My Love Affair With Sufjan Stevens

So there's been a lot of activity on the Sufjan front. He's touring a bit, and he has two new releases but no new material. It's ironic to me that his two releases are so...retrospective.

Run Rabbit Run is a string version of his strange and wonderful Enjoy Your Rabbit, 14 electronic instrumental songs filled with rhythmic weirdness and fascinating rhythms (for a sample, check Year of the Boar segueing into Year of the Tiger). I think he's referenced a zodiac-themed album as a sort of stepping stone: his use of the names of the zodiac represent his own inability to find names for songs, to define and encapsulate a song in a title. A Sun Came! is weird and very experimental in a sometimes good, sometimes bad way. Despite his maturity in Enjoy Your Rabbit, there was more to do before he could become the "Titles longer than the song itself" master. To have Osso redo the album is to re-recognize that stage in his career: the experimentation, the difficulty to name and to encapsulate, the density and difficult of his works.

Ironically, Michigan and Illinois (I don't know seven swans that well, so I won't talk about it) are all about encapsulation. Using long titles, and a whole state as a concept, subjects filled with both researched and experienced feelings and events. The Michigan project got him going into this vein, and he was so enthusiastic to contain everything in song that he took 3 discs, two from Illinois and one from the Avalanche, to paint everything he could. He wanted to paint the entire fifty states, using his inquisitive and emotional outlook to take everything in, everything. He wanted to put true experience into his melodic, often sparse, often acoustic, often plaintive and simple style: the exact opposite of his early career.

The BQE is a mix of the two. Exploring the subject of the Bronx-Queens Expressway, Sufjan is again trying to contain an abstract in song. But he's not picking such a large subject as New York (he had mentioned New York as the next possible state subject, at one point), but rather something a bit more managable. He is using a mostly acoustic medium to try to contain all of his spirit, but he uses electronic sounds and eschews vocals. He divides things into names, but also relies on classical format and divison: Prelude, interlude, movement. It's less an album than an orchestral suite, a huge undertaking no longer limited by his own skill at his 5+ instruments.

Maybe this was always the fate of his music. One of the most striking things about Michigan to me was the use of electric hums between songs, and the fleeting, highly distorted guitar solos. Illinois ended with a nonvocal track, and had all sorts of nonvocal interludes, with a bit of electronic styling in it. Avalanche was a bit heavier in that respect. He threw in a track on Dark Was the Night that was all electronic...I dunno, seems to me like he's been itching to get back into the instrumental suite style. But will it work? Returning from his highly popular, melodic and environmentally evocative music, will it work?

FUCK YES. It works brilliantly. Unlike perhaps some of his other albums, you really have to devote energy to actively listening, otherwise you might say: "Absolutely nothing happens in this album until Movement 4 when the crazy electronics come in." I'm only halfway through the album and I am seriously in love with it.

The Prelude on the Esplanade is a sonic gem, a tone exploration of shouting cars and difficulties, flitting around tonalities of sort of major keys, enticing us onward and crescendoing, brought onward and onward and onward until this brilliantly tonal fanfare. At first, I was disappointed with the fanfare when compared to, say, The Black Hawk War [yadda], but I'm getting more into it. The chords arc up over the tonal center, and fall back down. He tells us: getting on trains is awesome, yo, but you gotta get somewhere too. Feelings of movement are given a real tonal, and not just crazy noise, center. The horn work is phenomenal.

So we're on the train now, I guess? And we get very quiet and artful pieces. Invaders stands out very strongly against the others, in that those three notes at the end of each phrase are like a horn, or a siren. Throughout the piece, horns and woodwinds take and let go of that carrying call, and the drums stop pausing behind it and time itself seems to stretch a bit. It's a fantastic piece of work, beautiful sense of growth in it. The first few songs I remember less well, but they're in the same vein: melodically genius, sonically enthralling, quiet and exciting.

But hell, Movement III into Movement IV is probably my favorite thing to come out of speakers ever. Seriously. Horns in III take their sweet times, using the space and uncertain time signature to create a sense of...I dunno, a clearing filling with trees that slowly grow and intertwine. You figure out it's in 7/8, certain horns take that little embellishment at the end of a phrase, but there is still so much growth and tension. Those embellishments don't fall on the beat, and it's hard to tell how many horns are playing at the time. Unlike a lot of his Michigan music, the complexity doesn't come from the interlocking of simple, melodic lines; everything is dense as fuck. You get a sense of buoyancy from it, though, a sense of rising to something; those embellishments become a symbol of clarity, those 7/8 phrases get a bit more clear. We're rising, drums and more bass sounds come in, instruments shift to maybe create a hole in those dense interlocking branches, and suddenly, suddenly HOLY SHIT WE'RE GOING LIGHTSPEED. It's like Rainbow Road in Mario Kart or something. It's a totally different sonic texture, choppy and hyperactive, and just like in the best parts of Enjoy your Rabbit, oboes and beats mix really well. I imagine myself speeding down a highway at like 125 km/hr dancing and running and rolling and all sorts of things. It's a huge climax, but strangely he's not afraid to put on the breaks and take away density. He understands that the sounds themselves make the tension here; so he'll through in off-color notes and bits of strange tonality that create excitement and direction, and POOF it'll go back to that part with the oboes. Incredible stuff.

I'll post more when I have a greater opinion. I got inspired to listen to Sufie because of a road trip through Illinois and Michigan.

Also: NEW FUCK BUTTONS ALBUM, MY DEAR GLORIOUS CLOUDS YES.

Stream of Consciousness First Impressions: Hiro's Pack pt. 7 + Kaz's Pack pt. 1

Midlake - Roscoe

Cool synth+electric, setting up a circular groove, and around which that perfect bassline spreads, and the rhythm gutiar works, adding...well, rhythm to the drum line as it comes in. Really good growth and introduction, that. The drum fills help create ebbs in the flow, perfect and creative addition of ride cymbols which creates a feeling of surfacing to air. Once again through...vocals are nice and all. Harmonies expand and contract, making even more flow. Flow like water. The harmony for the chorus-like part is especially badass...awoooo...now a creative rhythm and melodic acoustic on low and high frets. Gosh, these guys know how to write a song and put the bits together. Nice solo, descending lines, calmed with those double-tracked vocals after. Bass shifts surprisingly, again ebbing and flwoing. Now a rising, not descending line into the solo, which reaches farther than its counterpart while being borne into the past. 1891 must be an epicly deep, percussive yearh. Soaring, shouting, all still cyclical and excited. Ride sticks along for the last verse. and so you can just here the beginning cycling line there. Woooo!

Supergrass - St. Petersburg It's encrypted.

Yeasayer - Sunrise Yay!

More strange harmonies. Textured and creepy piano, screeching and striking. The crying and noise evolves into a beat, distrubted...maybe a bit ineffective but very cool. Nice bass, great use of vies to evoke and string things together, but the rest of the groove keeps on behind it, for better or worse. Beats get more interesting, but omsething's off...there's no...basis. Listening more to the percussive entrances/exits make it cooler/more interesting, but something isn't going right. Nice touch on the chorus. Doesn't feel like a breakdwon after it, though..wasn't in it to break, you know?Vocals build nicely but never did make for the the epicness of the start. It's denser...and not much else. Looking pack, the percussion deserves a lot more credit, but it's all too choppy to have flow, that's it. The flow doesn't work for me. The bass and voice and vibes just aren't enough. I sort of want to say "Too artful," but what I mean is that they should clear away the crap and really do what they do well. Simplify, simplify, simplify. Nice, though.

Camper Van Beethoven - Take the Skinheads Bowling

Hops into a solid groove. Like the balence: held notes on the top electric, some shift in the lower electric, and nots of good shhift in the bass. Drums is a good balence of simplicity and interestingness...oh screw you Hiro. I am laughing so hard. Thi is just...lul.

Peter Bjorn and John - The Chills

Cool fuzz-bass and good drum groove under that vibes shit and the shhhing. Breaks down nicely. The drum work is really good...even if it's a loop. Love the haunty shifty vocals. Great reintroduction of material into the verse. An unexpected breakdown...buildingand receding with drums. But once everything roars in...there isn't much actually there. It's a sweet groove, but it's just sorta burning, having some stuff thrown in. His reedy voice is less soulful, stirring, and evocative then needed...that's one of my bigger problems with PB&J, they have great hooks and great beats, and then things just sorta sit there and feel less interesting. I could see this being wonderful for dancing. Most of this stuff is wonderful for dancing, dear.

Ratatat, Slim Thug, T.I. & Bun B. - Three Kings

Again, great beat on their part. That electric is a bit annoying, but the drums and synthy moanings are really good, vary nice with the voice. Again, no discernable point in lyrics besides misogyny and hubris, great breakdown as we get closer to the chorus form, adding and removing things. Some of the rhymes are nice, but neither rapper so far is really impressing me. I like this kind of stuff, rap with a bit more variation in the beat and change as things continue on. It's quite the challenge to make a hip-hop beat and hide it an sorts of other percussion, and still have it flow, which this song acheives. But this Slim Thug man just strikes me as an asshole. Third guy I like a bit better, plays with rhythm more. Some of my favorite rappers, mostly Doesone and Subtitle, use crazy rhymes and sonorities along with rhythm and subject. But none of them are particurally inspiring. Good, but not my thing. Rhyming a bunch of things with "ug" is also pretty stupid in its own right, I'll say.

