Endless Garbage- Endless Garbage

 

Though his self titled debut is rightly considered a classic of 1980s jazz, Jaco Pastorius wanted to surprise people with his second solo album, Word Of Mouth. As such he really fought to make the song 'Crisis' the opening track. Though I haven't been able to find a verifiable written source, it's said that he recorded the song by keeping each musician in somewhat isolation from the others, fading in and out the ever-evolving track so that no musician was truly playing along with all of the others at any given time. Jaco was not particularly thought of as being part of the avant garde or free sides of jazz, so 'Crisis' was forefronted to demonstrate that artists are rarely just one thing. Personally I always took its spotlight placement on Word Of Mouth as a statement of purpose, to show fans and critics that he wasn't just the smooth sounding fusion guy who was a lynchpin of Weather Report and some of Joni Mitchell's best jazz-leaning music. What, then, do I make of the title of John Dwyer's Endless Garbage sideproject and its placement smack dab in the middle of the improv album run? Well, as we'll see in a bit, he himself explains the moniker pretty poetically, so I won't bother. As for the placement, hmmmm...It honestly isn't as important as what the album itself is telling us about his music world: All along, I was never as basic as all those garage rock albums made you think.

Released March 19th, 2021, Endless Garbage was recorded under very different circumstances than the rest of the slate of improv albums. It's inarguably the most pure improv record of them all, by which I mean the songs were completely played with no guiding principles, and other than Dwyer (who edited it together) all they could hear was the drummer, who himself wasn't involved at all beyond providing the initial spark and percussive bedrock. Since I really enjoy his writing, perhaps I should just let Dwyer himself explain. According to the press blurb for the release, it came about like this:

“...[O]ne day, I hear a frenetic, free drummer playing in his garage a few blocks from me. And I think “interesting”. I stand outside his garage staring at the wall, like a fool, for a minute, then decide to leave a note on the car parked there. This is how I ended up meeting and working with Ted Byrnes. He wasn’t creeped out, and he ended up sending me a pile of truly spontaneous drums recordings from the carport to work with. I decided to have every musician come in one at at time and just take a wild pass at their track over the drums. None of these people had ever met or played together. I was the connecting thread. I scratched the surface...but soon realized I would need heavy hitters to make this place habitable...After I spent a bit of time mixing and editing this down to a palatable offering I couldn’t help but think about human consumption. Our limitless need for material possession, for emotional acknowledgment, for as much information to be thrown in our faces in our very short time here on this mortal coil...We leave behind us a wake of destruction. Of course, there are moments of great beauty, ingenuity and compassion along the way. You just have to know where to look. Thus, “Endless Garbage” seemed a fitting title. A cacophonous and glorious sketch of ourselves.”

Anyway, here's the lineup:

John Dwyer- guitar and a bunch more

Ted Byrnes- drums/misc. percussion

Greg Coates- bass

Tomas Dolas- keyboards/synthesizers

Brad Caulkins- saxophones

The only person we haven't seen yet in a previous sideproject is the crucial element, Ted Byrnes. A prolific solo artist and musical collaborator, his website and social media are pretty interesting and some video clips show him experimenting with non traditional instruments. In one performance he is literally playing in and on a stairwell. This makes a lot of sense given that I would describe his style on Endless Garbage as sounding like a free jazz drummer hopped up on caffeine determined to hit every single drum and surface in his house every few seconds, over and over, in a rollicking, continuous clatter. It's the sort of thing you're either going to dig and find intriguing or absolutely hate, and you better get used to it because it's most of what's going on here. Suffice it to say, though, that he isn't going too out there with the textures, so unlike the aforementioned videos you won't be listening to a man play a metal staircase handrail, broken pieces of glass, random metal dishware and, um, a pinecone and an incense holder. I feel like I've either done too many drugs or not enough to 'get' his more junkyard-derived playing, if I'm being honest, but it sure is...something.

More than any other record in his discography outside of the very first OCS release and the Sword & Sandals sideproject, Endless Garbage—like Jaco's 'Crisis'—shows John Dwyer's affinity for the experimental and free/out avenues of music. In its chaos and push-pull between melody-less instrumental texture, its rhythm-less drumming/percussion, its edited layers of sound sculpted to an extent by him, it shows that the improv sideprojects and the Panther Rotate remix album helmed by Dwyer aren't the outliers they initially appeared to be. That said, even more than Sword & Sandals, Endless Garbage is a genre-less exercise in pure sound and experimentation. One can relate something like Sword & Sandals to classic 1960s/70s free jazz/avant garde, but comparing Endless Garbage to even the most 'out' moments of a jazz group like Art Ensemble Of Chicago or live improvisations by Henry Cow and King Crimson doesn't quite cover all the gene sequences, so to speak.

I think we're getting there, though.

