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our brief reviews of new releases
8 November 2006
Isis + Aereogramme, In The Fishtank 14 (Konkurrent)In their ongoing In the Fishtank series, the good people at Konkurrent have once again brought together two unlikely bands for a collaborative recording. In one corner, we have Boston, Massachusetts, prog-metal legends Isis. In the other we have Glaswegian post-rockers Aereogramme. The resulting EP does actually find a middle ground between the two groups, providing a half hour of startling beauty coupled with moments of untempered aggression. The disc starts with the nine-minute “Low Tide”. Featuring a much more blended mix of the bands’ styles that the rest of the disc, the track moves from fragile, emotive post-rock to driven, powered Krautrock. True to both bands’ styles, the track adds layers and volume to almost surreal heights, until the drums almost sound like they are being played on the roof of the studio. “Delial” follows, and is clearly an Isis song with Aereogramme adding texture around the edges. Following Isis’s template to perfection, interlocking drums and bass create a massive wall of sound as the vocals are buried, straining to get out. The chorus explodes and you can practically smell the sweat and see the veins bulging. Aereogramme add just enough of their knob twiddling to keep things interesting without defusing the song’s power. But it’s the closer “Stolen” that is most surprising. Running over ten minutes and built on ethereal, barely there guitar lines and airy vocals, the track slowly ascends to a Sigur Ros-like hymnal. But both bands refuse to get soggy here, and as the track winds down in its final minutes, it never offers the payoff you might expect, instead continuing to swirl until it disappears altogether from your stereo.
[Amazon ]
—Kevin Jagernauth 1:00 am
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7 November 2006
 So this is what Laura Naukkarinen sounded like before she turned into Lau Nau. Rat Hearts is a compilation of the songs she made between 1996 and 2001 as part of a duo called Sleeping Bags, or, as they prefer it now, Chamellows. Most of the tracks are built over a simple melody that is layered with distortion until it acquires a densely furred busyness. When Naukkarinen sings, as she does in “Nepalm” and “Rooftops”, it’s as if we’re trying to tune into the sound of her voice through an intervening fog of musical static. A flute tootles, a keyboard prangs, a violin is sawn; someone lets out a yawl. It’s the sound of decay, and of deliberate destruction; it’s the musical equivalent of those artworks for which the artist draws a picture and then scribbles over it, or piles up an assemblage of rubbish and branches. It makes sense that the other half of the Chamellows duo should have been a visual artist, Mikko Kuorinki. Even the song titles are like the titles of conceptual artworks, making descriptive sense of something that has been only lightly sketched in the work itself. Once you realise that the name of the twelfth track is “Flash Light Beat Heart”, then the sequence of limping crunches (the heart beat?) and piano (the flash light?) falls, if not into place, at least into a deeper region of understanding. The album even comes with a manifesto. ("New Age Manifest”, and it sounds like someone marching on sand while R2-D2 tries to play the flute.)
[Amazon]
—Deanne Sole 11:00 pm
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7 November 2006
The Defectors, Give In and Creep Out With the Defectors (No Fun)If you own the Defectors’ 2004 release, Turn Me On!, you’d be forgiven for thinking you were experienceing deja vu while reading about Give In and Creep Out With the Defectors. After all, Give In is merely the band’s earlier album, shuffled and given a stateside release, with a few tracks off the 2006 “The Final Thrill” single thrown in for good measure. Still, these self-proclaimed “Evil Fuzzkings of Denmark” deserve a wider audience, even if they run the risk of having fans buy the (nearly) same album twice. For the uninitiated, the Defectors play sinister Farfisa-drenched, fuzzed-out garage rock that they brag in the liner notes is “Excellent Music for Driving.” Sure enough, tunes like “It’s Gonna Take Some Time”, “Trick Daisy” and, hell, the rest of the album, would sound great blaring out of a car zipping down the Danish interstate (does such a thing exist?). Meanwhile, spooky tunes like “Dancing Ghouls” and “The Zoom-Out” should be soundtracking your Halloween party. Just don’t dress up as a repackaged album, cuz the Defectors already did that.
[Amazon]
—Stephen Haag 9:00 pm
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7 November 2006
 Ronnie Day’s second album is along the lines of fellow younger musicians like Teddy Geiger. But it doesn’t distract from the fact he can pen a pretty nifty radio-friendly pop song like Howie Day. This is apparent on “Half Moon Bay”, a none too slick song touched up with layered harmonies. Just as pleasing is the steady “November Storms”, sounding rather like Wheatus, Simple Plan or All American Rejects. Day also can deliver the good on the mellow, mid-tempo pop ballads like “Living For Love” and “Lived Learned Love & Lost”. However, he gets much too sappy for the singer-songwriter ballad “Written at a Rest Stop”, resembling a mature Simple Plan. Why anyone needs four interludes in an album is beyond me. They add nothing to the album whatsoever. And “Insert 2” is utter garbage! Sweet, earnest numbers like “Coming Home Soon” tend to start sounding like earlier Hanson-ish tracks. One of the better efforts is the orchestral-tinged “Outside”, which builds into a powerful song. Another above average treat has to be “My Only Friend” that tends to go down the same road as “Outside”. But “Falling For You” is mediocre at best, relying too much on a dreamy pop arrangement that goes downhill faster.
