Sunday, March 31, 2013

Hymns

The album The Watchers features only four songs. Those four songs are played by James Blackshaw on 12-string guitar and Lubomyr Melnyk on piano. The latter is a Ukrainian in his mid-60s. The former is a Brit in his early-30s.

Blackshaw is one of my most favorite guitarists. He plays the 12-string acoustic more dramatically than I have ever heard anyone else play it. Listening to any of his many records is a fascinating experience. Those records have grown from him and his guitar only at first to evolve to more instrumentation and experimentation. His new records are always something I look forward to and seek out.

His latest is a collaboration with Mr. Melnyk. I am not familiar with his work; I went to wikipedia to find out who he is. Describing his style is best left to the entry:

is a composer and pianist who pioneered 'continuous music' which requires a totally new technique of piano playing, based on extremely rapid notes and note-series that create a "tapestry of sound" usually with the sustain pedal held down to generate overtones and sympathetic resonances. These overtones blend or clash according to the harmonic changes. The technique of mastering his complex note patterns and speeds makes his music difficult for the normal pianist. Melnyk's personal sense of harmony and melodic flow often create a sombre, stately effect. He writes mostly for the piano although several chamber and orchestral works exist.

This makes him a perfect counterpart for Blackshaw. With him, the music is not necessarily rooted in the technicality of the playing. What's remarkable, for me at least, is the exquisiteness of the playing. It's beauty through strings. It is the establishment of mood, of a presence that shimmers through the melodies and the notes. About a year ago I shared Blackshaw's playing with my oldest nephew, who countered with another guitar player he felt was better. I long forgot who it was because it was obvious to me that this second player may have had the virtuosity, but had none of the the passion that music like this requires. When it's just you and your guitar creating a lush landscape, you need to have that extra something swelling at the seams, taking the music to the level it is clamoring for. Blackshaw does that better than anybody else I have heard. And he finds the perfect compliment in Mr. Melnyk.


The collaboration is called The Watchers. It is four songs, three of which extend past the ten minute mark. It is as lovely as I was hoping it to be. The guitar and the piano work around one another and create it's own unique world. It's not the kind of record you put on at a party. It's the kind of record you really listen to, that you let wash over you. I can even hear it playing with the top down winding along an ocean-side road. It's natural, almost organic in that it feels vibrant, alive. Somber and stately is how Melnyk's playing is described. In this case I don't find the music somber at all; stately it indeed is but I find it alive and joyous. A hymn to life.

It took me a while to actually get this record. I had ordered it from Amazon about a month ago but I kept getting emails saying we-still-can't-get-it. Finally I went directly to the label site and ordered it from there. A couple days later, wa-la!!

For whatever reason blogger.com won't let me embed the video, so here is a link to the first track off The Watchers: "Tascheter."

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

The Latest Strokes record is.....zzzzzzzz

Thanks to Spotify I didn't waste my money on the latest Strokes record. I did have the vinyl on my Amazon wish list...even had it pre-ordered. But when I got Spotify I went and canceled all my pre-orders, figuring I would do something novel and this time wait to hear the album before I committed to buying it.

I reckon I was going to get the record because it's what music nerds like me should do, right. I've talked about this before with My Bloody Valentine. That record is at least interesting and has 1000 years worth of waiting behind it. The new Strokes record, Comedown Machine, has its moments but is a severe letdown.

I am not a big Strokes fan to start with. I bought Is This It? when it came out and thought it was good, a return to snotty late 70s NYC club rock. On reflection it's still pretty good. Room On Fire and First Impressions of Earth had their moments. I thought the first side of Angles was actually very good, before it flew off the rails halfway through

So Comedown Machine drops and the rock writers get a chance to rhapsodize. When I first saw the cover I thought it was some kind of place-holder. Nope, turns out that's it. The music? One good song, "All The Time". Some fine. Most lousy.

I read a Pitchfork review of the first Jet record. Jet are a mediocre band that came in the wake of The Strokes and are regularly crucified by the likes of Pitchfork writers. Amongst the litany of complaints is that they make a concerted effort to sound like other bands. And I guess they come across as douchebags. I guess when snotty New Yorkers do it it's OK, because everything I have read about The Strokes makes them seem like douchebags. Albert Hammond is quoted as saying how Jet makes him want to stop playing music. What an absolutely banal thing to say. It's nonsense...it's something a hipster says to sound cool.

