Read & Listen

Marissa Nadler - Little Hells
[Kemado, 2009]

Marissa Nadler is a Victorian girl who doesn’t need all this fashion hunt, she’s simply outside of this world. Her music is like flowers in a herbarium - signs of past times, keeping this subtle beauty that can be destroyed by simple carelessness.

Little Hells is just like a ghost that appeared in our time out of someplace far, out of long forgotten times. Perfect soundtrack for a day off, when you have nowhere to run, and all the rush can be left at least until Monday. It does take you to an all-time romance, where you can listen to the transparent stories told by this Boston girl. Heart Paper Lover, Ghosts and Lovers, Mary Come Alive - and seven more songs that combine beautiful stories and melodies, as if made of crystal. Covered in tender and languid voice of Marissa, they make us listen into every word and every intonation curl.

Read & Listen:
Marissa Nadler Myspace
Marissa Nadler Official Website

Charlie Cooper, one of Telefon Tel Aviv, died. His friend and bandmate Joshua Eustis wrote on their Myspace blog:

It breaks my heart to inform you all that Charlie Cooper, my better half in Telefon Tel Aviv, passed away on January 22nd.

We have been friends since high school, and began making records together a decade ago. We have been so fortunate to tour the world together, while at the same time having a massive amount of laughs at one another’s expense.

More details here

Telefon Tel Aviv recently had a great album out, Immolate Yourself.

Zomby - Where Were U In ‘92?
[Werk Discs, 2008]

It’s sometimes great to take a look into the past. 15-20 years. Where Were U In 92 is a phrase taken from M.I.A’s XR2, became the basis for a 40-minute mix by Zomby. He had a “breakthrough” single “Mu5h/Spliff Dub (Rustie Remix)” in 2008, and this new work of his takes us back right in the beginning of the 90s, where there was jungle, drum’n’bass, lots of rhythms, hardcore dance and no compromise. For those who for some reason spent 92 on Mars, it’s a great opportunity to catch up, and for the rest - to dive into nostalgia.

(Well, if you think, I was 10 in 92, and my music preferences lied more around R.E.M’s “Losing My Religion” than this type of rave, that came later. But still, sooner or later, I guess my generation went through this type of music. At least, it should have.)

Let me leave all the detailed description of the mix behind, it’s not so important for me, to be honest. What matters is turning the mix on in iPod on a way to the gym, or at home, at night - and letting the nightclubbing mood take you in, when you’re under 20, not knowing what’s going on around you, but everything is crazy and fun. This music is exactly for these times.

Read & Listen:
Zomby Myspace

Metro Area - Fabric 43
[Fabric, 2008]

The disco experience is all about the claps. And as a matter of fact, we’re about to give you your own disco experience…

Metro Area’s discography currently includes only one LP (2002), and now around 10 EPs, but it doesn’t make their contribution to music less valuable. Morgan Geist and Darshan Jesrani are the best at making atmospheric dance music with a light club mood (which is also the basic style of Geist’s record label, Environ). And while the two of them are working on a new album, tentatively due in 2009, Metro Area present us with Fabric 43, an hour-long mixtape of smoothed out rhytms.

The whole mix is compiled of old 80s disco beats. Nothing really outstanding, nothing that you’ve heard from every window and every car. After their own introduction of the mix on Babla’s Disco Sensation “Ghar Aya Mera Pardesi,” one melody flows into another, one mood changes by another. There aren’t many vocal tracks. There are Temptations’ “Cloud Nine” (by Play by Numbers), Five Special’s “Why Leave Us Alone”, an instrumental version of Skratch’s “You Should Have Known Better” - with only the main vocal sample left, dub version of Gary’s Gang’s “Makin’ Music”… The final one is interestin - it’s Devo’s “Freedom of Choice”, and the rhythm is getting visibly faster toward it. Almost the whole tracklist is dub and instrumental versions. No sharp edges here, in whole, the mixtape can be viewed as a general cultural experience of Morgan Geist and Darshan Jesrani’s music. Organic cream of the 80s, whipped up with a professional mixer. Could we offer you a dessert, sir? Party mix never gets better than this.

Read & Listen:
Metro Area Myspace
Interview about Fabric 43
Multiple songs at Fabric website

The Bird & The Bee - Ray Guns Are Not Just The Future
[Blue Note, 2009]

The Bird & The Bee’s sophomore effort, Ray Guns Are Not Just The Future, is simply great - in dreamy pop, with soft vocals of Inara George, warm bossa nova and smooth rhythms. No better thing to brighten a grey day. Inara George and Greg Kurstin are wonderful with their chamber pop tunes. Retro melodies, like songs from old movies that you simply love. Moderately danceable and very singable.