[Amazon]
—Jason MacNeil 7:00 pm
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7 November 2006
 Inara George and Greg Kurstin, the musicians behind The Bird and the Bee, have a storied musical past: Kurstin, a qualified jazz pianist and producer/composer for artists like The Flaming Lips, Peaches and Lily Allen; George, a solid and pure-sounding vocalist, released a debut album All Rise last year. Again and Again and Again and Again, a teaser EP for their upcoming debut, is short and genre-establishing; think gorgeous melody (acoustic guitars, tinges of electronics) and soft, innocent female vocal. Sound familiar? Au Revoir Simone’s one recent touchpoint, though the Bird and the Bee are more West Coast—all innocence and sunny optimism. “Again & Again”, the best song on the album, pulls an unexpected, jumping melody that stays with you, over peppy acoustic strums. In general, expect well-conceived, pretty constructions of pop songs—it’s not a revelation, but it’s enough. The Peaches remix of “F*cking Boyfriend” rocks electro hard, and it’s crunchy, current and incessantly re-inventing (a light tom beat gives way to synth-sirens to heavy-metal disco sounds in the course of a few seconds). But the remix hardly fits with the band’s innocence turned on its head; Peaches has made it all sleaze (surprise, surprise). The band’s supporting Sia in New York later this month, and the pairing’s appropriate; both bands search for, and sometimes achieve, a breathy treble transcendence.
[Amazon]
—Dan Raper 3:00 am
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7 November 2006
Feathers, Synchromy (Hometapes)Feathers references as many styles as it seems possible in just 19 minutes (their name also references, probably less intentionally, a different folk-based group). Given the band’s technical skill and post-[genre] leanings, the most surprising sounds come on “Iron Mountain”, which manages to turn a rhythmically-strange intro into a sort of lounge jazz groove that stays far more captivating than it should, partly through the occasional sound oddities, but primarily through the tight groove. The rest of the disc works well, but is a little uneven. “Ap(Parenthe)Synthesis” tries to take off, but, even though it gets to outer space, never lets its rockets burn. “Mint Cairo” likewise almost turns into something, and while its unique orchestration provides compelling songs, it never fully realizes itself. Even with some minor failings, the band comes close on this EP. Their mixture of solid groove and irregular sounds holds promise, it’s just a matter of more consistent delivery. Synchromy is the middle of a three-EP series, and it suggests that the finish could still be exciting.
[Amazon]
—Justin Cober-Lake 1:00 am
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6 November 2006
Various Artists, Live at the Cedar (The Cedar)Minneapolis’ Cedar Cultural Center says that it has been “presenting some of the best artists from around the world” several times a week ever since the old theatre re-opened as a live folk ‘n’ world venue in 1990. Looking at the line-up of names on this album, I’m going to guess that when they say “the best” it’s not entirely an idle bit of advertising puff. Visionaries is the first in what they promise will be a series of compilations, and they’ve brought out the big guns. We start with some fine Baaba Maal (Is he ever not fine? Does this man even have off days?), and continue on through Gillian Welch, Cesaria Evora, Ani di Franco, and others before tying things up with Bill Frisell and a down and dirty Ali Farka Touré, as heard back in 1993 before he decided to give up touring and stay on his farm in Mali. All of the tracks were recorded at Cedar concerts and none of them sound as if they’ve been thrown in just to get a famous name on the cover, although I do have one reservation about the Evora song—she’s being overshadowed by her noisy accompaniment. But that’s a small thing in an otherwise very good live collection.
[Amazon]
—Deanne Sole 11:00 pm
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6 November 2006
Buffalo is probably a nice town. Buffalo Killers are probably nice people. But Buffalo Killers’ music is mired in a style that makes you think there is something wrong with the speed of the album. Thick, Southern-fried sonic gumbo that makes you yearn for the Black Crowes is what “San Martine Des Morelle” is all about. The retro rock oomph of the meandering “SS Nowhere” is only missing the go-go dancers. From there Buffalo Killers get quite spacey and lazy with a stale, tired, yawn-inspiring “Heavens You Are” that misses the mark despite some Syd Barrett-like style. The first head-turner is “The Path before Me” that conjures up images of Jack and Meg Ryan, er, White. Too often, the group resorts to playing songs that rarely go anywhere interesting, such as the semi-groovy “With Love”. One exception is the rather pleasing, murky “Children of War”, a song that screams The Black Keys with a full ensemble. And “Fit to Breathe” has a brooding, retro-metal spice to it.
[Amazon]
—Jason MacNeil 9:00 pm
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