Let's further consider 'extreme' music I've explored in the past, unique albums that only partly conform to any strictures or genre conventions, like John Zorn's Spy Vs. Spy: The Music Of Ornette Coleman (free jazz/hardcore punk), Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music (noise/drone), and Autechre's glitchy, enigmatic Confield (IDM/experimental). Ah, but still not quite on the nose enough to fully explain what Endless Garbage is without hearing it for yourself. And maybe that's just it...If anything this record reminds me more of pure free-improv and pure-experimental music, completely untethered to any particular genre, the stuff that writing alone can't come close to capturing. Kissing cousin records that I also find exceedingly difficult to readily define (as I do Endless Garbage) would be things like AMM's AMMMusic, Fred Frith's Guitar Solos, some of Nels Cline's work outside of Wilco but especially Destroy All Nels Cline, the two albums by Don Caballero offshoot Storm & Stress, and, of course, Singable Songs For The Very Young by Raffi.

Maybe rather than try to define what Endless Garbage is, precisely, let's just take a swim in it. 'Vertical Infinity' starts things off, immediately setting the table with Ted Byrnes's clattering everything-and-the-kitchen-sink free drumming. Dwyer pokes around the margins with noodling guitar lines, all while Greg Coates tries to offer any kind of foundational rhythm or melody. A very overt deep breath opens 'No Flutter', which pours on the saxophones and has more of a breathing, droney feel to it before suddenly bursting into 'Goose.' This track sees Byrnes taking the forefront with an especially chaotic solo performance before blurting keyboards increasingly penetrate the dense layer of percussive clutter, giving way to a peaceful drone around the 1:30 mark. The accurately named 'Four' follows, all players seemingly blowing their brains out, including some fluttering flute in the background and a wah-wah pedal coated sax. Side B comes roaring in with 'Lucky You', sounding much like how Side A began, though Coates's booming bass repetitions create a much welcomed pulse to power the circulatory system of the eerie chaos going on, including indistinct vocals/spoken word.

'Pro-Death' never gels into anything memorably different from the rest; it could use something to set it apart on an already short and also-short-on-ideas album. This really undermines how the process used to make this record never creates chance moments of serendipitous synchronization, instead resulting in music that sounds like what it was: completely disconnected musicians improvising freely to already-recorded drumming, with no awareness of each other's playing (other than the glue that is John Dwyer holding/editing it all together). Even he can't seem to make much sense, or interesting nonsense, out of 'Pro-Death.' Things get a bit back on track with 'A Grotesque Display' thanks to the vaguely psychedelic effects processing on some of the instruments. Endless Garbage lets off the gas with the five minute closer 'No Goodbyes', fed by pretty keyboard lines, which is a bit more relaxed in its chaos. Coates attempts to stir up some excitement on bass with a energetic melody around the 3:30 mark but since only Dwyer could hear this, only he can respond with a short lived guitar interjection before we go back to the usual playbook—in other words, formless folderol.

Maybe that should've been the title.

If I am sounding a bit critical and unimpressed, I don't intend to. I'm not so sure Endless Garbage is the sort of record you can really rate or recommend anyway. What I mean is, like the aforementioned records I also find indescribable, I feel like I seek out these extreme fringes of music when I need something to really shake my world up, to give me something new and beyond the usual parameters. It's the same reason people watch weird ass movies like The Holy Mountain. You don't watch it to decide if you enjoy it or don't enjoy it, but to think about and react to something in a pure way that eludes the standard, established vocabulary used to discuss the artform. I remember once showing various clips of that movie to a longtime friend and I think it freaked him out. Likewise I am sure Endless Garbage would lead him to declare “yeah that album title sure is accurate” in a definite, dismissive way. This isn't some elitist art snob slam on him, or anyone who doesn't like what they're experiencing. I guess what I am ultimately trying to say is, you probably already know if something like Endless Garbage or The Holy Mountain is for you. Like me, you may also occasionally want to seek out things you can't easily digest, let alone explain. You may not listen to this album too often, but it'll always be there to re-open the seams of your musical mind palace and allow you to pierce the veil of the mirror held up to you and your established knowledge. There's that famous and famously overused Nietzsche quote about gazing into the abyss and it gazing back...but I don't think Endless Garbage is at all about that negation or annihilation, that evil corruption of the self by an outside/other. Rather it is, to quote Dwyer, there for you to “experience a cacophonous and glorious sketch of ourselves.”

Oh Sees Retrospective #2: 2

Though mostly forgotten today, the short lived ‘freak folk’ resurgence in the early-to-mid 2000s was a kind of catch-all buzzword for groups like Animal Collective, Joanna Newsom, Devendra Banhart, and Grizzly Bear. Knowing what we know now about John Dwyer’s musical journey, it’s odd to think he was ever associated with this subgenre. After all, isn’t he the garage rock/psychedelic guy? Not to mention, wasn’t his first OCS album riddled with noise and experimental techniques?

Time has a funny way of making predictions into false prophecies. The music writers during the height of the ‘freak folk’ era couldn’t have foreseen how far away from that style all of the aforementioned bands would venture. Animal Collective may get all the focus for how different they ended up, but John Dwyer’s OCS gave some of the earliest signs of breaking out. Though the second OCS album, helpfully and simply titled 2, may be a more traditional ