Love Isn't'… is. A collection of songs that grew to a story that had to be told. A story that is not new, but essentially human. The story of the grey areas of love that you have to excavate and explore, using the method of exclusion, to find out what love is.
When discussing ‘Father John Misty’, Tillman paraphrases Philip Roth: ’It’s all of me and none of me, if you can’t see that, you won’t get it’. What I call it is totally arbitrary, but I like the name. You’ve got to have a name. I never got to choose mine.” He goes on, “‘People who make records are afforded this assumption by the culture that their music is coming from an exclusively personal place, but more often than not what you hear are actually the affectations of an ’alter-ego’ or a cartoon of an emotionally heightened persona,” says Josh Tillman, who has been recording/releasing solo albums since 2003 and who recently left Seattle’s Fleet Foxes after playing drums from 2008-2011. “That kind of emotional quotient isn’t sustainable if your concern is portraying a human-being made up of more than just chest-beating pathos. I see a lot of rampant, sexless, male-fantasy everywhere in the music around me. I didn’t want any alter-egos, any vagaries, fantasy, escapism, any over-wrought sentimentality. I like humor and sex and mischief. So when you think about it, it’s kind of mischievous to write about yourself in a plain-spoken, kind of explicitly obvious way and call it something like ‘Misty’. I mean, I may as well have called it ‘Steve’”. Musically, Fear Fun consists of such disparate elements as Waylon Jennings, Harry Nilsson, Arthur Russell, “All Things Must Pass,” and “Physical Graffiti,” often within the same song. Tillman’s voice has never been better and often sounds like Roy Orbison, “The Caruso of Rock”, at his most joyous, while the music maintains a dark, mysterious and yet conversely playful, almost Dionysian quality. Lyrically, his absurdist fever dreams of pain and pleasure elicit, in equal measures, the blunt descriptive power of Bukowski or Brautigan, the hedonist-philosophy of Oscar Wilde and the dried-out wit of Loudon Wainwright III. The album began gestating during what Tillman describes as an “immobilizing period of depression”, in his former Seattle home. “Songwriting for me had always only been interesting and necessary because I saw it as this vehicle for truth, but I had this realization that all I had really done with it was lick my wounds for years and years, and become more and more isolated from people and experiences. I don’t even like wound-licking music, I want to listen to someone rip their arm off and beat themselves with it. I don’t believe that until now I’ve ever put anything at risk in my music. I was hell-bent on putting my preciousness at stake in order to find something worth singing about.” He continues, “I lost all interest in writing music, or identifying as a ‘songwriter’. I got into my van with enough mushrooms to choke a horse and started driving down the coast with nowhere to go. After a few weeks, I was writing a novel, which is where I finally found my narrative voice. The voice that is actually useful. “It was a while before that voice started manifesting in a musical way, but once I settled in the Laurel Canyon spider-shack where I’m living now, I spent months demoing all these weird-ass songs about weird-ass experiences almost in real-time, and kind of had this musical ‘Oh-there-I-am’ moment, identical to how I felt when I was writing the book. It was unbelievably liberating. I knew there was never any going back to the place I was writing from before, which was a huge relief. The monkey got banished off my back.” Tillman brought the demos to LA producer/songwriter/pal Jonathan Wilson, and in February 2011 began recording at his home-studio in Echo Park. “Initially, the idea was to just kind of recreate the demos with me playing everything, since they were pretty fleshed out and sounded cool, but a place like LA affords you a different wealth of talent, potential, etc than just about anywhere else. I realized what was possible between Jonathan’s abilities, and the caliber of musicians that are just hanging around LA, pretty quickly. People were coming in and out of the studio all day sometimes, and other days, it would just be Jonathan and I holed up, getting stoned, and doing everything. “I was honest with myself about what music actually excites my joy-glands when I was considering the arrangements and instrumentation,” says Tillman. “As opposed to what’s been enjoyable to me in the past – namely, alienating people or making choices based on what I think people won’t like or understand. Pretty narcissistic stuff.” When asked about Laurel Canyon, where he eventually ended up living in the aforementioned tree-house with a family of spiders, Tillman says, “My attitude about it all is pretty explicit in the record. Given my fairly adversarial personal attitude about the music and aesthetic that comes from that place, it’s kind of a huge joke that I live in a former hippie-fantasy land. I have a really morbid sense of humor.” Phil Ek (who everyone knows has worked with Built To Spill, Modest Mouse, Band of Horses, Fleet Foxes) heard the rough versions of the album in May 2011 and offered his services to mix. “Phil and I have known each other for a while by virtue of Fleet Foxes, so he was familiar with my music, but we had never discussed working together. I think he immediately recognized the shift in my writing and singing from a producer and friend’s standpoint. His excitement is really evident in mixes, I think.” Interviews by Richard Metzger and Casey Wescott Written by Paula Zabrey, Jan. 2012
*Kindred* is London-based dubstep producer Burial’s hardest and darkest-sounding EP to date. While there are only three songs here, keep in mind that they total more than a half-hour. The title track opens with keyboard ambience and looped vinyl hiss before metallic, clanging beats start driving the tune like an old car in first gear. As the song shifts into second, Burial seamlessly fuses dusty, lo-fi garage beats with the heft of his signature dubstep and some jungle that bobs and weaves with a middleweight boxer\'s agility. In place of a lead vocal, Burial uses manipulated fragments of female vocals, pitched down and up for a haunting effect. The faster-driving “Loner” serves as a snapshot of past raves. Its locomotive beats and brooding bass synth set the stage for the type of fluttering keyboard notes that dancers can feel sputtering in their sternums when cranked from huge speakers. The closing “Ashtray Wasp” is 11 minutes and 44 seconds of dark, foreboding house from the postapocalyptic future.
In 2009, Cleveland’s Dylan Baldi began writing and recording lo-fi power-pop songs in his parents’ basement, dubbing the project Cloud Nothings. His music quickly started making the Internet rounds, and fans and critics alike took note of his pithy songcraft, infectiously catchy melodies, and youthful enthusiasm. Baldi soon released a string of 7”s, a split cassette, and an EP before putting out "Turning On"—a compilation spanning about a year’s worth of work—on Carpark in 2010. January 2011 saw the release Cloud Nothings’ self-titled debut LP, which, put next to Turning On, found Baldi cleaning up his lo-fi aesthetic, pairing his tales of affinitive confusion with a more pristine aural clarity. In the interval since the release of Cloud Nothings, Baldi has toured widely and put a great deal of focus on his live show, a detail that heavily shapes the music of his follow-up album, "Attack on Memory." After playing the same sets nightly for months on end, Baldi saw the rigidity of his early work, and he wanted to create arrangements that would allow for more improvisation and variability when played on the road. To accomplish this desired malleability, the entire band decamped to Chicago—where the album was recorded with Steve Albini—and all lent a hand in the songwriting process. The product of these sessions is a record boasting features that, even at a glance, mark a sea change in the band’s sound: higher fidelity, a track clocking in at almost nine minutes, an instrumental, and an overall more plaintive air. The songs move along fluidly, and Baldi sounds assured as he brings his vocals up in the mix, allowing himself to hold out long notes and put some grain into his voice. Minor key melodies abound, drums emphatically contribute much more than mere timekeeping, and the guitar work is much more adventurous than that of previous releases. For all of early Cloud Nothings’ fun and fervor, Baldi admits that it never sounded like most of the music he listens to. With "Attack on Memory," he wanted to remedy this anomaly, and in setting out to do so, Baldi and co. have created an album that shows vast growth in a still very young band.