Midlake - Young Bride

Builds, emerges out of the silence on violin and octaves on the acoustic...staging, setting. The violin plays on a blues scale solemnly and reflectively, the acoustic builds up, and these drums which are simple yet really compelling, and easily and effectively altered. Like a tired old woman. They know when to stop speaking to make it awesome. Adding in bass creates more flow, and then they cut it in half by adding the second, stronger snare. Builds together for the chorus, the crazy shimmering over all that we've created, that we now receede. Drums and bass start it back off, drums starting off and become slightly more complex, more exciting and dense. Nice throwaway double and triple tracking for effect. It still feels organic and natural, even though that electronic wailing and sorta bright synth tone sits over everything. Great second set of vocals on the chorus, which is a tapestry of sounds in the most exciting sort of way. Awesome. Nice breakdown to violin solos, now building and mirroring each other so as to evoke...more of that natural growth, despite the fact that we've gotten so much energy. Third chorus is just ten times more badass because of this, and because of the extra vocal work going into it. Oh man, oh man, oh man. Wonderful! Great intervals on that vocal line, reminiscent of the violins. That's smart, that's friggin' smart. I love it! Keeps going, perhaps a bit less exciting, but there's a good solo over it so I don't care. Midlake is amazing, amazing. We're drowning in more synthy winthy wonderful hundred-fold intensity then further dying away into its source, grasshoppers. Oh boy that was fantastic and wonderful. LOVE.



Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter - Birds over Water

Unfolding in an arpeggio, to those violin notes flittering about the dominant, ready to resolve...wow. Evoking, pulling. Electric is simple and really fantastic, manages the same thing. Percussion moving little, but not needing to. Electric builds more, allowing the violins to really push what's going on. It's slowly, it's somewhat bluesy, but that's great. Rumbling of a snare, I think?, in the background. Nice chromatism, everything, the rhythm and the flow, rest on that guitar. But now it's secondary, jumping in with piano to frame each vocal line, adding all this drama. Vocals fit perfectly, descending and bridging those two chords. More activity on violins and guitar and piano, plus vocal harmonies, make more tension. We're almost, but not quiet, at a regular percussion, not just epic frames and throwins. Rides and snares jump in and create it. Here we are. Shit, man. Voilins create tonality, electric frames and creates rhythm and tension, resolved by the nature of the chords itself. Piano is really percussion. A really good balance and mix exists here, how amazing. Gosh. Like birds over water, such a buildup, after we've had all of this. The chords are changed to awkward counterparts, needing even more resolution and care, and the piece meets that requirement fantastically. Oh wowie. Love it, love it! How wonderful! The formula is getting old but I don't care. Acoustic is just...so damn pretty, evocative. Breaks to a solo part, she really knows what she's doing and how to achieve it. I love everything follows the path of the guitar, even though the guitar is the supported one: all of the emotion lies there, and thus brightens everything around it. How...that's just impossible. Impossibly done. Fall down on me. I can't even hear everything because I'm on this fucking plane and this is just making me feel warm inside. Fall down on me. Second solo, holding on notes and then descending, using piano to vault back up to the tonic. Each resolution to that tonic is such a sweet release of pain, like she's holding back very subtly and then bringing us home. I feel carried, loved, appreciated, welcomed in in this respect. She's speaking to me. Secondary acoustic is simple enough to really enhance everything. Such damn good use of violins. Like seriuosly, holy shit Kaz. If the rest of this pack is that good you should win a Nobel Fucking Peace Prize. I love you so much.

Stream of Consciousness First Impressions: Hiro's Pack, pt. 6

PNAU - Embrace The opening builds nicely, as that one bass/synth note arrives out of nowhere and, along with slight percussion, creates a beat out of those chords. Great beat, nice electric riff. Pacing is nice and slow. The vocals sit on that major second, creating a sort of pivot, but it's not that effective. Chorus is awesome, good high notes bringing the progression into awesome land. I do really like the beat, and it's very danceable, which is a huge merit. New synth chords, broken down bassline, and 16th notes on the hihat all create a a sense of achieving, but again...it doesn't impress me or astound me much. Nice bridge, it's a sense of restraint that hasn't been present before. Builds back up again very well, they're influenced by techno tradition without succumbing to it. Strange choice of becoming a verse after that, but it's ok. Ok third chorus is badass with the drums. I turned up the volume and it got better. A lot of their music is lines sticking around the same few notes, and using deviations from that to create material: the vocals in that one interval in the verse and the high notes on chorus; repeated bassline; that same guitar riff on the verse, and a few other things. That's where the techno part comes in for me, since that's what a lot of techno is. This song doesn't really do it for me, but it's pretty cool. It doesn't need a real hook that it comes back to, which is an achievement.

PNAU - Freedom Acoustic and echoey sorta progression is SUPER COOL. The echoes create some nice syncopated / offbeat rhythms, and the acoustic texture adds a lot to the song: each 2 measures starts rough and ends soft. It was a good decision to have the vocals be softer, and start their line towards the 2nd measure. Really good balance...and then they send this strange falling vocal line over it. Nothing else is really changing interestingly, but that vocal line does quite a lot to sustain a piece. They're so groove oriented, which is a really cool thing to be doing...nice droning in the background, but it's sort of a cheap trick to fill in the parts where the percussion cuts out. Small bits of echoes here and there do the same thing. It's great and all, but I'd prefer they invest their energy in making a bit more happen. They're great at flow, and great at groove, but the song is missing a lot for me...direction, maybe. Or a hook. Then again, it's fine how it is, moving along nicely. It's not really my thing, but it's good!

Midlake - Head Home Flute and synth! Awesome. They're dancing around each other, one repeated and one orbiting it. Great sense of build when the drums come in, but it doesn't stop there; the progression has this strange chords that don't quite resolve, giving a greater sense of growth. Nice piano, but it's a bit obnoxious once the vocals come in. Vocals are sparse and subtle enough, like the basswork, to make it interesting, while the piano forms the real bass of things. Chorus brings intro-y part back. That's some good bass work. That bass pattern feels a bit too country-style for this song, but it creates a bit of a bluesy effect. Is that a bit of Thom Yorke in the vocals? I'm starting to love the way the piano keeps driving along. Great vocal harmonies. Nice drum cutout. Their form seems to breakdown a bit, and I don't know where I am, but it's cool! Great tonalities and playing and all. They keep on building things, although the drum fills under the guitar solo might be a bit over the top. Guitar solo is a bit self-indulgent as well, but it uses held notes nicely. I just noticed the synth part on the chorus (?), it's pretty sick. I think I'll head hooooooome. Hypnotic, and notice how so much of the complexity has been reduced for clarity? They're paying really good attention. This part, with vocals and piano unison is just fantastic. Sort of a breakdown / outro that refuses to die, just keeps building and evolving. Another guitar solo which sits nicely over everything. It had to end with a fadeout, with that kind of momentum. Really nice, I'll be glad to hear this again.

The Futureheads - Hounds of Love Great, more strangeness. Oh man, that's fun and also really cool. Intersecting lines which are inverses of each other sketching chords which the guitar takes and turns into awesome. Really effective drumming. I like how the vocals just keep going over the verse part. The 3-3-2 split for drum beats doesn't really drive me, but it's growing on more. When the electric really starts humming, that's really badass. I'll take my shoes off and I will be really enjoying this stuff. The drum builds nicely, to the ride and to these much larger beats. Vocals are interesting, I like it. Great rhythm and tone. Short and really cool!

Wolf Parade - It's a Curse Yay wolf parade. Love the rising noise going into the serious drums. Piano one measure vs. dropping guitar line is very cool. Wonderful flow. Vocals are really good, using strong notes to accent the beat. Bass notes are really cool chords, grunting and driving. After the chorusish part (which is strangely loose), they mix everything a bit more. Synthy bass takes more focus, and it's awesome. I see why these guys are compared to Arcade Fire a bit, the way they build is very simple but very well thought. I'm not feeling the chorus, until oh major key stuff. Piano finally fits in nicely. Still love how the vocals drive the beat along. It just stays on the place they've gotten to...they're all about this really cool build and just making it more awesome and different and nice. Synthy stuff in the last 4 measures even, and even though I don't exactly where we went, it was really fun and I liked going there!

Peter Bjorn and John - Let's Call it Off Nice beat. Drives forth. Nice rhythm guitar, really smooth and creates a nice chord structure. It's a strange choice to have steel drum and echoey guitar mimicking their line. Very good use of drums to drive into the verse. Vocals are strange, and don't really fit in the tonality of the song. But it's exciting because of the bassline, which is nice. They throw in this great hits, just like at the beginning of the verse, and now into the chorus. I love the chorus, very nice chords. Great songwriting, it all fits together wonderfully. Great offbeats on the acoustic in the chorus, that's why I love it so. That set of three beats at the end of some drum beats really drive things forward nicely. Haha, referencing the intro with all this momentum now. It's fun, I realize; even though the verse is heavy and all, this lick is really light. And then that one part of the intro is the chorus, oh man! I'm not being too clear, but I guess suffice to say I love their tone, the way they build, and their songwriting. Good call.

