There used to be a bunch of MP3’s available for Stephen Malkmus so that you could get a great sense of what the erstwhile Pavement frontman has been up to for most of the last decade — and if you haven’t been keeping up, you’re missing out. We’re down to one: the sprawling, guitarilicious Randy Newman cover (!) “Baltimore,” all 6 minutes and 37 seconds of it. The new album is called Real Emotional Trash and as far as I can tell there is no release date yet, so don’t wear out this stocking stuffer too soon because it may be all you get for Christmas.
Josh Ritter
What I said about Josh Ritter a year and a half ago pretty much stands true today, except that now there’s another great release to add to his repertoire, including the fantastic, Dylan-esque “To the Dogs or Whoever” offered here. They don’t make as many songwriters these days who can encapsulate the sweeping American experience and still sound as personal as your oldest and dearest friend, so set yourself to downloading (especially “Dogs,” “Kathleen,” and “Harrisburg”) and have a great weekend.
The Radishes
I never pegged myself as a sucker for reminiscing about some bygone era of youthful indiscretions set to a soundtrack so loud that it did permanent hearing damage. Then again, I never figured that the moment I had a child, my life before that moment would become an abstraction only referential as fragmented memories and out-of-body mental snapshots. I hope that doesn’t sound too wistful because there’s nothing better than being a parent, but on our first “official” family road trip this past week there were a couple of moments when I’d just about gotten my fill of baby-friendly playlists and was ready for a quick mental cleanse of the kind that The Radishes are fond of administering. Y’know, the kind with simple riffs repeated fast and loud, driving bass and drums (provided by the former rhythm section for Ministry!), and acidic vocals that scream alienation, anger, and irony. Alas, when the baby is sleeping in the back seat and your wife has taken the reins of the iPod, you don’t always get that instant aural gratification. But when you’re home early on a Friday morning and the rest of the family is asleep behind closed doors, you can put on the headphones, turn it up all the way and get a good dose of noise, sweet noise.
Efterklang
It’s only been about seven months since I first posted Efterklang, but they have a new album out and a fantastic, playful, M.C. Escher-esque video and, well, it’s all very exciting. Both “Cutting Ice to Snow” and “Mirador” (the video track) showcase Efterklang’s beautiful knack for creating soundtracks to films that haven’t been made — though I guess in the case of “Mirador” that’s only half true. Whichever way you look at it, it’s a sublime way to add a lilting soundtrack to your own never-ending film. Oh, and for those of you in Europe, Efterklang will be on tour all season, so go to their website and see if they’ll be near you…
Cheyenne
Cheyenne is a rock group whose members are mostly from Norman, Oklahoma but who now reside in Brooklyn. Despite their current residence (go Brooklyn!), to these ears they’re much more influenced by those Southern-slash-Midwestern roots than by the affected, irony-drenched post-rock that can sometimes permeate the Brooklyn scene. And that’s a very good thing. Lead singer Beau Jennings has been compared to Pedro the Lion’s David Bazan and I’m not one to deny it, but musically Cheyenne is far more downhome and far less emo. “The Whale” builds from steady handclaps and a sturdy piano melody into monster guitar riffs and chiming keys tuned to a playful yet pensive harmony. “Painting Horses” follows a similar classic pop formula but conjures a deeper roots rock aura thanks to Josh Harper’s climactic, chicken-fried guitar solo. There’s been a rewarding Southern rock resurgence over the past several years thanks to the likes of My Morning Jacket, Kings of Leon, Band of Horses and others. Cheyenne deserves to be added to that list, even if they’ve decided to call Brooklyn home.
Southeast Engine
Southeast Engine is fronted by a married, unemployed middle school teacher from Athens, Ohio. If that doesn’t tip you off to the manic melancholy you’ll hear in the music, then perhaps you were home-schooled. As the band’s bio says, Athens ain’t the cradle of democracy and it ain’t even the most famous Athens in college music circles. It ain’t truly the South nor truly the Midwest, either. Athens is perpetually something between here and there. You’ll hear strains of Bright Eyes, Will Oldham, Neutral Milk Hotel, Josh Ritter, and even Bruce Springsteen in these tracks. Yet the cornucopia of styles don’t clash, they just come together like good, honest music from somewhere in America.
