An indie monagamist he ain’t. Pinback’s Rob Crow has, like, a gazillion side projects so that he always has some kind of outlet for making music. (Even more reason for the Sebadoh/Lou Barlow parallels – see Pinback entry.) That’s OK though because Crow is what in the business they call “solid.†Pinback have quietly become one of the standard-bearers for indie/college rock, and when Crow steps out for a side/solo project, he’s hardly Roger Daltry or that Mike guy from Genesis. His latest album is called Living Well. The cover shows him in front of his house with a cup of coffee, some Halloween pumpkins and wearing a shirt with a Pentagram. If that isn’t living well, then I’m a monkey’s uncle. And “I Hate You, Rob Crow†is quite catchy for a, uh, kissoff? hatemail sendup? self-loathing anthem? Tell us, Rob.
Bat for Lashes
The UK’s Mercury Music Prize is basically the musical equivalent of the literary Man Booker Prize: Though neither necessarily goes so far out on a limb that they’re what revolutions are made of, you can be pretty well assured that the nominees are making the best music (or fiction, as it were) right now as opposed to (though not always mutually exclusive of) the most popular. But you already know that. You probably also know that Bat for Lashes, the breathtaking brainchild of singer, multi-instrumentalist and visual artist Natasha Khan, is a nominee for this year’s Mercury Prize, and she certainly deserves it. Fur and Gold is loose yet organized, expansive yet hummable, experimental yet familiar. Khan has a cinematic sense of arrangement and a sonic majesty that marks her as an absolute original on the pop landscape who nonetheless bears the best markings of recent forbears like PJ Harvey, Bjork, Chan Marshall, Sinead O’Connor, and Kate Bush. She weaves echoey piano harmonies with one-note-at-a-time basslines and harpsichord with marching drums, conjuring a cabaret-esque intimacy and drama. Yet unlike other recent entries into the post-punk chamber pop canon like Joanna Newsom and CocoRosie (great artists both of ’em, don’t get me wrong), Khan seems to make songs for more than just herself. Her “sounds like” description on MySpace includes “Halloween when you’re small” and “dark nighttime lovemaking,” which pretty much say it all. Fur and Gold is one of the most haunting and engrossing albums I’ve heard this year precisely because that’s the only way Khan could have made it.
The Drawing Board
In the late ’90s I became briefly obsessed with Ednaswap, the L.A.-based group fronted by Anne Preven and known less for their own well-crafted pop gems than for what other people did with said gems (Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn” was originally Ednaswap’s). It made sense that the daughter of composer Andre Preven would have an impeccable sense of composition herself, and that’s exactly what otherwise inexplicably kept me and my former-college-football-playing roommate wailing along to Ednaswap’s catchy heartbreakers like a pair of teenage girls hooked on Dashboard Confessional. That’s not to say that The Drawing Board, the Austin-by-way-of-L.A. group sounds like Ednaswap, but what they share with my former obsession is an undeniably intelligent take on pop music. Think of Elvis Costello or Ben Folds and you’ll get a good sense of how The Drawing Board is mature, engrossing and hummable. Better yet, download “The Writer,” a bouncy little ditty whose playful piano belies its nihilistic lyrics. Still sound too cerebral? Don’t worry, just disregard this writer’s pedantic take, download the rest and you can trust the music.
Justice
Justice is a French DJ duo known for, among other things, a rumbling synthetic bassline that hits you like an electric shock. They released the addictive if woefully abbreviated Waters of Nazareth EP just over a year ago, and I’ve been dancing to it, especially the piece de resistance title track, ever since. Now, mind you, I was born without a stitch of rhythm or grace, so when I say I’ve been dancing to it, what I really mean is that I’ve been bobbing my head to it. But trust me, it’s been a wicked head-bob. “Waters of Nazareth,” unfortunately, has never been available in its original form as a free download (understandable for club DJs who live track to track) so you’ll have to go to MySpace and listen to it through your browser. Likewise “D.A.N.C.E.,” Justice’s latest cool-kid craze (with an awfully cool video to boot). And there’s plenty more where that came from: It may have taken over a year for the boys to get together an LP’s worth of originals, but they’ve been rather busy mashing, remixing, and getting remixed. Here’s just a sampling—go to Vice’s great MP3 “Blog Up Your Jaxxy” for loads more hard-to-find Justice tracks and remixes.