My Morning Jacket - Lay Low There's a really good flow in the drum beat: the bass is at either side of it, so the middle part of it is like coming up for air. Great guitar work, setting up the rhythm, and then working a melody off of it. It's a simple, really great grove. Vocals float along, perhaps a bit out of place. Bass rounds things out, piano is cute. It took me a moment to realize what time signature or whatever. But it's polyrhythmic and cool and bright and energetic...while still maintaining a really good beat. It doesn't need to be hypercomplex, since they have such great attention to detail already. It's so damn tight. Bluesish, I guess. Rising chords at the end of the chorus are really great, supported well by drum hits. They play only as much as they need to. That's a pretty good guitar solo, actually relating to the flow of the song. The solo just goes on. Those piano chords are like...arches in a cathedral, I dunno. But the groove keeps on hopping along, getting more creative, sometimes adding doubled solos, changing drumbeats and flow. It's exciting, it's energizing. What are they going to do next? And even if the solos just go on and on, they're wonderful to listen to. Nothing about this is boring, and that's real feat.

Peter Bjorn and John - Nothing to Worry About The opening vocals are creepy but hypnotizing...took me a while to realize they're English. Nice beat to draw it off, and then they put a few sonic hits and goodies over that one groove for a few measures. And you know? That's fine. I love their pacing, they really know when to slow down. Nice bass work. Great groove, they put a lot of stress on the onbeats and it's awesome. I've got nothing to worry about just drives down to one of the drum hits...that's really exact. I love all the little stuff they throw in, it's interesting...but it's not like they're substituting for material. And behind all that, that...what's the adjective for that guitar line, wavy, wiggly? The one behind the entire song that comes in after the intro? Nice. Cuts out and only the guitar and some goodies. Short and tight and really cool.

Ratatat and The Notorious B.I.G. - Party and Bullshit Nice buildup to add in the guitar. Whole thing is a good beat, nice and syncopated, cuts out nicely. I don't really like BIG's rhyming, but I like his rhythm. Ratatat is paying a lot of great attention to the beat, so it all flows nicely. They do cool creative things with the aabaabaabaab pattern that is modern rap. I love ratatat's little touches, the tiniest cut-out riff really adds to the flow. They're really creative. BIG does great work too. All around, a good track...BIG's narrative is a bit flat, a bit stupid, and his rhyming isn't that creative, but it has its moment. But the pretty good rapping with the very good beat work make this a really good cut. Gotta love Ratatat.

Classical Music: Fuck Yeah!

My teacher and I were delving into a Chopin piece I'm working on, the raindrop prelude (awful name), and not just technically either: we talked a lot about singing, about weight and the transfer of weight, about tone and pulsing tones, about direction, about syntax (holy shit "tempo rubato actually means stolen time...what a wonderful imagery), and most of all about silence. The use of silence which surrounds a piece in the beginning and the end, and the way pieces flow from that: does it break the silence (Polonaises)? does it flow from it (Db prelude)? And even more vitally, how does the piece interact with silence over its course? Tempo is a means of pushing away silence, but the composer can interlace silence with the pattern of notes notes, but the color, the tempo, the everything! So much of 20th century experimentation, like the concept of color-tone melody or Klangfarbenmelodie, was about redefining the nature of the way notes interact, and silence plays a huge role! I thought of Webern, among other composers...and my mind turned to the likes of Grouper and Lichens, and the way they play with silence and repetition, with only a guitar, a sampler, and a voice.

That in turn got me thinking about the role of classical music in society. In American culture, at least, there's such a sense of...elitism attached to it. People are astounded at the high prices of good Symphony seats (I'm going tomorrow ftw), and yet shell out so much more for front-row concert tickets. There are a lot of explanations for why...because of the elitists who claim it as the only true form of music?...because of America's desire to overthrow what was a very European culture, and attempt to redefine it with jazz (huge goddamn irony) and rock'n'roll and pop and all?...because of all the intellectual pressure some music puts on its listener?

And this isn't the modern period of "classical music" that's typically referenced, it's your Baroque, Renaissance, Romantic, and slightly post-romantic stuff that's focused on! All the big names of the past ages. Mozart noticed, Wagner peeked into, and Schoenberg blew wide open the peak to all this atonal shit that can clear out concert halls. The sometimes super-intellectual and dense and distant, the sometimes ugly, the sometimes rapturous and jaw dropping and terrifying sets of sounds that can be passed over, so quickly, as experimentation and junk. And that's not just Europe! Starting with Ives and going into Cage, music feel deep into experimentation far beyond anything in Europe: in the '50s, the aftermath of WWII left dozens of huge names in California, and in the '60s electronic music created a generation of musicians like mathematicians or scientists. There were pieces written that were silence (and motionless Dance accompaniments to them), pieces that comprised of fists smashing keys, music that was all made on tape reels, compositions based on Chinese divination techniques, music scores that were a sentence or two, music that consists of 40 or so violins playing the same note, and slowly, one by one, diverging until a 40 note chord fills the speakers. It's unbelievable! It's horrendous! It's exciting! It's experimental! It's American! It's so rich and can be so amazing! But nobody notices!

Even as folks like Gershwin and Copland tried for the popular feel, there was a retreating faction of composers who retreated into their darkened studio-laboratories. Minimalists like Steve Reich and Phillip Glass, who tried to reduce all of music to its corest elements, are despite their attempts still far away from the popular stream. Thus pop music became the norm, and

I'm not saying that any sort of musical degeneration has occurred. That's a bullshit deconstructive useless thing to say! I have a lot more Beatles, or Islands, or Sufjan Stevens, or Bjork, or Ry Cooder, or Anti-Flag, or Sun Ra, or Nine Inch Nails, or mine and my girlfriend's stuff combined than I do Schoenberg or Mozart.

But man, doesn't the stereotypical maniacal, calculated, unemotional, sadistic villain enjoy a dash of classical music while he's slipping on his stereotypical black leather gloves? Isn't the classically-focused elite so often, so joyfully, and so enthusiastically satirized or rejected by pop music, folk music, punk music, metal, noise...despite the fact that the language they use is so similar? Cadence, rhythm, tonality and all that...they're the same!

What I'm saying is, classical music has a really unjust stereotype. Not every band you hear on the radio is worthwhile or interesting; not every one of Mozart's symphonies are amazing transcendent automatically beautiful pieces. That's nostalgia. People have never, ever stopped making good music. But I wish people would search a bit more, and just find certain pieces that really speak to them. To find a way to ignore all the criticism and analysis of classical pieces, as you've learned to ignore that reedy 20-something who runs the counter at your local record store.

There's just so much richness to be found! Why hold yourself back?

Stream of Consciousness First Impression: Hiro's Pack pt. 5

Velviter - The Swimming Song I love banjos. Sufjan and Le Loup both make fantastic use of them. Good cadences on it, I like it. The bass just sorta does nothing once it comes in, but the banjo creates all continuity that's needed. Acoustic rounds things out nicely, voice just floats (lol) along. There's something...Eastern, in the way the guitars pivot around that bass note. I like the way he occasionally repeats a line, just to emphasize and cadence on it. It's not like your other stuff, at all. It hops along nicely, good fiddle solo. Hopping, that's the word. I can't say the drummer does a good job, but I like the cadence of it all. Nice tune.


The Futureheads - Worry About It Later Guitar chords, loose, go over the piano and drums, creating something...exciting...random harmonies, and now building kit. It's a loose sort of way to start a groove on a song, and even when the drums switch, it messes around on the toms. But the voice really helps create a rhythm, creating rhythms where other notes are held. Guitar work is strange but exciting. I like the use of the intro in a chorus fashion, it's exciting. The whole thing has an energy, which is so exciting since it gets pretty sparse. They're pretty exact, they have to be. It creats a precision, and like I said, an excitement. That guitar right before the chorus plays some damn strange intervals. With tambourine adds a nice touch. Um, that guitar breakdown after the chorus is just weird. They don't play there instruments in a normal...tonal sense. It's always somewhat dissonant, and the bass creates that feeling too. The drums are echoey and in the back, as in the guitar, so we follow the voices and get pushed along by the bass.The voice work is fantastic, but the actual notes that each instrument is playing are strange. It's not bad, it'll just take some getting used to. I think I like them.


The Futureheads - Favours for Favours Again, high strange guitar. Nice bassline, creates great percussive rhythm. Great drums to work with it. I like the held note by the guitar once things start escalating, compliments everything well. Part of why this group seems so floaty to me is that the recording is pretty echoey, and the songwriting is...random. It shifts interestingly, and fun...and there are great complimenting parts and strange lines, but it seems to just flop down like some sort of groovy whale on the beaches of my ears. I mean, it's groovy and all, but it's a fucking whale. Vocals in chorus section, including backup, really do it well. Bands rarely use vocals this well, I think. Great bass work, rhythm guitar too. Drums are still just sort of there, however apt they are in parts (i.e., verse/intro). Nice short songs. I like them, but they'll take a while to get used to.


Caesars - Fun and Games That's really beautiful, great use of acoustics, one melodic and one rhythmic. Stupid lyrics, and stupid bongo. Nice harmonies. Not the smoothest transition to the drum heavy part. It's...unexciting, man. Nice synth solo, but this groove does nothing for me. It's...one-dimensional. It has some good parts, I'll admit.

Kasabian - Secret Alphabets Cool, more Kasabian. Lovely dones, tonal and then just rhythmic, switching between the two to create an uncoiling feeling helped by the cymbol, and acoustic twills. That's a bass, wow! That's some great bass work. Sonically, it's a bit strange, but it's like...red dusty room. Nice vocal line, very nice; descends over the progression really elegantly. Great rhythm. Guitar bits are nice, that one sitar was nice. Later in the verse, guitar plays for a little bit on 8th notes, and fades out. They just throw wonderful things in and take them out and put other songs in, while the song goes on like a train. I like that about them. That's the same guitar part in the breakdown, then synth goes on top of it. Now electric things. They have a fantastic sense of rhythm, how to make it memorable, and the notes and lines support each other well, like that wailing synth over the unison descending synth line, with vocals and backups under that too. That's just elegant. Beautiful, orchestrated, well-though, well-executed. I really love this band!