The Strokes play their own game of Who Do We Sound Like Now? From Blondie on "Welcome to Japan" to Talking Heads on "Slow Animals" to The Killers on "Happy Ending" to A-Ha on "On Way Trigger." Really? A-Ha is what we are shooting for?

Listening it to a second time it's even worse. The first time, maybe because it was sort of in the background, it didn't quite register. Now as I pay attention it comes in full force. The problem is these guys are not songwriters. They are hipsters posing as a band. There isn't a single thing that is new or revolutionary or even interesting going on here. It's a waste of time. Enough. I just shut it off and turned on something that is worth my time.

PS...if you like it, that's cool. Just not my thing. I am glad you dig it!

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

An Apology

Dear Spotify,

I would like to take this opportunity to humbly apologize for the lack of faith  I have shown in you, for not believing that you are as awesome as you really and truly are. You see, I have always been a hoarder. I get it from my mother. Her issue was books. Books and books and books. Just couldn't seem to part with them. Had to buy new ones. Library? Pffft.

My addiction, besides inheriting the book gene, is music. I have long felt I needed to possess the music. So I have about 1000 compact discs. I have nearly 250 gigabytes of digital music. Now that I have re-discovered vinyl I have a burgeoning collection. But all that adds up. It's an investment with little yield except that happiness in my heart it brings.

And then you came into my life. Beautiful, beautiful Spotify. How lovely you truly are. I have known about you for a while now. I have seen Facebook friends using it, the names of song scrolling by the feeder. I thought what a nice thing it seems to be! I have had friends tell me of your charms. Fool! You can have (almost) everything at your fingertips! Just a hot-spot away!

But I must own! I must possess! Even if it's digital, I must own a piece of it. It's the right thing to do. It is who I am! I define myself...I judge others...by the extent of their collection! What? You have Big Star #1 Record too! You are great and now my friend!

That has all changed. The battle is over. I have crossed to the other side.

I am officially won over. For ten bucks a month I have an exhaustive collection at my disposal, through both my iPhone and through my computer. I don't have to pay $9.99 for a record I might listen to 3 times. I can hear new things...not just clips but the whole damn thing. It's all there for me to peruse, to search, to come back to.

That said, I won't completely kick my habit. I will still procure vinyl, but now it will only be for the bands nearest to my heart, the bands I see at small clubs peddling their wares for $5, records I know I will enjoy, the things I really like thats to exposure to Spotify. Records that won't be just another in a massive pile but ones that will have a special place. Still just leaning against my bookshelf; evenutally in a crate, though.

Thank you, Spotify. Thank you for your patience and waiting for me to finally accept you. And please stay in business. Otherwise I am gonna have a SHITLOAD of records to make up for.

P.S. Note, I just went to cancel my eMusic account. They offered me a free month. So I took them up on it. Didn't want to be rude.

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Musician's Music

As my band humbly worked towards finishing our demos (and now begin to lurch towards making a real album) I would often joke I knew how it felt to be in Boston. Label legal shenanigans coupled with a perfectionist of a band lander led Boston to take 8 years to go from album 2 to album 3. My Bloody Valentine up the ante to an exponential level taking 22 years to release the follow-up to their Loveless.

Now I will admit that I was never in the MBV-camp. When Loveless came out in 1991 I was firmly in the metal and classic rock world. The most likely opportunity for me to catch on would have been college, but I went the power-pop and chimey guitars route, not much interested in the MBVs and Sonic Youths of the world. These were bands that said stick-it to pop music conventions. For me, I was always drawn to melody and a catchy tune. I enjoy bands that make a racket just fine, but I still like to hum it.

Loveless is now found in my iTunes, mainly because it's one of those albums I was supposed to have. Before I fell for the vinyl-resurgence I was a max subscriber with eMusic. With all those credits available it allowed me to back fill the collection rather nicely. One of the things I did was go through Pitchfork's list of Best Albums of the 1990s and add those in. Some I drew the line at, but Loveless made it in.

Right after the New Year My Bloody Valentine, after a few months of rumors and suggestions and false alarms, dropped their new record mbv. It came about without any official fanfare but exploded on the appropriate Twitter accounts. It was available for purchase at their website and the demand was so much it crashed their servers. I waited till the next day, when I ordered the vinyl (naturally). It came with a digital copy of the record so I have been listening to it since it downloaded. I held off on saying anything about it because I wanted to wait until I could hear the actual record.

