the american analog set
from our living room to yours
(emperor jones/trance syndicate)
it's been a while since i could stomach really quiet, pleasant music. i went through a spacemen 3/spectrum/ spiritualized phase, that after a while was less about the music and more about completing the collection. for a long time a lot of music that wasn't loud or catchy seemed a bit boring, until i suppose i settled down a bit. but now i listen to this group, and i really appreciate the melodies and the slightly breathy vocals, where a few years ago i don't know if i would have had the same patience, especially for a whole album's worth. the first time i heard this band was when i bought a 7-inch of theirs, because the vinyl ink catalog compared it to stereolab - they compare a lot of things to stereolab, actually. while they don't sound too much like the 'lab (as british magazines would call them) they do use some organs, and throw in a drone once in a while. i was pleasantly surprised and went on to buy their previous record "the fun of watching fireworks" and another 7-inch that came out just before this album. i would recommend them to fans of some other 60s-influenced pop bands, particularly groups like the ladybug transistor. i wouldn't say they are overtly psychedelic or anything, though there are subtle touches of backwards percussion etc., which blends nicely with the ringy guitars, organ, muted bass and aforementioned delicate vocals.
modest mouse
modest mouse
( k records)
all i have to go on is a tape of this e.p., that is beginning to wear out already, which is an indication of how much i listen to this short but sweet piece of work. it has a nice cover, too, which i scanned for my webpage before the only copy in state college got stolen in new york city... it's self-titled, even though it's not their first recording (though that seems to be the vogue these days). the wavery voice of the singer is well complemented by excellent drumming, twangy guitars, and between-song interludes of backwards drumming and feedback. the songs probably have good titles, too. every time i listen to this tape, it sounds a little shakier, and this odd clicking noise (caused by the deteriorating of the little piece of sponge in the cassette, near as i can tell) gets louder, but it doesn't detract all that much from the music. a similar thing happened the first time i heard bauhaus, on this kid's walkman in 10th grade art class, and there was this racket of clicking and whirring that was brilliant, so i ran out and bought the first bauhaus record i could find and was very disappointed to find it noise free, though i still liked it. i suppose when i finally get a real copy of this, i will be used to the decay and it will sound funny without it, but at the moment it's as rare as hen's teeth locally, for some reason. you should try to find it, or one of their other releases.
broadcast
work and non-work
(drag city)
a really excellent record that is a compilation of singles this group released on labels like duophonic. they have that intangible "soundtrack" sound that you find with john barry or by extension portishead and other groups that sample that sort of thing. this isn't trip-hop, though, which is the most brilliant thing about it, since portishead plays that trick so much better than most of their successors and comrades. it's pop, sometimes in three-quarter time, which is refreshing. i guess they're sampling and playing instruments in some combination, but it fits together really well and i don't want to ruin it by figuring it out. i'd rather imagine that they locked themselves into a white room and the music just recorded itself through osmosis. it reminds me of the movie umbrellas of cherbourg, which i just recently saw - i can picture some ingenue (no doubt this vision influenced by the vocals on this record - similar to laetitia from stereolab but without the frog accent), and she's standing on a street corner, shielded from the rain by the brightly covered awning of some quaint shop. she's waiting for her boy, and she's a little sad, though as soon as he comes around the corner on his bicycle she'll brighten instantly. sorry, i'm a bit of a romantic, and it's raining right now. anyway, i can't not love this record with its chimes and moog-sounding things being the icing on a slightly sweet and friendly cake.
buffalo daughter
socks, drugs, and rock and roll
(grand royal)
for a remix e.p. to be successful, you have to have the right blend of skillful remixers and good raw material. i really like buffalo daughter, who mixed bleepy electronic twiddling, some samples, and cute girly vocals into a good l.p. ("captain vapour athletes"), and have worked with similar artists like takako minekawa and people from pizzicato 5. at least one of the women in this group was in havanna exotica, who have a track on the sushi 3003 compilation. all these people are intertwined through playing with and producing each other, so it's probably only due to my not having read many magazines lately that i haven't seen an article about this whole bunch of people comprising some new "scene" or something.
anyway... on this e.p., a couple of bd songs are fooled with by alec empire, u.n.k.l.e., money mark, somebody named 25 ton, sugar (who is in bd) and a group/person (?) i have been hearing about called stock, hausen & walkman. all of these are at least pretty good, though the first three i've mentioned are my favorites. and they illustrate three specific kinds of remixes. alec empire pulls out his bag of scary metal beats and screams "destroy!" all over the place, just like he always does (but i still like it). this is the obvious kind of remix where you can smell who did it about a mile away, and it's less about the original song than the remixer's signature. u.n.k.l.e. is also pretty standard in that his trademarks are there - he's king of the let's-throw-a-beat-on-top school of remixing, and he's king because he throws some brilliant beats around. finally, and tieing with u.n.k.l.e. to be my favorite... money mark pulls off a subtle rework of "big wednesday", one of the prettier and less bleepy bd songs. he's hasn't changed the song, so much as enhanced it with a few effective alterations.