Saturna
I’ll cop to being a wee bit of a sucker for the newish, more combustible brand of shoegazer fuzz. It just feels closer to what I’ve always thought of as the ideal of rock and roll: nihilism in three chords or less. Portland’s Saturna don’t shy away from such interpretations, giving us both the more traditionally atmospheric naval gaze of “Roll Down†and the slightly embittered and fully catchy kiss-off of “Pop Rocks.†There’s even a cowbell in there.
The Winston Jazz Routine
The Winston Jazz Routine doesn’t come off as the kind of music you’d typically hear coming out of Nashville. Then again, I’ve spent a grand total of 20 minutes in Nashville and it was all in a car on the freeway—and yes, I’m a bit ashamed of that fact. Nathan Phillips is the man behind an ever-rotating cast of characters in The Winston Jazz Routine, yet despite who comes in and out, this is Phillips’ child, and that child ain’t no troubled-troubadour or honky tonk hoedown. It’s more like torch music for the youthfully somber. Phillips is at heart a piano crooner whose songs are more likely to stir in you the desire to embrace your regrets like a warm blanket than to tap your feet or snap your fingers. Yet these compositions are far from hopeless. On the contrary, they ease into your mind and plant the seed of melancholy we all need every now and then to wash ourselves clean. It’s tailor-made for rainy days, and Nashville has its share of those, right?
Simple Kid
Simple Kid is an Irish-born and London-based acoustifreaktronic troubadour who can be as dry and witty with a melody as The Beta Band, whose genius-boy way with both a harmonica and a sampler would do Beck Hanson proud, and whose prodigious (and prodigiously unkempt) follicles bring to mind Badly Drawn Boy and Moses after that whole 40-years-in-the-desert thing. He can carry a tune, too. “The Twentysomething†may well be “Loser†for a new generation, while “Lil’ King Kong†sounds like a mashup of Led Zeppelin and REO Speedwagon songs that were never written, let alone merged. Then there’s “Serotonin,†which as epics go is quite unassuming but that gets under your skin nonetheless by giving you a reason to both rise up and drop out. Isn’t that what the best rock ‘n’ roll songs always do?
(The file below is a zipped EP featuring all three of the songs above. Download, unzip, and enjoy.)
The Swayback
There is probably at least one person out there who will light up the comment boards the minute you read that The Swayback have chosen to cover The Velvet Underground’s “Waiting for the Man.” True, it’s a pretty damned iconic song and the prospect of a new version may not be your idea of reverence. Do what you will, and in the meantime I’ll keep it on repeat and will be wishing I had a car so I could blast it on the stereo with the windows down and the sunroof popped. The Swayback are from Denver and could easily fall into that retro-chic class of modster-slash-hippie bands that includes Kings of Leon and Brian Jonestown Massacre. Like those bands (and unlike others that shall remain nameless), The Swayback aren’t copping to any kind of ’60s revival — they’re claiming that way-out guitar sound and wrapping it around some libidinous vocals and a rhythm that’ll make you shimmy. And all of this just in time for summer.
Amon Tobin
Amon Tobin has always transcended categorizations as a DJ or producer or even DJ/producer. He’s more like a filmmaker who spends so much time perfecting his soundtracks that he never gets around to making the movies. And that’s OK because, wow, those soundtracks are something to hear. Orchestral arrangements mingle with stormy soundscapes, beats without borders prop up artificially intelligent samples, sinister rhythms give way to buoyant melodies. The whole world is Tobin’s canvas, which makes it somewhat unfair to post only one track, the sublime opener to his most recent full-length, Foley Room. But hey, mathematically, one is infinitely more than zero, so take what you can get and let EMusic or another outlet feed the rest of your inevitable Tobin addiction.
The Harvey Girls
Not only are the Harvey Girls’ Hiram and Melissa very talented AND generous (they give away much of their prolific output to freeloaders like me) AND nice AND interesting, but it turns out they’re just plain good people: Declinate their most recent EP, will cost you some pocket change through the great web-only label SVC, but all proceeds go to RAINN, the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network. The songs are as multifaceted and enchanting as ever and the cause is very important, so give a free listen and then buy the rest. It’ll be worth it in more ways than one.