Last Tuesday it finally arrived. And last night I gave it the headphone experience. And it left me pretty much the way it did listening through the computer speakers. Which is to say underwhelmed. Mainly that has to do with pseudo-expectations, or trying to hear what everybody else who raves about is hearing. The first three tracks are classic sounding MBV, which is to say a wall of guitar noise. It gets kind of synth-y in the middle before going to a hybrid on the last couple tracks. It's the middle section I like, songs like "if i am" and "the new you" are the highlights. They float along like good 90s indie rock should. The breathy vocals throughout are muddy, buried way in the mix; I think there was only one line that I could actually understand what was being said. Rock writers call these ethereal; I call it muddy. Listening to the record, I wonder why MBV even bother with lyrics because you can't hear them. They do that on one song, "nothing is," and if that's what all of their instrumentals would sound like then I reckon they best keep up with the ethereal vocals because that song is horrific...it seems to be a loop of noise that goes no place.

The reviews from the expected places are uniformly ecstatic. Pitchfork gave it 9.1. I think if Kevin Shields (he pretty much IS MBV, like Tom Scholz is Boston) could take a shit on a record and the reviews would be glowing. It makes me think that this is a record that really only other musicians like. Stuff like Sonic Youth and the Velvet Underground. David Lee Roth (of all people) has an excellent observation attributed to him, that rock writers love Elvis Costello because they all LOOK like Elvis Costello. I think he is on to something.

It obvious that there is a lot of effort expended for this record. A lot of tinkering and exploring is going on and Shields took his time tuning it exactly the way he wanted it. Whether that's because the music needed that long or whether he's just a perfectionist or he and the band just had shit to work out doesn't really matter. Here the record is. Personally I don't feel it should have taken 22 years to make THIS, but it is what it is. For all that time spent, it still sounds like a record that would have come out a year after Loveless.

I guess this makes me some kind of knave or ignorant schlub or unsophisticated boob. Go back to your Skynyrd records, caveman! No, that's not true. I don't really like Skynyrd. I appreciate MBV and Kevin Shields effort and dedication and craftsmanship, and I applaud finally getting it done and the non-descript way they went about it. And if you, dear reader, love it and find joy in it, then I am all for it.

Here's the song I like best: "the new you"


Sunday, March 10, 2013

The Beast In Its Tracks

Josh Ritter is among the great American songwriters.  To me at least. He has a great sense of melody and far more often than not he tosses of a great line. Like this from "Girl In The War" from his brilliant Animal Years album: "Peter said to Paul you know all those words we wrote/Are just the rules of the game and the rules are the first to go."

His latest record, The Beast In Its Tracks, finds him carrying on in the aftermath of his divorce. The name of the record is apt.  Instead of looking at the loss through a prism of anger and pain and revenge and axe-grinding, Ritter took a year to get over those inevitabilities and instead looks at his divorce and his new relationship as a sigul of rebirth and progress and moving on. Stopping the beast in its proverbial tracks. For a break-up record it's unnaturally upbeat and positive.

Take "Hopeful" for example. It straddles the sadness that comes with a break-up:

How many times did you give me all your love
Just to find out it was so far from far from enough
I followed her out into the street in the rain
And the whole world stopped spinning and it just went up in flame

But then re-enforces life's circle with the joy of new love:

These days I'm feeling better about the man I am
There's things I can't change and there's other I can
I've met someone new now I know I deserve
I've never met someone loves the world more than her

There's dark moments but there's an abundance of light. That's refreshing these days; you don't really hear that too often, or if you do it's usually so syrupy or pretentious it's unlistenable. In my own songwriting, I tend to drift towards the dark and sad, though I am really trying to get more upbeat! It's hard to write happy or even positive that doesn't sound maudlin.

After the first listen I admit the album didn't really strike me. The last few Josh Ritter records have not resonated as well as the aforementioned Animal Years. But after giving this record the headphone experience the lyrics stood out. Stood out enough to make me stop in my tracks. There is beauty in Ritter's lines and there is real life hidden within them. From the bitterness that gives way to resignation and moments of schadenfreude that hopefully leads to the joy that is often buried deep within the trials.

Musically, it's acoustic driven. The band doesn't show up until halfway through the first side. And when it does show up it serves to augment the words and the subtle performance of Ritter himself. Whereas Ritter has often been compared to Bob Dylan, pre-Graceland Paul Simon is what comes to mind here. The vocal delivery is fast, is story-driven, is done with a Simon-esque lilt.

So, here is a great record. A really really great record that strikes me with each new listen. I'll leave you with a live version of the stand-out track "Hopeful." Enjoy. And buy it!!




Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Never Tell Me The Odds

When I was in college I was a power pop-aholic. Anything with jangly guitars and great harmonies and hooky melodies and I was all over it. When I graduated and found a job and started earning, for me at the time, real money, I discovered the Not Lame catalog. This was a mail-order outfit that specialized in power pop. I loved going through the catalog and reading reviews that went like this: "If you like x then you are SURE to like y!" This was a paper catalog and while the internet was starting to get steam, there were not any samples to listen to online, so it was a token of faith. So CDs from bands like The Tories and The Mockers and Stonecake and This Perfect Day and Blue Van Gogh and The Mockingbirds all showed up. Rarely was I disappointed.

One of the bands I loved dearly was Canada's Odds. They stood out because they wrote catchy songs and had a unique vocal sound but they were also extremely clever in their lyrics writing. Their best record, in your chronicler's humble opinion, was 1994's Good Weird Feeling. Great tracks like "Heaven's Radio," "Truth Untold," "The Last Drink" and "Anybody Else With Me" (really there are no bad tracks on this record) make it stand up even when it's...gulp...20 years old.
Odds The Most Beautiful Place On Earth album coverIn the late 90s the band went their separate ways. In the mid 2000s they reformed under the name The New Odds...some legal issues got the name held up. That record was....OK. Just yesterday I downloaded their new EP, The Most Beautiful Place On Earth, recording under the Odds name. Gone is Steve Drake (replaced by a fellow who's name I already forget...wait lemme look it up...Murray Atkinson) but Craig Northey and Doug Elliott and Pat Steward remain. The new EP is....OK. The songs aren't as memorable, though the first cut "Anything You Want" has that classic Odds sound. I can't really describe it, but like any good band, Odds have a deliberate feel, a vibe to their music. It helps that Craig Northey's voice has a distinctive nasal quality. The voice is part of what makes it OK. Maybe it's the production or maybe it's the obvious, but Craig sounds old, weary. The voice doesn't soar like it used to. Perhaps I am being mean. I am going to stop. If you like good power pop then you should download this...it's only $5. If you are an Odds fan then you most definitely get this it will make you happy.

I couldn't find any links to stuff off the new EP, so here's "Heaven's Radio" from 1994. The quality is poor but the song is still super awesome.


Sunday, March 3, 2013

The Raven That Refused To Sing

Steven Wilson is quickly becoming my most favorite artist around. He's best known for being the leader of prog rock outfit Porcupine Tree. For whatever reason, and despite being a prog fan, that was a band that I did not get into until just a couple years ago. He's also part of a bunch of side projects, the most interesting of which is Blackfield. Not just interesting, it's a great band.

Recently, Steven has put aside the band restrictions and focused more on his solo material. His latest record is called The Raven That Refused To Sing and other stories. As someone who has followed his career with relish the last couple years, for me it is just a jaw-dropping display of talent. In interviews with him, he despises labels or comparisons, but at the risk of arousing his ire, and to give you a point of comparison, his older material had a very Pink Floyd feel; now, the King Crimson influence is rubbing off. But...it is incredibly unique. The songs are stories, as the title implies, about old buskers or sad old timers regretting the loss of their child sister.

Here's the title cut and final track from the new record, one of the prettiest songs I have heard in a long while:


It starts almost like a theme to a horror movie but it builds into one of the loveliest melodies I have heard in forever. I especially love the outro. The swelling of guitar mixing with the piano and the vocals make the song take flight. The song and the video created with it exemplifies everything about Wilson as an artist.

The rest of the songs are just as good. "Luminol" kicks the record with a very aggressive King Crimson Red like jolt. "Drive Home" sweeps along on a piano-melody augmented by strings and tasteful electric guitars. "The Watchmaker" opens with a Jethro Tull-ish flourish of acoustic guitar segues into a piano based melody before ending on a raving cacophony of drums and guitars and keys. The shortest song is just over 5 minutes; three clock in over 10. But that is what he is after here; creating longer pieces with movements that draw the listener into the story being told. The guitar is no longer the primary instrument, but is one of many painting the entire scene.

I bought the record directly from his English label. There are various incarnations of it. I chose the CD with the 100-page hard-cover book of illustrations that inspired/were-inspired-by the music. It's a beautiful piece of art, befitting such a remarkable record. It contains an additional CD of demos, a DVD version of the album with surround sound mixes, and a Blu Ray with the surround mixes and galleries and a documentary.

If I had my druthers Steven Wilson is the artist I would emulate. Too bad for me that I don't have 1/1000 the talent and creativity he has. Good for me that I can enjoy the remarkable fruits of his labor.