Alan Wilkis

Pink and Purple EP

(Wilcassettes; US: 15 Jun 2009; UK: Import)

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Moving away from his previous light-hearted retro pop back towards a purer set of influences, Brooklyn’s Alan Wilkis has reinvented himself again. The six tracks on his recently released Pink and Purple EP are a slice of unadulterated electrofunk heaven, pulsing with the vivacity of a kid who’s just discovered “Theme from ‘Shaft’”. Wilkis is actually a multi-instrumentalist of considerable skill—his guitar playing, in particular, used to drop jaws. But he sits now with fellow literate-NYers Chromeo, restricting himself to a single style, and embracing it without irony for the pure fun to be had. And this is some kind of fun. From the Sesame Street twinkle of “Gotta Get You Back” to the dirtier bassline that runs under the title track, Wilkis has turned out song after song of pristine genre pieces with the quality to become new parts of the canon. So much so that you get this warm familiar feeling listening to the EP—not that you’ve heard it before, but that you’re rekindling an old friendship. Things are perhaps best illustrated on “N.I.C.E.”, a humble celebration (“I just wanna be nice to you”) of glittering synths with even a bit of Wilkis’ old-school rapping thrown in for good measure.

If there’s a twinge of disappointment associated with listening to Wilkis’ new stuff, it’s that his older style had so much potential. Then again, it’s by no means clear where this talented musician will turn next. “The Hustle”, an instrumental track he composed to soundtrack Hutchison Tire’s cycling short “It’s Your Ride” (and which is not included on this new EP), is all gorgeous Gotye-style atmosphere, and portends a to-be-looked-forward-to mastery of downbeat electronica. Either way—whether Wilkis continues mining this genre for inspiration (in which case he may become a sort of Jamie Lidell of elecrofunk), or goes off in another direction entirely—we should be confident we’ll be in for a good time.

—Dan Raper

Hermit Thrushes

Slight Fountain

(Joyful Noise Recordings; US: 23 Jun 2009; UK: 13 Jul 2009)

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Bands such as Deerhoof and Danielson ride a jagged edge, as their songs often fall apart and come back together just in time to avoid alienating the listener entirely. Difficult quirks are eventually overwhelmed by cohesion and melody, and the pattern keeps the music alive and listeners active.

On the concise Slight Fountain, Hermit Thrushes aspire to a similar mix of awkward and approachable. Joyful Noise Recordings notes the influence of “pre-American sounds (Greek folk, Byzantine chant, Andean music, Turkish folk)” on the band’s compositions, but those styles are not likely to come to most listeners’ minds.

More apparent are appeals to the senses and a tone that manages to uplift despite a somewhat macabre atmosphere. “Snowflake Heart” skips along in a singsong manner, but there is something deathly about the repeated “scent of almonds”. “Push” offers the vivid image of a “stomach bleeding through the dirt to fill up holes you never see”. Its chorus is uncomfortably similar to an Everclear hook, but otherwise the song is an effective exercise in contrasting compositional and lyrical elements.

Sometimes, as on “Black Cat”, the atonality gets out of hand and fails to reconcile with the more satisfying folk-rock arrangements. But “Song From Boat” and the Clouds Taste Metallic-esque “Gooseneck” successfully square the band’s various musical impulses. As angular, lo-fi modern rock goes, many bands have garnered more hype with work less gripping than Slight Fountain.

—Thomas Britt

Spring Creek

Way Up on a Mountain

(Rebel; US: 5 May 2009; UK: 5 May 2009)

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The musicians of Spring Creek go after an aesthetic that can be summed up as Honest Downhome Folk. You could argue that all bluegrass and old-time country bands are doing this to some degree, but Way Up on a Mountain is that idea calibrated to a kind of exactness. The musicians are smart enough to throw a little hokeyness in with their swing, so the listener never feels that they’re putting themselves on pedestals, and the female singer knows the right amount of sass and twang to use when she tells an ex-lover that if he thinks she’s ever going to trust him again he “might as well try to catch the wind.” “When you come up yonder [ie, die], what will you have to ponder?” they ask in “Slow Down”, and then give you the answer: “It’s your heart, not the things that you have.” The guitar tickles them underneath to keep the surface interesting. Robust, emotional, and deft.

—Deanne Sole

Cocktail Slippers

Saint Valentine's Day Massacre

(Wicked Cool; US: 28 Apr 2009; UK: 18 May 2009)

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For a buncha gals posing as badass, gun-totin’ dames on their cover of Saint. Valentine’s Day Massacre, the ladies of the Cocktail Slippers sure are boy-dependent on their third disc. On the title track, penned by Little Steven van Zandt (more about him in a moment), frontwoman Modesty Blaze rends her garments worrying, “Am I still penciled in your calendar?” and pouts and coos her way through “Love Me Back” with “I love you but you don’t love me back”. Elsewhere, our Norwegian fivesome do everything you’d expect on an album produced, svengali-style (in addition to writing the title track and “Heard You Got a Thing For Me”, he plays bongos on the album, and released the record on his Wicked Cool imprint), by van Zandt—a little Go-Go’s aping here, courtesy of the “Our Town"-redux “In
the City”; a little ‘60s girl-garage there, with the Ellie Greenwich/Jeff Barry-penned “Don’t Ever Leave Me”. It’s all perfectly serviceable Eurogarage-pop, but necessary only for folks loudly wondering when the next Sahara Hotnights album will drop or who are cardcarrying members of van Zandt’s Underground Garage Nation.