Del tha Funkee Homosapian / Dinosaur Jr. - Missing Link Good groove, nice bassline. Screaming guitar works with the spoken word line. Ok solo...man, it's just sitting there. The two guitars are having a cool conversation, trading of lines, which I like, but it's nowhere near the front. Eh, not varied / exciting enough for me, and the production isn't great.

Caesars - Strawberry Weed That's a brilliant baseline, great use of acoustic guitar, and finally you're using the drums right. It all flows brilliantly. Nice melody over everything, it gives a similar call which we can come back to. Vocals somewhat reference it. Love the cycling strawberry weed line. Cute clapping, but they're doing a few subtle things to keep the line going: guitar bits, bits of backup vocals, and yes, clapping. It hasn't gotten boring yet. Nice harmonies, subtle but creating cool new tones on the verse. Like the synth introduced for strawberry weed part. Great bassline, still, man. Hehe, chromatic bubbly synth line there, in and out. Just cool bits. Drums get better to support the guitar + drums part, and bass and claps move it up. Great, great sense of growth there. We're back home in this riff that, unlike a lot of electropop, doesn't get repetitively irritating. A lot of the stuff you have in here borders on irritating electropop. Fun, man.


The Clientele - Bookshop Casanova Cool percussion, really tight, using both bass, guitar, and drums. There's a sense of tension, which the violins then release, in that rising and falling line. Great sense of flow, in that decision. Bassline supports everything well, violins play an atmospheric role. Vocals could do more than ride a few convenient eighth notes. Part after chorus is nice, going back to the first versish part, and now the second versish part with swelling synth. I hope they use it to create more anticipation for the chorus...which they do. Violins and bass, and drums, rise to the chorus, but then...it's just more material. It's not fundamentally different, I don't feel like I've arrived anywhere until the descending part. It's not bad, but I'd prefer something at the top of the mountain I was just carried to the top of. Nice solo. Very tight though, very beautiful and well-thought. I like it a lot, I do!


Caesars - Soul Chaser EXCITING SYNTHY STUFF WOO it's so poppy and wonderful. Vocal line creates continuity, when it goes to the minor in the verse, that's a good thing to do. Bassline does...jackshit. But the genius lies in the synth and guitar use, as well as some vocality. A million leaves are falling into vocal harmonies. Seems to get more serious the second time around for the verse. Great vocals, wow. Vocals and guitar do a great, but subtle, job on the million leaves part. It's another one of those songs that just goes to the top of a hill and goes to the bottom just to do it again, and there's a steep breakdown on the other side that you then travel up to get back to the top of the mountain and it's awesome because you've achieved something. Classy vocals + drums. I'd prefer if things were more clearly stated, as the sound and form is a bit mushy, if you know what I mean. But it's still great and fine. Now I get it, so NO MORE CAESARS.


Beck - Burro Cute unison between trumpet and...strings? Acoustic sets a great rhythm, as good as any drum. Hits by strings, and a bit of trumpet, add a lot to an otherwise silent verse. There's a symmetry in the unison line: held notes to rhythmic notes to held notes, low to high to low. His voice is fine, I guess. The echo is a good effect. He varies the acoustic nicely. It hops along. Simple and nice. Well executed, subtle in parts. Just a nice groove, in all.


East Side Boyz/OutKast/Lil Jon/Mello/Slimm Calhoun - Last Call Oh man that's a great groove just from the voice. Just...great rhythm and syllables. That's a pretty awful beat...but they play with percussion a bit, which makes it better. But the horns...ugh ugh ugh! It's made up by the voice itself. It's just...a few different artists using their techniques to make a series of very different, but each really exciting, voice lines. That's saying nothing of the rhymes themselves, which are great, if sort of meaningless. It's a fun ride, and there are moments of real genius. And end it with a guitar on that horn line. Pretty nice.

Yeasayer - 2080 oooh, nice noise. Cycling guitar line, added percussion and voices and overarching noise movements. It's exciting, it's pregnant. The drums give it a direction, and the guitar lines give it a rhythmic purpose, but this all chugs under the soaring noise. It's a great effect. Voice line is pretty good. Great basslines and guitarlines, if a bit overcomplex. Cello is classy, man. That bit of percussion on the e and a of the beat fade in and out, like a bit of the noise which has come down from the sky to play. They're great musicians, definitely. Chorus is a bit muddy, and a tad abrupt. Breakdown...where have I heard this before? Anyway, that's exciting, really exciting. Lines of...a clarinet? under that yeah! yeah! dadadadadadad etc. vocal line (nice symmetry and flow in that, like a waterfall). Did someone I know cover this? The chorus is unremarkable, which is sad. I just don't get anything out of it, but it's mostly genius in other parts. Really cool.

Stream of Consciousness First Impression: Hiro's Pack pt. 4

This is getting ridiculous. Another guy just posted a set of 69, and I still have to get to a 12 set and a 15 set. Still, this is the kind of stuff that gets me through the week. I'll use it to survive classes next week. She battles on, etc.

The Whigs - Right Hand on my Heart There's a lot of potential in that drum line. In the abstract, it's bass heavy towards the beginning and snare heavy towards the end, creating a sense of imbalance and flow, but that's a bit out there, even for me. Moreover, it's a straight-ahead I-am-going-to-fuck-shit-up kind of drum beat. Letting the guitar line sometimes rest, and sometimes play in unison with that energy, is pretty brilliant. It's flow control; how hard are we going to rock this shit? Vocals sit nicely over everything, adding another level of sound. The interverse parts are just a culmination of everything we were building up to, but within the chorus they just get glorious meaning. I'm headbanging to this, and this isn't headbang music. Even if the verse parts aren't too different, there's such a sureness that we're going to flow back into this awesome fucking place that we get to in the chorus. The irony is that within the chorus are chords meant to resolve away, down to the 1 again, making it so much deeper. That bridge / extended jam (Right hand on my heart) is all the more awesome because of that. Fills and a sick guitar solo augment all of that. Such a wonderful sense of build. It breaks down and gets just straight-ahead, just restating and re-expressing all that fabulous energy that they built up in the first 3 minutes of the song...and then it fades away to another quiet verse with that same watery verse.. May I be the first to say holy shit, because that was amazing.

Doves - Sea Song Speaking of the ocean, Doves! Lessee how they do in another context. Great rhythm and chords across those two acoustics, and the piano rounds out everything really well. I like the intro so much...and then it gets percussion and ahhhing set over it. You get drawn in, and they vary the acoustic lines and it all makes sense, because they put all that effort into building up. When it goes into the minor, the ascending progression just makes perfect sense, like we're not just cyclical any more; we're trying to reach something. there's an abrupt, but still compelling, shift from that to the vocals. That's glorious. We go through it again, and to be honest it's not as good the second time. But the extra sonic goodness is really nice, and when the second ascending part comes in, there's a greater sense of meaning, now that all this prose about the sea and these atmospheric sounds have been thrown in. But again, that abrupt switch to the intro part, which isn't a natural progression from the ascending part. Nice solo over it, it fits together nicely. I wish they weren't afraid to introduce some more complexity under the vocals, but it does give a sense of clarity. The basslines under all this are hard to hear, but they work well at creating flow: not too complex, but just varied enough. There could be more acoustic variation. Third time through the whole damn thing, a few new things, and then another strange and exciting non-resolution. It's lagging in the complexity aspect a bit, but that's ok. It's clear, it's beautiful, it's soaring like a bird over the cyclical ocean that they've created. Fades out, like...echoes in an ocean? Cute. But I really like this cut.

White Denim - I Start to Run I love the crispness of the drums and bass, and the lines fit together really well...but is something up with the tempo? Anyway, percussion fills out and that's holy shit nice. Voice soars over it, helps create connectivity and build, and then the acoustic pops in with a few hits, but I'm not really getting a sense of build. STill, the groove is just hopping along and doing really well. The extra sonic stuff around the "chorus" is a bit unnecessary, and that guitar and bass part is still really groovy, wow. They're good, but I feel like they're throwing strange things in for interest. Yeah, that solo part but now with the wakawaka texture is great and all, and I love the use of drums under it all, but it doesn't really follow from any other parts. I don't know where the hell I ended up listening, and it was a fun ride...but I really don't know what hit me.

Akron/Family - There's So Many Colors Yes yes yes, I am excited to hear another Akron/Family track. Ok ok, here we go, um. Entrancing lyrics, I like the harmonies. It goes on and on, but that's ok. It's cyclical and all. Ok, guitar finally came in, as the harmonies fall away but wow that's pretty epic. It's just shining over everything and there's some trippiness in the background. It's playing a riff referencing that lyrical line and holy shit there's more of them! They're everywhere, and now the vocals are coming back, giving it real tonality and stuff. It's unfolding right in front of me. Now real unison, over that vocal line which faded away at some point and suddenly drums! Oh man oh man oh man. Beats not exactly fitting together, but bits of energy shot off, not yet resolved, but preparing, under this high-fret guitar solo and a bit of string wailing. And now the solo is referencing that vocal riff again and now there is an acoustic guitar and tamborines and it's sexy and totally different, just grooving along in a sort of bluesy way, far away from the chaos. Is that a banjo? Shades of purpose mainly. And a bit of drums, and something about mountains and plains and pictures of environments and the exact sense of reality that the vocal line was describing before, and there's not quite a clear link between that line and this very simple but very compelling lines. Very good guitar work, good lines, the drums are just perfect perfect perfect, sitting under everything. Gets more energetic, some good lines, but not too complex or repetative. Sunrise, sunset. They keep shifting the guitar lines to be more prominent, shouting louter, sometimes taking melody, sometimes not. As they go into a solo section which flaps all over itself like a thousand walruses on speed or something, and the drums follow through. I mean, you pick up a riff and you're like holy shit that's great, and then you listen to the vocals, and you come back and it's all different. They just all fly like birds around the main progression and now it's fading away to some acoustic strangeness? Nice harmonies. We finish in the dark, totally unlike the so many colors, right? Will you go back there? That chemical mountain chaser? Why reduce it all like this, why is there all sight? Or did that already happen with those wonderful guitar lines? God shit that was amazing.