14 tracks and 45 minutes of pure easy-going attitude. Despite the serious roots of the name - a U.S. military invention, ray guns. Sometimes, like on What’s In The Middle, it sounds like Japanese music of the sorts of Fantastic Plastic Machine. Diamond Dave is the one from the movies. It’s nearly impossible to skip Love Letter To Japan - all jumpy and light. Baby is candy-romantic and slow bossa-nova. And one of my favorites, Polite Dance Song - like march of toys. Each and every song is in a different mood, all of them sweet.

It’s a very girly album (so I’m currently in love with it). And the boys can go play with their toys.

Read & Listen:
The Bird & The Bee website
The Bird & The Bee Myspace
Birthday mp3
What’s In The Middle mp3

Antony & the Johnsons - The Crying Light
[Rough Trade, 2009]

The new Antony & The Johnsons album is like a fairy-tale that parents tell their children before bed. Which has its pluses and minuses. The good thing is that it’s peaceful and soothing. The bad thing is that you… well… fall asleep. The Crying Light is a work of quality, but you can’t help but get that feeling, been there, done that.

Antony Hegarty’s voice is same good old, accompanied mostly by piano. By the way, Nico Muhly, Philipp Glass’ protege, took part in the arrangements. The single, Another World, is the longing for a better world, where you’d miss everything you had here. Another bright moment of the album is Aeon - vocals plus guitar, a bit (just a bit) like rock - but with almost all the elements taken out, with the intonations remaining.

The associations that spring to mind is those of the Middle Ages - where the entertainment scope was much poorer, compared to today’s - choose between going to a bar, to the movies, or stay home with your TV, PSP, internet, wii… Then, you’d probably have to choose, if there’s no war, between food, sex, and listening to a bard. Still, sometimes you’re in the mood exactly for that, and that’s where The Crying Light fits in.

Read & Listen:
Antony & The Johnsons website
Antony & The Johnsons Myspace
Another World mp3

Telefon Tel Aviv - Immolate Yourself
[BPitch Control, 2009]

This is just pure sex. No, not “music for sex,” leave it to Enigma and stuff. Immolate Yourself, the new Telefon Tel Aviv album, is sex in itself. They create a certain atmosphere. This time, from the first seconds of The Birds something inside me became small and then almost burst out into tears. Cocoon-like music that brings the feeling of being immersed into the depths of the ocean, with weird-looking creatures all around you.

Joshua Eustis and Charlie Cooper have moved from their hometown Chicago label Hefty to Ellen Allien’s BPitch Control. Maybe as a gesture of thanking for participating in the production of Apparat’s album. Immolate Yourself is, by the way, quite similar to what Apparat does, in style. But with peculiarities, of course. TTA’s electro has all the edges rounded and covered with velvet. Boomy rhythms, melodic loops, minimum of mannerisms, somewhat distanced beauty. From icy M to a heavyweight (a bit Depeche Mode type) Helen Of Troy, from ambient of Mostly Translucent to retro-danceable You Are The Worst Thing In The World… Every single turn of this mood-shifting story is finely cut, each second is the result of careful and purposeful production, everything is in its right place, every new step takes you to the new, unseen and unheard. Every sound has its consequence. New layers of music, new levels of atmosphere. Anything you do to this music - be that sex, dance or meditative thinking - becomes slower and more flexible, flowing. It’s really hard to explain music like this, the album seems too perfect…

Read & Listen:
Telefon Tel Aviv website
Telefon Tel Aviv Myspace
BPitch Control
The Birds mp3
Helen of Troy mp3
Stay Away From Being Maybe
You Are The Worst Thing In The World mp3

Sin Fang Bous - Clangour
[Morr Music, 2008]

Sindri Mar Sigfusson is a guy from Iceland who has been known as Seabear. Now he’s wearing a new costume, named Sin Fang Bous. His MySpace page says “born to be mild, baby.” And it’s really a very mild transition from a typically Morr tenderness of Seabear - to somewhat Animal-Collective-like experiments with folk/meta-folk space. There’s no wilderness that’s typical for these guys, though. Sin Fang Bous provides you with a fresh broth of hypnotic herbs, a true delight.