—Stephen Haag

Pixel

The Drive

(Raster-Noton; US: 12 May 2009; UK: 13 Apr 2009)

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The third album from Denmark’s Jon “Pixel” Egeskov is a rare ambient concept road-trip album. All of the tracks are named after coordinates findable through Google Maps (track one is the Cape Canaveral NASA base in Florida). Of course, I generally like louder music with a progressive beat for my travels, while the sound of The Drive is often something like a heartbeat laid over the warble of old ceiling fans and amplifier hum. If I ever did pull this out on a road-trip, the majority of the car would likely fall asleep, so it is kind of dangerous in that respect.

Outside of the concept, it is a well-constructed chill album. A constant amplifier hum acts as a drone through which intensely stretched out string instruments bubble forth. Each track is given its sense of momentum by faint, lethargic bass and static pops rearranged into percussion. I certainly sets a mood, yet every time I listen to it, I can’t help but wish I was listening to Pole’s first three EPs instead.

—Alan Ranta

Snowglobe

No Need to Light a Night Light on a Night Like Tonight

(Makeshift Music; US: 5 May 2009; UK: 5 May 2009)

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The Memphis-based sextet Snowglobe play literate, down-homey Americana. Their songs are colored with do-it-yourself-style production and chamber instruments. Despite this, No Need to Light a Night Light on a Night Like Tonight‘s seven songs fail to really distinguish the band from like-minded acts such as Neutral Milk Hotel, Bell & Sebastian, and Wilco. There’s plenty going on, it all sounds sincere and authentic, and “Get It On” builds to a nice crescendo. The rollicking “Ms. June” comes closest to leaving a lasting impression. But it can’t shake the feeling this is the sort of thing others have done better.

—John Bergstrom

Henry's Funeral Shoe

Everything's for Sale

(Alive; US: 31 Mar 2009; UK: 6 Apr 2009)

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There’s nothing radically new on this debut from Henry’s Funeral Shoe, but the guitar and drum combo have a raw, fuzzed-out, garage-boogie attitude and a riff-o-rama sensibility that is pretty endearing. Their sound can be heavy as a 2000 lb. budgie, menacing as a back-alley swaying drunk, and when they crank up the riffing or let rip with some high-octane slide, it’s as transporting as anything by post-Mississippi Fred McDowell. I prefer the slightly more relaxed singing on “Don’t Lose the Rhythm” and “Coming on Through” to the prevalent gruff sub-Waitsean growl. That’s because, at his best, Waits is a poet, whereas Henry’s Funeral Shoe seem to spit out a series of blues-related soundbites with little concern for narrative. At times, I found myself wishing they were singing in Welsh, like possibly the most magnificent group from Wales, Llwbr Llaethog. No real gripes, though, as Everything’s for Sale is an energetic and promising debut, the live show looks simply ferocious, and Henry’s Funeral Shoe is a much better name than the Black Stripes, the White Keys, or ZZ Swansea.

—D.M. Edwards

Various Artists

Guilt By Association Vol. 2

(Engine Room; US: 17 Feb 2009; UK: n/a)

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Yet another batch of “ironic” covers of songs whose cheese factor comes automatically designated on the grounds of either age or popularity, the second volume of Engine Room’s dismal Guilt By Association series trots out another group of low-wattage indie rockers to reign superior over songs you have already heard far too many times in their original versions.  Supposedly that is the whole point, but what nearly everyone here forgets is that the best spins on songs as culturally omnipresent as Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” or Kanye West’s “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” (here mauled by the Forms and Francis and the Lights, respectively) are the ones that manage to extract the hidden moments of poetry within debased artifacts, a feat that, of the 14 acts here, only Frightened Rabbit manages to come anywhere close to pulling off with their typically plaintive take on N-Trance’s barely remembered dance hit “Set You Free”. The rest of this set veers from the typically banal—the umpteenth cover of Soft Cell’s version of “Tainted Love” and what is at least the third male-sung take on Katy Perry’s noxious-in-any-setting “I Kissed a Girl”—to the downright unlistenable, like Takka Takka’s drearily melodramatic run through Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight”, Lowry’s smirky jaunt through Toto’s “Africa” or, most infuriatingly, Rafter’s surgical extraction of any trace of melody from OMD’s great “If You Leave”. Please, hold off on Volume Three.

—Jer Fairall