Hot Chip - Look After Me Hot damn, more Hot Chip. I was interested in seeing these guys in a different setting, and this is more loungy and quiet, maybe a bit of a Latin percussion influence. The acoustic work is a bit spotty, but that's alright. Love the drums when it comes in, a very good understated percussion line with great bass supporting it. Great bass, great bass. Interverse part is just sonically beautiful with that synth and the hihat...I am drawn in. I'm noticing everything referencing and fitting with this line, from the vocals to that strange end-of-4-measures chirping. Nice harmonies. Pizzicatastic, man. They just keep the jam going, and throw things in, but it all makes sense over the course of the song. Like, in the second verse, how the violins play a greater and greater part, and the backup vocals and that synthed buzzing become greater parts. It all is restated in this really redemptive way in the chorus, look after me and I'll look after you. Love the vibes and organ and sparse guitar in the breakdown. They can change things up and still have the same momentum as 2 minutes before. It's the opposite of the quick changes of the Akron/Family song; you're listening to a growth on the same thing for however many minutes, not just a shifting panorama centered at the same point. Beautiful. I'm sort of into these guys now.

Elbow - Mexican Standoff More Elbow, cool. You've got a lot of repeats, Hiro dear. Oh, hello, clapping and things turns 3/4 groove that is really nice. Beat is kept along really well by tambourine and open hihat hits. Really good bassline drives everything along. Great chords, great chords, and acoustics in the background filling in the spaces. Vocal line floats by. This song feels sway-ey, with everything jumping in and around and off of that sick bass line and drum bit. Nice guitar solo, there's a wonderful sense of repetition in what they do, like they know to not be too shit-crazy. Buildup is even more awesome with vocals and guitar crunching. Breaksdown with holy shit the handclaps again! That's exciting, and it makes it...eh, a bit more linear, a bit less floating. But it's exciting, ain't it, especially in that rising bassline / chord part. Oh mexican standoff, I wish I was something bah dum badum and all. Growling / singing right through everything. I just realized that the drum part got more complex to support all this. It's pretty glorious and then poof! Stops. These guys are tight and their songs are like automobiles.

Caesars - Paper Tigers 3rd Caesars cut? Echoey guitar line paralells vocal line, while rhythm electric provides support. But even those noise additions and one-note lines can't support it until we get into every single one of us: oh. That's nice, that's really nice. Well put together, drives along well. Beautiful. I still don't...get...the verse, it just doesn't fit together for me. It's not just the looseness, it just sort of sits there, and nothing mixes. But the chorus is just great. Nice unison solo line, but still...this is not one of their better cuts, I think. I like the anthemic aspect, but it's too loose. The vocal line in the chorus really lends to it, in how often it's sounding. It's relentless, that's it. But towards the end the ride comes in way too strong, and I'm getting a greater sense that this song is just a detached sum of parts. I'm not excited, man. Sorry.

Ratatat - Shempi Heard you talking about these guys, what're they like? Sonic messarounding. I like the beat. Shows how you can create a steady backbeat with no kick, and then add the kick and have it be awesome. Noise swells and trills really fit and drive it along. The wailing lines...oh man, it feels like I'm going on this escalator and things just start swooping in and taking away some of the darkness over me. Those guitar lines are cycling across channels and I love it, such great repetition, really drives it forwards. That's a brilliant synth line, so brilliant. And now they're varying the beat! You've already showed me what the other side of reality is, now you change and build the ground I stand on. My words can barely keep up with this. It's so self referencing, the structure is just glorious. And then a no-drum synth line, then with that sick minimal percussion and now bass and great chorus again. Perhaps not as cool the second time. But still, oh man. I'm not just a sucker for percussion. This is sonic glory, pure and simple. Well engineered and planned and played and put together. That's just perfect. Bongos are a bit over the top, but it's forgivable. Synth line with the cycling guitar part already there, trying to find another way to fold us into that awesomeness that is the chorus. The bongos are just one bridge to that, as are all the trills and "OH"ing. I love it, I love it, I love it! Fabulous!

Iggy Pop / Teddybears - Punk Rocker This is pretty...generic synth punky stuff. It's...I mean the parts are introduced interestingly, but everything just sits there. That really simple synth line that was in the intro, and now is in the chorus, isn't enough to create flow. There's not much...going on. Skipped the rest of it.

Wolfmother - Mind's Eye I didn't know what to expect here at all. Shining synth line, unfolding tones and guitar lines unassuming, dragging us into that descending progression, in minor key. It's so pretty. The two toms just drive it on, and then the kit and bass makes it anthemic, but with the long holds, it still feels like the beginning, organic and radiant. They're not scared to use silence or just lack of movement, it's a part of movement, I like that. Vocals are ok, not exactly fitting with the rest of it, but that's alright. Synthy anthems driven back upwards (gloriously, and reversedly) by that bass and oh my god. Nice hits, nice hits. Come and see the mind's eye. Kit makes it even more anthemic and awesome. Great hits, damn. Then fades away again. Wails, bits of sound, still pushing back into the verse that we just came down from, like the worst comedown. They don't let it sit, they're ready to hop back into that hugely anthemic, shouting, bombastic, beautiful Mind's Eye part. This rivals Queen. Uh HOLY SHIT THAT SYNTH LINE in triplets, that's how you build tension and a beat. TIGHT HITS! That's great. Tension. Preparedness. Drive. Drive. Fill. YESSS YESS YESS YESS YESS YESS YESS Oh good Carl Sagan that is wonderful. It's everything that it was in the intro, that softness back into this total fucking glory. Oh man, yes. A little wrapup looks at the intro again, and fades out. Fucking amazing. Lovely.
Hot Chip - One Pure Thought More Hot Chip, ok. More lackluster guitar work, great production...this intro pre-beat impresses me a lot less. Again, this a great beat, wonderful to dance to and to just bop along to...the I'll help you on your way part is great, though. It hits the holes in the beat just right...damn, I mean it's a great groove, but there's not much to mine here. I could dance away the hours to this...and in parts there are moments of genius, like that first part of the first chorus, and the part right before the versey part (trip I'd never want to take again), but mostly I'm not impressed, man. They can do better than this. Skipped.

M83 - Teen Angst Awesome synth start. 3-part synth line, containing these strange intervals which just set everything else up. With vocals and kick, starts unfolding. Doubled kick and snare is over the top, but I like where they got. The soaring, the tonal, and the roughly noisy all fitting together. It's a bit, dull, maybe, but then they break it down again. It's exciting, preparing for something greater. New synth lines are added in, harmonies needing to find meaning and resolve and another pretty good buildup into this nice section. I decidedly like these guys, but I wish this was a bit more exciting. Great buildup, more kick, but a different approach; just tones, and rhythm, no catalyzing factor yet, until the silence right before the buildup. That's good stuff. Exciting. They can vary the beat, the texutres, and it's all ok. The muddyness of the sound works against them, but that's ok. Still really good stuff.

Louis XIV - All the Little Pieces Love the quiet tonality, of the piano and violin and tamborine. Understated, unfolding. Hehe, nice bit when the drums come in. It's quiet, but beautiful. The voice line drives it wonderfully. Why is it focused on one channel, though? Anyway, nobody knows. There's still tension when all the little pieces come back, with the violins, and still tentative drums, very much on the . When it shifts to center...it's a bit too loud, things fade away. Not well mixed, in that I can't hear everything. They're willing to make a buildup and take it away, that's good, and then put its elements back slowly. But there's...no fitting together. The lines on their own are nice, like when the violins get more frantic. Maybe it's the earbuds, but I want to hear these guys in a different context. I could really like this, maybe a tad reminiscent of Dresden Dolls in approach, or p'raps Rasputina. But this wasn't that great, sort of strange and floaty in its own world. No credit for artsy endings, either. Only Amanda can do that.

Mando Diao - Ringing Bells Another one, ok. The guy does great guitar work. Everything, all of the echoey parts, are contained nicely by the clear vocals and drum line. Acoustic line helps, that very slight rhythm electric muds things up. Nice shaker, sets it along nicely. Bassline is faint, but good I guess. This goes a few places, but doesn't excited me much. He does a great thing, but it's not my thing.

