Though she's fascinated by all kinds of music, Gabi Knight's current and future preferences can be summed and projected with this handy questionnaire: Beatles or **Stones** / **Lennon** or McCartney / **Syd Barrett** or Roger Waters / **Public Enemy** or NWA (TOUGH one!) / Britney or **Christina** / **John Prine** or Kris Kristofferson (Prine, baby! All the way!)
All proceeds from the album sales will go to the Clinton Bush Haiti
Fund, Oxfam America, Partners in Health, the Red Cross, UNICEF, the
United Nations World Food Programme, and Yele Haiti Foundation.
In addition, all proceeds from the special studio version of "Stranded (Haiti Mon Amour)" by Jay-Z, Bono, The Edge, and Rihanna will go to Partners in Health.
The somber songs that make up Catacombs are a continuation of McCombs's earlier work A, Prefectionand display a mature evenhanded approach to songwriting and arranging. Songs like "Eavesdropping on the Competition," a quiet waltz of vocal harmonies with just a spare drum, rising pedal steel, and piano; and the sweetly disturbing Lennon-esque lament, "My Sister, My Spouse," replace the former hit-or-miss melodramatic flourishes of his earlier work. While "Lionkiller Got Married," anchored by a driving pulse continues the somewhat autobiographical narrative started on Dropping the Writ--its classic McCombs: poetic lyrics, his characteristic falsetto, and tenuous pondering, "I wonder why anyone in their right mind/would get married nowadays."
Neko Case's fifth studio album carries all the hallmarks of her previous work: peerless melodies, lyrical imagery, dynamic phrasing, and incomparable vocals. The difference here is the album pulls even further away from her alt-country roots, sounding like a middle '60s album, especially in "People Got a Lot of Nerve," with it's Byrds-esque chorus, in "Vengeance Is Sleeping" which echoes Carly Simon and Joni Mitchell, and in "Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth," where Case brings an earthy wholesomeness to the Sparks's original. Another standout, "This Tornado Loves You," (an apt title given Case's all-enveloping approach) is an all-out wall of sound only nearly matching her huge vocals. Like this song, the entire album is loud, warm, and inescapable.
St. Vincent's Annie Clark presents dramatically playful yet fatalistic songs on Actor that course through dark, internal spaces but gleam, glittered with bellike synths and antique-sounding chamber instruments. Shadowy opener "The Strangers" intones "paint the black hole blacker" against a modern ragtime, "Marrow" opens with a shimmering Terry Riley-like modal figure and blooms into an electrified dancefloor anthem, and later "Just the Same But Brand New" is delicate (and still dark) where Clark channels Cocteau Twins Elizabeth Fraser.
On a lighter side, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's Beware, is reverent, joyful frolic--a marked departure from BPB's usual darkness. It plays much like the soundtrack to an idyllic farm summer--all careless sunny hayrides, impromptu sing-a-longs, and jug-band nights. Owing much to the workingman's Dead, "You Don't Love Me" shrugs off unrequited love as not much to worry about, "I Don't Belong to Anyone" is a waltzy daydream where BPB sings "it's kind of easy to have some fun/when you don't belong to anyone." The lightness continues on "I Am Goodbye." It's effortless and complete with ecstatic hoedown hey-hos.
Seems Colonel Timothy L. Korpa, longtime fan and current astronaut, e-mailed the band asking if they wouldn't mind if he took their album to space, and they obliged.
Where ya gonna get a gig like that?
Said Ian McCulloch: "What an honour. Now it's official. We are the coolest band in the universe. I cannot wait to hear from Tim what it is like to listen to 'The Killing Moon' in the actual glow of the moon."
I bet it will be pretty amazing. But, I wonder: Since space itself sounds pretty strange, does music sound different in space? And, suppose you were heading to space for months. What music would bring?
People also can't get enough of recording covers, even if it's a bad idea from the moment go. Nonetheless, these are committed to tape and I think I understand why: You play an instrument or sing. You also have a recording budget. There are songs you love so much that the idea of playing them is inescapable--of course with the addition of your own signature mark. The next thing you know you're cutting an acoustic version of "Brass Monkey." What you have on your hands is a cover that can't be kept down. Many, if not all, in this category are bad. But which are the worst? Here's what I think:
April is the fourth month which means technically there are only eight months left in the year. It is early spring and a good time to take stock of what's come, gone, and what remains in rotation. Here is a smattering of albums in no particular order that have moved me. Moved me to write this blog post.
Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band
What does this band's name mean? Why did they name themselves so closely to that other band called Mt. St. Helens? I don't know. Might never. What I do know is, they are one cute band. They are so cute they have a tween-aged drummer--who is the son of the guitarist and the percussionista. That is cute, people! To me, they sound like Grizzly Bear IF Grizzly Bear decided to totally rock out and grind some axes--not normally something they do. Anyway, this album is good and should be listened to in reverse order. Just FYI.
Swan Lake, Enemy Mine
There are three people: Dan Bejar, Carey Mercer, and Spencer Krug. They have their own bands, side projects, and also collaborate on a project called Swan Lake. This is their second album and here are my observations: All of the people in this band have what sounds like a deep adoration for David Bowie. They also have very distinctive songwriting styles. And just like America, (ironic, since these people are Canadian) Swan Lake isn't so much a melting pot where everything's blended together into something else, but rather like a big salad: Each songwriter's style is mixed together and dressed with lots of distortion and echoing reverb. My favorite songs are "Spider" and "Peace." Some will find this album annoying.
Wavves
This band takes catchy, sunny-sounding '60s pop and then puts the whole thing through a giant distortion pedal and then plays it in the most cavernous garage ever. It sounds like Aerial Pink playing one on one basketball with Brian Wilson in a metal junkyard, or if the Zombies grew in California and listened to Black Flag. It's dancey and dense and extra-fuzzy.
Phoenix, "1901"
How can you possibly turn away from a song like this? It's so fun and supercharged and electric and bouncy--exactly what you'd expect from Phoenix. It is not kidding when it says (OK, implies) you better get on the dance floor. I will never tire of their kooky English translated from French lyrics, either. It is your first summer jam of the year.
Bonny "Prince" Billy, Beware
Simply put, this is a gorgeous album. If you like it when people write heartfelt songs or when people who claim to be musicians actually know how to play their instruments or when something unexpected happens in a song, or harmonizing, or just how spooky a pedal steel can sound, you will probably like this album. I like all of those things so it happened very naturally for me.
Bonus: Albums I'm Most Looking Forward to in 2009
Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest
Release date: May 26, 2009
Some of my savvier coworkers have already heard the new Grizzly Bear album. While I am jealous of them now, I know that it's probably best that I wait since I will no doubt play this one out the moment I get it.
Cass McCombs, Catacombs
Release date: June 1, 2009
Cass McCombs is a singer-songwriter with an enormous vocabulary and as my colleague once wrote, "a falsetto that could charm the chastity belt off of a 19th-century Puritan." He is also a person who uses e-mail to answer interview questions. Over at Domino you can stream Cass' new song, "Jonesy Boy" while you wait a few more months for the full-length release.
The Field, Yesterday and Tomorrow
Release date: May 19, 2009
Axel Willner returns to save music. If you haven't heard the first album (and come on, really?) then do. Get it.
Why it's significant: Andrew Bird's sprawling Noble Beast blends pop overtures with intricate strings and filigreed lyrics, creating a new take on chamber pop.
Noble Beast plays like one easy prolonged ambling moment. There are no sharp angles; nothing is ostentatious or synthesized. It's
simply the sum the band and their warm wooden instruments
creating a cohesive introspective mood through intricate acoustic lines and
well-mannered orchestrations.
While it seems meant to be heard from start to finish like a proper album, certain songs do stand out: "Masterswarm," with its circular, melancholic Brazilian-influenced melody, "Fitz and Dizzyspells," with its catchy pop sensibilities and whistle-solo humor that's reminiscent of the early Kinks at their most witty, "Effigy," which starts with an Eastern-influenced coda and develops into sunlit '70s folk at it's most pleasing, and "Souverian," that envelops from plaintive and lovelorn to post-rock meditative. Though not a drastic departure from his last album, Noble Beast defines Andrew Bird as a virtuosic violinist, gifted songsmith, and creative lyricist.
On the heels of big Smiths reunion rumors comes news that fellow Manchester band Stone Roses are also possibly, probably reuniting, according to Austrailia's The Age.
The world's a pretty different place than it was when the world was under the influence of Day-Glo and irreverent hippie/electro/rave stuff. I wonder what today's Stone Roses would sound like. And, in feeling old news, their pivotal, highly influential debut album turns 20 next year.
Here's one of the best songs to reference the Stooges ever written.