While many electronic music listeners in the U.K. were enthralled by dubstep and grime in the late ‘00s, that era also saw the rise of darker, less accessible sounds from a group of defiantly hermetic producers on small labels like Modern Love and Blackest Ever Black. These producers took the metronomic throb and dark minimalism of deep house pioneers like Frankie Knuckles and Virgo 4 as creative touchstones, deliberately eschewing dubstep\'s then-fashionable jungle-derived break beats. Manchester-based producer Andy Stott is among the most formidable and creative practitioners of this deeply introverted brand of U.K. techno. His 2011 release *Passed Me By* set the basic template: trudging tempos, cavernous dub-like ambiance, and house-derived beats, all enlisted in the service of creating an atmosphere of unremitting dread. On 2012’s *Luxury Problems*, Stott put another layer atop this already-compelling sound, inviting Alison Skidmore to add her spectral, unearthly vocals to his sparse, unnerving instrumentals. The result is positively mesmerizing, a haunting late-night listen that stands as one of Stott’s strongest albums.
Scott Walker claims that *Bish Bosh* is the final installment of a trilogy that started with 1995\'s *Tilt* and continued with 2006\'s *The Drift*. The stylistic similarities are readily apparent in the extreme musical dynamics, with vocals that sound like an opera singer being strangled in the back of a theater and a sense that the world might end at any moment. This is ghost music, enlivened by thoroughly unconventional song structures and skewered arrangements that the average pop music fan might find unnerving, confusing, and (likely) hostile. But for listeners acclimated to Walker\'s extreme levels of tension, the music here is as refreshingly unusual as ever, with lyrics that wander all over the cultural map. Due to the sizable length of several cuts (the excellent \"Corps De Blah,\" the mind-melting \"SDSS14+13B (Zercon, a Flagpole Sitter),\" \"Epizootics!,\" and \"The Day the \'Conducator\' Died (An Xmas Song),\" the album has the feel of being one long piece. Brief intermissions are found with the intro (\"\'See You Don\'t Bump His Head\'\"), \"Phrasing,\" and the less-than-three-minutes \"Pilgrim.\"
Toronto R&B enigma Abel Tesfaye presents his landmark trifecta of mixtapes in one bleak, woozy stretch. Over *Trilogy*’s three hours, we descend ever deeper into the antihero’s decadent universe: Tesfaye pours Alizé in his cereal over bleary synth washes on “The Morning,” and that’s about as PG as he gets. But for all its doomy R&B nihilism—\"House of Balloons / Glass Table Girls\" combines sex, drugs, and Siouxsie samples—\"D.D.\" hints at Tesfaye\'s interest in joining pop’s one-gloved upper echelon.
Having waded deeper into electronic waters with *Merriweather Post Pavilion*, the onetime freak-folkies in Animal Collective discover vast new worlds of color and texture on *Centipede Hz*. “Applesauce” tosses jangly ‘60s garage pop down a funhouse hall of mirrors; “Today’s Supernatural” heaves like a roller-coaster in a hurricane, yet it\'s also one of their catchiest songs ever. “Rosie Oh” exemplifies their effortless balancing act between lilting vocal harmonies and wildly psychedelic details: Writhing like a bag of centipedes, it’s nevertheless eminently hummable.
On Centipede Hz, Animal Collective return to being a four-piece, an event that is reflected in the widescreen completeness of the album. This is a panoramic set of songs that shimmer with the confidence and wonder of Animal Collective’s unique inner logic and the luminous warmth of their sound world.
There\'s not a whisper of second album jitters on this follow-up from fearsomely singular childhood friends Jamie Smith, Oliver Sim and Romy Madley Croft. But—while opener “Angel” plays like an even leaner take on their signature witching hour sound—there’s discernible evolution in all those sonic spaces. “Reunion” boasts the unexpected calypso of synthesized steelpan, and “Our Song” is a warped, strangely intimate duet that lets Madley Croft and Sim’s vocals intertwine like tangled limbs.