Flaming Lips - The Gash Fantastically amazing song is fantastically amazing, let me just leave it on so I can fangirl about it. The opening chords sketch the rest of the song (awesome descending line), just in minor modes. Wall of sound, vocal destruction and apocalypse comes down to one jaunty piano line. One of the best drum grooves I've ever heard in my life sits under the immense power of that voice. They know just when to put in those hits to drive everything forward. Such a powerful line, like a grand fucking church to awesomeness. Guitar hits frame it like a painting of said church. Drums make it awesome like the best fucking building which is hopping up and down because of the energy. When the solo line comes in, tension and unsurety arrives...can we really stick with all this glory? Is it ok? YEAH! Violins frame everything. Keep an eye on the piano, friends, for that is the key to the entire piece. I love the way the chords just pop along. And that wall of voices is so damn tight, and versatile. Battles on, battles on. And then...piano chord over ok awesome yes bye

Stream of Consciousness First Impression: Hiro's Pack pt. 3

White Rabbits - The Plot Great energy, great chords, great use of rhythm on the vocals. I feel drawn into their energy, they're good at there. Piano is a strange aspect, but it works. I was worried if the chorus / culmination of the buildup would be worthwhile, but they did a great job of it. They kept up the beat while shifting the instruments, which is the only way you can use that kind of rhythm. Going to half-time would be stupid...anyway, love the bass work, harmonies are really nice. He's not impressed! Second chorus: doesn't really change things up, but you still get a great feeling, because you recognize material from the last chorus, and then the claps, and then a sick breakdown. This is really good songwriting, but also really good thoughts on how to create a beat. It's a great cut here. He's not impressed...but she is. Great great great great great stuff.

Thurston Moore - The Shape is in a Trance Really, really beautiful chords. Very precise acoustic work. Drums are sort of an afterthought, but they do their job. Violins compliment very well...they're really arranged, not just placed there. The drums...are sort of irritating me. They're trying to act as a bridge between the opening and verse parts, but they aren't...fitting. I dunno, this is just me. Beautiful chorus. I'm...getting it now. The drums can fit, it's more of a balance issue. They do fit. It's simple in its parts, and it doesn't make any attempts to soar extra-far for the chorus parts, or really change material. But the acoustic does its work, and everything pivots around that. It's not active listening for me, but it's very pretty, and very well done. Um...electric guitar solo! Ok. That's, um...actually, not so bad, even though it's going on forever. Definitely worth another look, this man.

Empire of the Sun - Walking on a Dream Yessss, another chance to look at these guys. I was hoping that they'd be more...interesting, and not just have a great sound and great production. Great use of beat, almost disco/funk-like. Great use of voice. We are always running for the thrill of it...the chorus is really brilliant. They're not actively engaging, and in some ways they just sit back on their fantastic grooves. But that's ok! That's really ok here. They do it quite well. Nice buildup towards the end...they really are creative musicians!

The Ponys - Double Vision Punkish straight ahead alt rock, with a healthy touch of reverb. I really, really like the basslines, and not much else. It's not bad, but it's pretty derivative...it gets better, lessee. I'm getting more into it...oh, when the hihat comes in, it's pretty sick. Pretty good, but it's not my thing. I've heard crazier punk and better alt-rock.

Elbow - Fugitive Motel Sweet, more Elbow. Um, I'm liking the chords. They're well detached in terms of rhythm too...it just bleeds decrepitude and distance. The vocals work into it...I love the soft hits, over the bass and drums. But they really know how to swell, damn. Good use of harmony, great use of chords from the intro. Such tenderness to it, really. Great use of violins, both atmospherically and melodically. They help in shaping the epic scope of the chorus, which really does work! I got a bit of a chill, there. Nice bridge. Fades out nicely. Really good cut, these guys are geniuses. Um...vocal thingie at the end? Like a mixture of a harmonica and a voice. That's cool, man. That's cool.

Outkast - Atliens That's a good beat there. Uh, a bit silly use of words ("polar bear's toenails" ?), but the bass and drums is just sick. Great atmospheric stuff behind it behind these really good use of lyrics. I'm listening less to the words, and to their quality: their rhythm, when he double-tracks them, etc. I'm missing out, it's true. From what I do hear, he's a bit...wrapped up in himself. He's not really talking about anything. For rap, I really prefer more...substance, I guess (see Subtle, Nas, Tech N9ne, Cunninlynguists, etc. ) But it's not bad, by any means.

Flaming Lips - Sound of Failure Strange choice for a lips song. Not a bad song by any means, but nowhere near my favorite on At War with the Mystics. Vein of Stars was sick on record, and sick live. But this is still a really good cut. I know I love it. This reminds me, I gotta pick up Embryonic.

Ween - Transdermal Celebration I've heard Detachable Penis, and I guess that's not all of what they do. But I don't see a lot of originality. The basslines and rhythm guitar lines are really great, but I don't have much to say about this. It's not my thing. I skipped past the rest of it.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Ain't No Easy Way Nice blues acoustic. Good octaves...great use of drums to frame it. Wonderful groove, I love it. Nice chorus, that's really creative. Holy shit, and then the harmonica and extra hits, all with those acoustics going. This is fantastic, it really is. It's blues with a rock pacing, or maybe rock with a bluesy feel...either way, it's really good. Really creative and even artful, but most of all it's a great groove and great sound. It doesn't get fatiguing at all...although it is short. I really really like it.

Kasabian - Fast Ruse You sure like Kasbian, don't you Hiro. Good chords, nice texture for the opening, going into sort of ok grooves (like before). But the guitar work is really good. They really fill out the song, then add the vocals and the aaaahhhhhing. First verse is sick that way...and then why cut all that out? Why? I mean, the other parts are still good, but I don't know why you would do that. You had such great energy. But then there's a chorusy breakdown and another buildup, and it just keeps chugging on. I'm not the biggest fans of what they do...I don't think their songwriting is always that great. But they do a really good job here. Tick, tick, tock! That's energy, there. Lightning in the skyyyy. Really good groove to it. Dance and spirit to it.

Concert: Thisquietarmy + Litchens + OM

I'm up in Montreal for the weekend, and I wanted to see a show before I left. It's the Ska festival this weekend, and just walking by a few clubs gave me the willies, so I resolved to see a show...and it turns out OM was playing. On the entire chalkboard of groups coming through that venue (Casa Rosa), there were only two groups I knew, and one of them happened to be playing tonight. So I grabbed a ticket and jumped in.

Let me say that I don't actually know OM. They're on the same label as Joanna Newsom, so I know of OM, and that they've released a new album, and they do some sort of metal-like thing. I got a bit of introduction by getting there at door, and sitting next to the drummer. He was talking about the spiritual influences on the music, and how legitimate what they do is and how sincerely they can call songs "To a Shrinemaiden" and "Flight of the Eagle." I was pretty skeptical of all that, especially when I saw some guy in a Tool hoodie come in. To quote Andy Falkous:

So anyway, we're gonna do this song, and then, rather falsely on our part, we're gonna fuck off through there for up to 45 seconds, depending on the reaction- Just play another song! - Ah, fucking hell man, just let me finish this sentence. I know- just play another one! - I know you've got things to do! You've gotta go home, you've gotta use the word "vexed" inappropriately. That, that comes across, I can see it in your callow eyes. But, but for this moment, I - Just one more song! - I, I realize that, but you're wearing a tool tshirt, so your opinion is invalid...I enjoy Tool as much as anyone who never listens to them does! At the end of the day, they're a bunch of hippies who dress up like the cast of the matrix. And I applaud you, you have the balls to listen to that kind of lackluster music, but I don't, you see. So... - This was my only tshirt, the other one was in the wash! - I know, I know, I can tell. I can tell.

Call it bias, call it a recognizal of the glorious way he deals with hecklers. I've never listened to Tool, sadly, so I can't judge them. Still, I had an expectation for a crazy sort of show. And it was, and I enjoyed the kind of crazyness it was, for the most part. I'll dive in.

thisquietarmy

Both this guy, and the next guy, had the same approach as Grouper, whom I saw a while back: take an electric guitar, sample the fuck out of it, and make interlocking waves of noise and really dense sounscapes. I loved it with Grouper, and I loved it even more here. The guy had a perfect sense of buildup; he started his one 45-minute song going from the 1 to the 5, setting up some other intervals within that as time went on. He made sure to take the time and energy to craft a really good sample, and then a really good riff over it. He would cycle around something, play a slight melody that just fades away under this wall of sound which is seemingly static, but then changes and grows, in both volume and complexity. It was so organic at its core, though. Very simply played and stated. When he put drums in for his climax parts, they were always very simple, often sparse lines with only kick and snare, but they were just perfect. Somehow, it was much easier for me to get lost in the sound. It helped that he had a video accompaniment, a genius cinema project that really, really drew me in; all sorts of overexposed, fleeting figures among a grey and white background, raindrops falling upwards, two scenes rendered very close together but offset randomly...that kind of stuff. Very artful, very direct. I could tell the guy wasn't just feeling it (though he clearly was), but he was thinking about where he would go next. It started to drag towards the end, but to be honest the opener was the highlight of the night for me. Very, very, very good stuff.

Litchens

This guy was actually the keyboardist / backup guitarist / backup vocalist / tambourinist for OM, but I loved him much better on his own. He didn't use the guitar as well as thisquietarmy, and the parts tended to just sit there, with the ocasional inspired riff over it. No, what set him miles apart was his ovoice. He has this amazingly fluid, versatile, really high voice that he used to add to so many parts of a song. Most of his earlier samples were chirps and some wailing, but after 15 or so minutes he got to mostly wailing. He was clearly into it, in the most spiritual / physical sense possible, to the point of rolling his eyes and twiching a bit. I loved it, I loved seeing him play with mic spacing, and with the quality of his own voice, as these suddenly epic sample lines washed over me. He would open his mouth as wide as possible, as if to get all of what he had within him out there, but his restraint in his voice was fantastic. His energy and spiritual connection to the music didn't go into volume (Fuck Buttons), but into a heightened sense of place within his lines. Perhaps it was because I was getting tired and had to stand, or perhaps because his guitar lines weren't all that good, that I still rate the opener above him. But he had a fantatic, inspiring act, and it showed me how many things you can do with just your body and a guitar. Fabulous stuff.