If somewhere inside the album you find yourself in the pastures of heaven, don’t be surprised, various states of euphoria are to be expected. The opening track, and one of the brightest stars of the album, is called Advent in Ives Garden. Here the doors to this jungle of mellow sounds is opened. Soft vocals disappearing inside the guitars, percussion, and various electronic clicks. Another bright moment on the album is Catch The Light, where you can almost catch rays of sunlight between guitar strings, keyboard chords and indefinitely folk-like tunes. It is a folk album, though not an easily categorized one. Experiments with the starting point in folk, I’d say. I’ll leave the rest of the album (the total of 12 tracks) to your listening. A really nice one.

Advent in Ives Garden

Read & Listen:
Sin Fang Bous on Myspace
Seabear on Myspace
Advent in the Ives Garden mp3
Catch the Light

Flying Lotus - 2×3 EP
[Warp, 2008]

The second of the three EPs from Steven Ellison, aka Flying Lotus. After a wonderful Los Angeles album it seems, there’s nothing more to write about, it’s been all said. But the 9-track EP does deserve a couple of words (that again fail me).

It’s a remix album… that is, EP - but still sounds like a whole album. These music bullets shot right at your ears, have been prepared together with Mike Slott, Nosaj Thing, Ras G, Samiyam, Exile, Monopoly, and more. Roberta Flack in Mike Slott’s version sounds like a miracle, airy and uplifting. In general, 2×3 EP brings new light to the tracks you know: with Darth Vader’s breathing, with clicks and clacks of heavy artillery, all kinds of metallic toys banging, with streams of air through architectural structures… The music that builds new and new layers of unique atmosphere around you.

Read & Listen:
Official website
Myspace

Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
[Domino, 2009]

Merriweather Post Pavilion is the 8th Animal Collective album and the 2nd released on Domino (after 2007’s Strawberry Jam). It’s been a long time since you actually expected something from these beautiful psychosis freaks, except for the already habitual wildness. Which, of course, you get.

No one, probably, thought they would surpass themselves or do “something new”. Once having the plank set for themselves and having dug out their own niche in the huge music mountain, they’ve only got to expand its boundaries – be that with Panda Bear’s and Avey Tare’s vocals, or drums and howling of music instruments – at times indistinguishable from vocals (or vice versa). Not for the first time, the album leaks in parts long before its release date, this time not without help from the label friends, Grizzly Bear, for which they’ve apologized. By the way, Brothersport, the closing of 11 tracks, is by far “the most.” And despite the numerous protests of Animal Collective members, claiming that the album should be perceived as the whole, and separate parts only spoil everything, — even by itself, without its context, Brothersport is (close to) a masterpiece, a gimlet eating into your brain and branching there its root system. By the way, it’s Animal Collective’s music that helps in the moments of reality conflicts overcome insanity. For me, it’s the most effective thing – to turn on a new (or any) Animal Collective album in the iPod. These guys work like a shock therapy.

There aren’t so many “hits” on Merriweather Post Pavilion, it’s not like Feels or their most “digestible” Strawberry Jam. Merriweather was produced by Ben Allen, who worked in a more pop environment, Gnarls Barkley and P. Diddy.

In The Flowers is an ambient, flowery-petal, tender melody opening the album. It’s followed by one of the “hits,” My Girls, which is like a flower bud opening up and turning into a flower. The music is more dense here, and it definitely sets the tone for the rest of the album, which flows through atmospheric interludes like Also Frigthened and Taste, and jutting out from the general landscape tracks: one of the most prominent ones is Summertime Clothes, with some kind of inner engine, it’s marked by a memorable vocals and – not so loud, but catchy – rhythms. Shamanic Daily Routine, mood-changing Bluish, blowing one’s top Guys Eyes… Lion In A Coma is yet another “pop” tune, with didgeridoo, one of the oldest instruments in the world, played by Austrailan aborigines. And, like a break before Brothersport – No More Runnin’, slow-moving, smooth and magical. And the finale, Brothersport, is a six-minute rhyme/tongue-twister/spell, which smells of the densest jungle and the wildest of the beasts inside us.

All in all, it wouldn’t be true to speak of Merriweather Post Pavilion as something outstanding, if you consider take the album alongside other Animal Collective works. With time, they do sound more “together” and connected to each other, and we stop getting astonished by the way they sound – for a while, this kind of music has been a “fashion,” there now are Dan Deacon, Yeasayer, Gang Gang Dance and a lot more… It’s just that with each and every new album and new track of Animal Collective the wires inside us get more naked, and from the depth of our minds grows something true, something that has been covered with multiple layers of society, rules and the like.

Read & Listen:
Animal Collective Myspace
Brothersport (NPR Live) mp3