C.O.C.O.
C.O.C.O. play funky dance music, as does their lumberjack-soulman-boss Calvin Johnson, with an unselfconscious swagger that wears its anti-hipster lameness like a faded black t-shirt, not to mention on instruments that won’t be rendered useless when the power goes out at the house party (although their propensity for dub fadeouts might get lost with the lights out). Olivia Ness and Chris Sutton are a rhythm section in no need of melodies. It’s what all the Olympia kids are dancing to these days, and with any luck these rhythms will sweep the nation and set basement parties afire from coast to coast.
Plane
“Blood on the Waves” starts with a guitar melody that anyone with the slightest knowledge of the Manchester sound will know. But just in case, Plane doesn’t make a mystery of their influences: listed right at the top of their “Sounds Like” section on MySpace is Joy Division. It would be slightly more accurate if they could convey that it sounds like that uncharted territory between the premature fall of Joy Division and the far-from-inevitable rise of New Order. And that should tell you a lot about the depth, intelligence and even newness that you can expect from Plane. That first tingling guitar progression is as familiar as they come, but what comes after proves that Plane is no nostalgia act. Chicago’s still a blue-collar town, like Manchester, and Plane is workingman’s new wave—you can take your nihilism to the dance-floor without feeling even a pinch self-conscious.
Mirah and Spectratone International
Observations of insects are typically rendered so clinical that you may as well be studying accounting or, on the flipside, so elementary that you’re dealing with plush caterpillars whose sole purpose is to teach your child how to hug. Share this Place: Stories and Observations is, well, a creature of a different stripe. The multimedia project commissioned in 2006 by the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art features music by Mirah (repeat after me: We love Mirah) and her longtime collaborators Lori Goldston and Kyle Hanson, AKA Spectratone International (also with Jane Hall and Kane Mathis), and stop-motion video by Britta Johnson. It sounds like something that could easily become child’s play, and in fact the chamber pieces are indeed playful and alive — Spectratone’s arrangements give a subtle bounce to Mirah’s ever-airy vocals, and Johnson’s stop-motion insects are made from all manner of found objects and wander around rolling dung and other fun things. But it’s also serious literary entomology thanks to its source material: Jean Henri Fabre is considered the father of the study of insects and is most remembered for telling his tiny friends’ tales as first-person narratives. So it is that in “Credo Cigalia†(video below) a cricket addresses us with “you’ve no choice but to listen to my song.†And on the fantastically delicate “Community,†rather than a standard lecture on the group habits of six-legged creatures, you get a lullaby so sweet and smart that you’ll want to sing it to your sons and daughters all the way to MIT.
Pinback
Like just about everyone, I often think of bands in terms of the other bands of which they remind me. For Pinback, I picture them as a West Coast Sebadoh. Even though it’s meant in the most admiring way, such a classification is not fair because it may make it sound like they’re somehow aping the discordant yet melodic Bostonians who like their Splatter Technique lyrics with healthy doses of punk guitar and punker feedback. Plus, there’s the whole repetition thing that Pinback takes much further than Lou and the gang: chords, chorus, repeat. You can hear it all the way through Pinback’s discography and right up to their most recent, Autumn of the Seraphs. And contrary to every track sounding the same, each one finds a new way to make the same old thing sound totally original. No wonder Pinback’s following is so loyal. Check out a new track and some older ones, then check out Pinback guy Rob Crow, whose recent solo release kinda-sorta sounds like Pinback but kinda-sorta covers even more new territory.
ORIGINAL POST (9/17/04):
For those who consider “indie” a genre rather than just a classification, it’s probably such lo-fi, wounded-guy sounds as Sebadoh, Built to Spill, and Modest Mouse that come to mind when you hear the “I” word. But don’t forget about Pinback, who return to rock your world — well, that may be a bit overstated — with some loopy, melancholic, melodic pop. What’s new is “indie” again on the splendid single “Fortress.” The others are just for nostalgia’s sake.