OM

So...hippie metal? One bassist, who did all the singing and was generally underwhelming; one crazy fucking music artist who was so into what he was doing that he didn't notice how under-miced he was; and one crazy ass, idiot drummer. Members would occasionally pop offstage for 5,10,15 minutes while the other two droned on. Songs got to the length of 20 -25 minutes of the same damn thing. Meditative my ass, it was an excuse to be proggy and artful and all. They did do the metal part of it really well, and the bassist was good at driving the beat along. I loved listening to the drummer play across lines, and I loved hearing whatever I could from the crazy guy...but in the end, I didn't know what communication there was between them. They added in metal-like energy and took out all the development of sound. Well, not all of the development. They had a few really good cuts in the middle of their set, where the bassist slowly changed what he was doing to compliment the drummer and crazy dude, and those went really well. But then the drummer would jump off the stage, or the bassist would hang back and get a cigarette, or the crazy guy would just be vibing out a little too hard. I dunno. I'm going to listen to them recorded to get a better sense, but I was pretty underwhelmed in parts. The first two acts were much better.

Stream of Consciousness First Impression: Hiro's Pack pt. 2

Black Mountain - Angels I like the way the drum compliments everything. IN its lumbering forward, its still really driven. There's not much of a spark to it, but the guitar is really good. I don't have much to say about it, sort of like Great Lake Swimmers, but then oh look a postchorus with this interesting tonality. It doesn't really fit with the rest of the song, but it's good. It's growing on me, the way it hops forward. I don't listen much to stuff like this, Oooh, synthy. Nice blusyness. It's ok.

Doves - Black and White Town Ok, this is cool. Again, me being a sucker for production, which is coming through in the piano and intro. It's not too interesting yet...I like the unfolding in the prechorus, and the way it reintroduces that whole first verse thing with that piano lick. I'll be 10 feet underground. Hey, I like it. Could be a bit punkier. If other songs that are...y'know, more interesting with all this wonderful sonic stuff and rhythm, I could be really really into these guys. Lame guitar solo, ok...eh, can't discount them too much for that. Nice breakdown, you should follow me down. That's good there, that's good. I mean, i love a lot of stuff that doesn't exactly shift amazingly, but for some reason, this touches me less.

M83 - Don't Save Us From the Flames Felt's been trying to get me into this group. I love the sound of it. Energy and feeling to it and then falling away to those vocals with that strange, mechanized piano noise. This is cool, someone 80s throwback, but that's mostly in its energy; in its approach it's modern and excited and wooooooo. After second verse, takes time to buildup, which only puts more energy into that huge sonic wall that I'm expecting and loving so much. This is awesome, this really is. I can't think of anything to change it. It's exciting and brilliant and shining and plaintive and simple and honest but still skilled and able. What a good song, damn.

Broken Social Scene - KC Accidental Soup was going on about this. Sparse and exciting, tension and texture....and holy shit nice drum hook and noise going on here, only to fade back away. That's bold. And it goes again and will they stop it again, no! Blast on through, with even more sense of direction, and then take it away for more. It's like each bit of drum-induced joy framed by the noise parts is varying. It's exciting in that way. It then gets deeper fleshing out the new territory it already went over. That's pretty damn sick, hoo dear. VOCALS! Oh man, that's pretty. Not up to par with use of strings, but still pretty good. Such a cyclicality about it, so pretty. Then more noisey, with a tint more of wisdom, maturation and more insanity in the drums and then YES with horns. That's perfect shit there, that's so damn well done. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Dammit Hiro I do love you, yes. Hoo dear

Cold War Kids - Mexican Dogs I have this record, just never plugged in. Sick polyrhythms, love the ascending line. It's bluesy, somehow, exciting exciting. I just love the groove. It doesn't really go places, but it's so good where it is. That's nice, there. Oh, it is changing about. That's even better. Second chorus gets pretty sick. Cool bridge. All around a great cut, I'd like to see them in different situations, but this is cool as it is.

Mando Diao - Never Seen the Light of Day Didn't we already have a cut by them? I love the harmonies and the energy. Really cool energy, like the cello to go along with it. I don't have a lot to say, but I like it. Good solo. It's somewhat derivative, but it just does what it does really well. I could get into this.

Elbow - The Bones of You Ok this is awesome. Lovely rhythm, great sense of putting lines together, melody is great, love the use of voice. It's hypnotic, because of all that he creates and puts together. And then awesome rockiness. And you're a thousand miles away. So cool, man! The percussion could be more complex, but that's like asking the Empire State to get taller. Love the bass, man. Such great use of lines. Great use of acoustic, the texture only gets denser, and fades out. Great shit here.

A Word on Muse's "The Resistance"

Most of the reviews for Muse's newest album are pretty bad...mixed in some parts, but mostly very derogatory. Many focus on how much they steal, from sources as wide as Chopin, Queen, Jeff Buckley, Thom Yorke, etc. Many focus on how goddamn ridiculous it is for 3 white kids from Devon to be wailing about social unrest and rebellion. Many focus on the degree to which you need to have your head up your ass to write a "symphony" called, of all things, Exogenesis.

There is a new song in three parts, more of a symphony than a song, which I have been working on sporadically for many years [...] As a large percentage of the composition is orchestral, I have never wanted to collaborate with a string arranger as they may make it 'theirs'. So I have been arranging the orchestral elements myself, which is taking a long time. It should hopefully make the next album as the final three tracks.

For one thing, a symphony has such a nobler history, and much more rigidity than they dare to touch (most symphonies use Sonata form). Calling it orchestral is bullshit, as it's just the normal ensemble plus a few strings putting up a melody line. Continuing:

["Exogenesis: Symphony"] is influenced by Rachmaninov, Richard Strauss, Chopin and Pink Floyd. It looks at the concept of 'panspermia'. It is a story of humanity coming to an end and everyone pinning their hopes on a group of astronauts who go out to explore space and spread humanity to another planet. Part 1 is a jaded acceptance that civilization will end. Part 2 is a desperate hope that sending the astronauts to find and populate other planets will be successful alongside the recognition that this is the last hope. Finally, Part 3 is when the astronauts realise that it is just one big cycle, and recognise that unless humanity can change it it will happen all over again

That's a pretty strong list of influences, and I can't say I hear anything besides Chopin in it. The thematic underpinnings that they talk about are, themselves, pretty ridiculous, and starting part 3 with a broken major chord in second inversion played over and over and over and over does not imply cyclicality. I could get deeper and deeper into the way that their approach irritates me, but let's just say that I don't feel that any of them are musical geniuses, or geniuses at all.

But y'know what? I love this album. I love it with all my heart.

I listen to Muse because of what they feel, not what they say or what they intend to mean. The whole damn album is suffused with their energy, taking all sorts of different forms; the hopping 12/8 of Uprising, the dystopic yet hopeful soaring of Resistance, the detached percussion (I had trouble wording this) of Undisclosed desires, the holy shit I am absolutely fucking soaring United States of Eurasia, etc. etc.

Two words on Eurasia: holy shit. For some reason, this piece just pushes my classically-trained buttons in the best possible way. The quiet piano, and very subtle increasing of complexity and crescendo leading to the first guitar chords like some sort of sound orgasm. Those chords in the beginning reference the chorus part, where the chromatic lines ascends and receds over a conserved baseline before the whole thing shifts into unison Eastern scales. That's brilliant, right there, that's balence. The second verse only does that more, using diffent chords and overpinnings to give the same sense of balence and slight modulation, and then creating total balence with all sorts of modulation in the chorus. The swirling drum riffs, rising piano chords, and string lines all pivot about that held bass note, giving this huge sense of reaching and achieving, and then....Eur-aaaaayyyyy-SIA! SIA! SIA SIA! It's Muse's bombast at its best, and in my mind, it's surprisingly artful.

A lot of the songs are like this. Exogenesis deserves a blog for itself and I'm not going to get into it, but it does have some classical integrity as well as that beautiful, compelling, totally self-absorbed bombast. It's an epic, really. The whole album is epic and scope, and for these guys to do that while being 3 white guys from Devon takes a certain amount of stupidity, and a certain amount of skill. I think it's possible to appreciate the album while reconciling both.

Stream of Consciousness First Impressions: Hiro's Pack Part 1

Hiro uploaded 71 songs, so it's taking me a while to get through them. Here's the first 9.

Belle and Sebastian - Act of Apostle Good choice for Belle and Sebastian song, I don't need to listen to it to love it. But thanks for reminding me of them.