The title *Interstellar* accurately reflects the atmosphere here—and considering Frankie Rose\'s previous work, it’s a surprising direction. She\'s a former drummer for Vivian Girls, Crystal Stilts, and Dum Dum Girls, and her earlier solo release (backed by her band The Outs) was noisy, reverb-rich, and influenced by \'60s girl bands. On *Interstellar*, she works with producer Le Chev to create a glossy and spacious synth-pop album that echoes \'80s new wave. The first crystalline notes of the opening title track signal the reinvention of her sound, which is anchored by sparkling, highly polished production. Her vocals are dreamy and clear, light enough to float pleasantly into layers of keyboards and synths. The songs are minimalist, precise, and ringing with clarity. “Know Me,” “Daylight Sky,” and “Night Swim” are bouncy and mesmerizing, with shimmering guitar figures and crisp drumming. The gorgeous ballad “Pair of Wings” has a similarly spare structure but unfolds with a slow, subdued power. It repeats the same sweet melody for three verses, adding texture until the song dissolves into space, creating one of the more memorable passages on an album full of meditative and ethereal moments.
We were all knocked out by the Frankie Rose and the Outs album from 2010, the effortlessness of its gorgeous girl-pop mantras, the intimate immensity of its Spector-esque walls of reverb, the beauty of a song sung sweetly over the most graceful two-chord vamps. But are you ready for the new Frankie Rose? – her transformation into a wholly other kind of pop, the reverie and revelation of "Interstellar," an album that floats free of its maker’s history – time spent with Vivian Girls, Dum Dum Girls, Crystal Stilts, and creator of one of the most breathlessly compelling girl-pop albums of the past few years – and offers the listener something strangely other, as alien as it is familiar, as compelling as it is enchanting. Talking with Frankie about the record, it’s clear she was itching for a new start. The first big indication – production by Le Chev, remixer supreme (for Lemonade, Narcisse, Passion Pit, and Frankie’s own “Candy”), an ensemble member of Fischerspooner, etc. “We recorded the record in a private studio dubbed The Thermometer Factory in Park Slope. I wanted this record to be totally different and in so doing I knew I had to work with someone who would lend fresh ideas and know how to make sounds that I wouldn't know how to make. I wanted to make a particular record and I knew Le Chev would be the one who could help me do it.” So, out with the reverb of the Frankie Rose and the Outs, and in with something altogether more glam, glittering, shivering. On "Interstellar" Frankie takes the lessons learned with her debut album – like reverb as the holy route to pop-grandeur, scaling a wall of teenage tears – fully digests, and transfers those skills into the brave new world mapped out by ten new songs. In its place is the confident swagger of a singer and auteur fully aware of how to build the simplest of pop moves into aching, full-blown melodramas, how to grab hold of an emotion and ride its darker waves. “I always have a big picture in mind,” Frankie reflects. “I knew I wanted a HUGE sounding record. Big highs, big lows, and clean. There is no fuzz on this record. I knew I wanted to make a streamlined, spacious record with big choruses that sometimes referenced 80s pop.” But that referencing never swamps the melodies: this record isn’t a retro trip. If anything, it liberates sounds familiar from that decade and gives them new context, breathes life into clay golems of sound that too often become basic, pre-set triggers. On "Interstellar," Frankie Rose goes epic, goes widescreen. “Had We Had It” spins the sweetest sugar from chords that ascend into the firmament, a heavenly, palatial blur. “Gospel / Grace” rumbles with passion, a New Order-esque one-finger guitar figure leading the listener into the choral depths mapped by the chorus. “Apples For The Sun” is breathtaking, with Frankie singing out across a lone piano, before a glorious web of voice and organ pirouettes into the air, an arbor of pleasure connecting the verse with its instrumental shadow, a coda that slowly slips from your view, before making the briefest, most tantalizing of returns. A lot of "Interstellar" seems to be about disappearing into, or finding and reveling in, this kind of imaginary zone, something Rose confirms: “The whole record is about dreaming of some ‘other’ place.” And as you drift into the heartbreaking “The Fall,” which floats out to sea on a lunar-aquatic cello riff that’s pure Arthur Russell, you’re ready to conquer those other places, too, to let Frankie Rose guide you out of the album’s spell and land you back in the sensual world, slightly altered, adrift and in awe. How does it feel to feel? With Interstellar, your emotions come out so alive, your only escape is to dive right back in.