Akron/Family - Everyone is Guilty I have a few cuts by them, and have heard their name everywhere, but never actually listened to them. This funky, awesome. Even if it doesn't go places, it's wonderful where it is. All sorts of wonderful grooves, building and receding. Then lyrics, and wonderful. Shit, this is insanely good! Everyone, everyone, everyone, everyone...violins, hot damn! Oooh, baby, this kind of stuff gets me metaphysically wet. Damn, that's intense, with just the drums and vocals and synth, and then the bits in. Why have I never listened to these guys before, this is amazing!!! Fucking shit Hiro much love for pushing me into them. Hahahahah, yes! It even gets better and more interlocking and wonderful, it's like I've walked into a gigantic fucking festival filled with awesome and signing and hitting things. Hitting things! This music is like hitting things in the best way possible. It's so percussive in its tonality, the sense of rhythm is just spot-on. Slow breakdown! I don't believe it! What can't you do? Fucking yesssss, amazing amazing amazing. This is one of the sexiest, most wonderful things I've ever heard. Hoooollllyyyyy shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit I looovvveee youuuu hiiiiirooooo. It's like music and everything. AND NOW A RESATEMENT OF FUNK WITH VIOLINS AND WHOLY WIEOTHWEOF YESSSSSS AND NOW VOCALS AND EVERYONE EVERYONE EVERYONE EVERYONE EVERYONE EVERYONE OHHH YESSSSSS I am getting this when I get home, getting it like weed gets you high. So damn beautiful. So damn...god god god god god yes yes thank you thank you thank you

Tom Vek - C-C (Set me on Fire) Interesting synthy punkish pop. Nice cyclicality to it, well done percussion. I just want to sway along to it in very many ways. Nice, nice. Good stuff.Solid solid solid.

Kasabian - Club Foot Nice resonance, sounds together. And then...punkish guitar and bass and drums and I am displeased as this is just floaty bullshit. The beat isn't enough, guys, there's art to be done. This is like the Chemical Brothers without the real focus on the beat or the songwriting talent, which is the only reason I listen to the Chemical Brothers. Ok, it's not that bad. But there's nothing special to it...wait, let me turn it up. Oh. That's better. Still not great, but it's ok.

Kasabian - Empire Ok, that's how you write a song. Real texture, really percussion. Real sounds, really drives along. Sickly! Oooh, nice tempo thing. I can get into these guys. We're all wasting awaaaayyyy. Nice riffs. I like it, I love it!

The Flaming Lips - Fight Test Don't need to listen to it, if anything.

Mando Diao - If I Don't Live Here Today, I Might Be Here Tomorrow It's pretty cool, but the guy doesn't know how to set a beat for the chorus. Still, really nice use of the violins and acoustic in creating textures. I guess the chorus isn't that bad, it does soar really cooly and stuff. Furi coory, man.

Caesars - Spirit So, are Caesars good? Let's find out. Pretty good, nicely rhythm and movement. Nice echo and feeling and noise and push. It's not really my thing. But it's cool, I guess. O-oh, drums. That's pretty nice. I like the feeling now...ok, the Caesars are pretty good. Problem solved.

Empire of the Sun - Standing on the Shore Uh uh uh holy crap, that's cool. That's cool. That's how you do it. Fuck, man. Perfect beat to it, lovely rotation about it with the guitar. It's like a breath of sun. This is lifting my heart and bringing tears to my eyes. Wow. Wow.

Fugazi - Waiting Room Lounge punk? Or whatever you'd call these guys. It just floats along. Sort of like Stroll, maybe. Well done beats, hehe. Hehe!...NOT MY THING

Hot Chip - And I was a Boy from School This is cool. Good beat...I'm a sucker for good production, but this isn't just that. Good use of rhythm...that vocal line is just perfectly harmonized and placed. Really cool, almost old and new, hard and soft at the same time. Very much in its place, and doesn't go too far, but I like the place it's in. That's just preference, not aesthetics. But it's still...I dunno. Like I said, I'm a sucker for good production, but this isn't just that.

Stream of Consciousness First Impressions: Echo's Pack

On a forum I frequent (yes) we're in the process of trading packets of songs. There are a few floating about now, and the number's getting bigger. So, I guess I'll just post them.

Opeth - Hope Leaves. I know Opeth, I have Hearse, and I enjoy them, but never really got into them. I was really surprised by this song; at first I thought "Man, this is just too floaty and depressed for me," but I started getting really into it. They do a lot of really skilled, unexpected, and well-done things. It's beautiful music, really. The way it comes back to that strange, hypnotic guitar riff, and then builds continuously into a strange...I don't want to call it a crescendo, but things just start falling into place. Everything works so well together, and then when they work on it more you're like "Man, that's worthwhile." The major chords toward the end really give it depth. Such wonderful sonic texture, and use of melody without being overcomplex...it takes great songsmiths to do this without overdoing it. Not exactly intense, but a somewhat enthralling listen.

The Sounds - Midnight Sun. Never heard them before in my life. Dancey at the beginning to the point of being silly, but it's catchy. It flows nicely. The lyrics are...sort of stupid. I like where it goes, but I don't like how it gets there...there's only so much special things there. Then again...it is well done. I'm starting to like it more by the second verse...but it feels very mechanized, in some way. It doesn't...go far, I guess. This is of course a first impression, as all of these are, and I could see myself getting into the chorusy parts...I gotta say it tries to create a harder sound without really putting the energy in....but that guitar solo is pretty awesome. I like that part...I guess I could like this. Why do I hear Cocteau Twins in this?

Something Corporate - She Pains Me Blue Holy shit, I love it. Texture, tone: the piano and the drum rhythm and the wailing guitar...man I wish your voice wasn't so reedy...but shit the piano works so well! Man, that and the drums...this started off so promising, but they aren't doing anything with having the lyrics...in fact they're layering the vocals, which isn't cool...but I could see awesome things coming from this group, if they got a bit punkier. On second thought, it all is pretty cool. I wish it just made more of an effort to drag me in...which it totally does in the bridge oh my fucking god, that's perfect. That's perfect, the second chorus is perfect. Goddamn. That's some hot shit. Very beautiful.

Blind Pilot - The Bitter End Nice acoustic. Quiet and pretty, evocative lyrics...uses the guitar really well to reflect everything. It unfolds wonderfully. Ooh, drums, too. I guess it helps. Oooh, vibes. It's not totally fitting together for me, but I'm bopping my head around to it. It's really beautiful, it grows and draws me in, and that acoustic is just fantastic. The drums could help it out more, but how harsh can I be? That's really cool. Oooh, nice choruses. I'm gettin' this shit.

Birds of Avalon - Think This is cool! Psychadelic, cool intervals, classy sitar. Nice vocal line working over it. It just chugs forward, echoes and soars without really changing. The creepy lyrics enhance it. The unison part is strange, but the bass + drums make it more strange and interesting, and it really builds, balancing between unison and soaring. The bass and guitar get more complex, same as drums. It almost...doesn't fit together...but then it does. It's so well put together, in fact ,that you sort of realize it while you're focusing on how it doesn't make sense. I really really like this. So cool man, I'm glad it's as long as it is. It builds and shrinks and regrows so ingeniously. Solos aren't really solos, but developments to get to somewhere else...hot damn! I could love this. Holy shit, I almost got the chills there. That rarely happens. Oh man it only gets more beat-drivenly awesome, this is like the harder version of Gang Gang Dance, somehow. Love love love. I fucking love you echo, this is hot stuff! I love it! That's going on the fuck yes list, yes. Awesome. Woooo. This is now my jam.

Slow Club - Christmas TV Builds and goes along nicely. Quaint and pretty and glowing. Nice lyrics, and they have nice voices. It's great, great. Pretty cool thing. I feel like singing along, just falling into their world. Good stuff, feels good man.

Keane - This Is the Last Time Electronic strangeness + piano + falsetto voice. It works, I think. It holds, I'm getting into it, if it's a bit overdone- but that doesn't make the buildup any less...not just catchy, although it's boatloads filled with that. And then...falls into ballad cliche...it's well done, and it builds nicely, but this just isn't my thing. I skipped the last half. It...doesn't shine at me.

Pink Floyd - Have a Cigar I can't say I know Wish You Were Here very well, but I don't need to listen to the whole of this song to know I love it. Good choice.

The Rapture - I Am Complete This is the best kind of emo-ish harder stuff. I love the two guitar lines. Drives along nicely, I love the beat. Maybe lags a bit under the vocals...the lyrics are sorta stupid. But the soundscapes are full and filling and wonderful! Lotsa good yes. Cool album art, hey. The chorus just keeps modulating, but y'know that's ok. I wish Sick Puppies did stuff more like this. There's even good development around the guitar lines. Second chorus / pre-chorus cycle is pretty sick, man. P-piano? That's a bit much, even for me. But let's see what they do with it...nice buildup with bassline and the drums, but will it fit in here...that fill's too long...and all you did is make the chorus muddier...but then again it's pivoting in this coolish way. I'm on the fence about this piece, and I'm coming out on the positive. Nice.

The Bravery - This Is Not The End The Bravery has never really disappointed me, from the various cuts I've gotten. I'm gonna spend my time on other things, but the Bravery are pretty good, solidly, somewhat engrossing music. Well-put together, if a bit overdone.

My Twin - Katalonia I just got a wave of fatigue so this isn't gonna be unbiased any more. It's cool...but it's weird. I don't know what to think about it. It's good, it's strange and just sort of paralell to my line of thinking. Tight as hell. I think I like it. Nice melody lines, not too much relience on screaming chords (except in the chorus a bit, in that way it falls into boxes), and for the most part these guys are really creative. Bridge is sick shit, especially with the electric line put in. Oooh, nice cut out, I bet this coming-back part'll be awesome. Yep. I like it, I'll like it more in the future.

Pink Floyd - It's Gold In The ... I don't have to listen to the whole thing

First

Being as that my main focuses in life are in music critique, music composition, various academic things, and other matters, I guess that's what I'll write about. Write what you know, I guess.