*Children of Desire*—the second LP from Florida\'s Merchandise—is another stunning collection of classic-feeling post-punk that\'s both beautifully, viscously barbed and delicately melancholic. It\'s remarkable how these Americans expertly reignite the passions triggered by \'80s groups like Echo & The Bunnymen, The Smiths, and The Jesus & Mary Chain. (Merchandise has much in common with The Horrors, a band that, we note, is British.) The guitars throw off shards of white light, organs swirl, drums ring with reverb, and vocalist Carson Cox has a lovely, soft baritone that swoons and wails in the emotional palette that Morrissey once ruled. Congas race incongruously through \"In Nightmare Room\" (and they\'re *awesome*), while the 11-minute beauty \"Become What You Are\" ebbs and flows with a gorgeous, bittersweet melody until, at about six minutes in, it morphs into a hungry maelstrom of guitar distortion atop Cox\'s smooth vocals and a Sufi-worthy, trance-driven rhythm. Every song here is to be savored, and you might want to get in on these guys before they become the Next Big(ger) Thing.
Recorded over three weeks in a darkened room, the third album from Canadian singer/producer Grimes, a.k.a. Claire Boucher, packs an idiosyncratic punch. At once grating and soothing, melodic and dissonant, *Visions* manages to sound like a pop record above all else, with contorted melodies that seep into your brain. Boucher tangles up her eerie falsetto with crackling beats and pinging synths, resulting in a gnarled amalgam of textures—electro-pop rendered as splatter art. It\'s fascinating and wholly original all the way through.
How to Dress Well is musician Tom Krell, one of a score of American artists making lo-fi bedroom pop. But his niche is particularly narrow, and it’s difficult to find another singer in the genre capable of setting the mood and hitting the notes that Krell has mastered. He grew up loving R&B, and he clearly learned a few things along the way; the ease with which he coaxes a note into silken bliss or coos atmospherics into a microphone is impressive. *Total Loss* is the Colorado native’s second full-length release, and those who were troubled by the hiss and grit of 2010’s *Love Remains* will be pleased to hear his new appreciation for cleaner, lighter production values. If you’re an indie pop fan who\'s unsure about R&B speaking to you, first give a listen to the slowly building, almost a cappella gem “& It Was You.” If Krell’s own backup harmonies and big, empty-room beats interlaced with crisp shakers and fingersnaps don’t pull you in, well, we might suggest a spiritual intervention. *Total Loss* feels well-named, with hollow piano loops, hazy strings, and sheets of echo coloring the collection with melancholy, while Krell’s voice alternately lifts and devastates.
There’s an energetic, first-take feel to Dr. Dog’s seventh release, *Be the Void*. Starting with the jangly roots-pop of “Lonesome,” the band careens with joyous abandon across a sprawling rock ‘n’ roll landscape. The delivery may be loose, but the songs are tightly crafted, filled with effortless hooks, warm vocal harmonies, and enough absurdist wordplay to leave Beck scratching his head. Distorted guitars, keyboards, and punchy bass lines intertwine on the urgent “Over Here, Over There” and “Vampire.” Lean guitar riffs drive “Big Girl” and “Warrior Man,” while the catchy “That Old Black Hole” and “Do the Trick” will have you singing along on first listen. The album closes much as it begins, by riding a relaxed acoustic groove on the loping “Turning the Century.” *Be the Void* is more melodic gold from one of the more reliable and consistent rock ‘n’ roll bands around.
A singing drummer who writes psychedelic pop music, Chris Cohen also records his own bass, Casio MT65, piano, and guitar. Tracks like "Caller No. 99" and "Monad" follow idiosyncratic forms, but are still melodic in an unconventional and homegrown way like the best of Robert Wyatt, Mayo Thompson, Syd Barrett, and Jerry Garcia. Overgrown Path unfolds its delicate and unexpected arrangements around Cohen s relaxed baritone, unhurriedly revealing the detailed world wrapped up in each song.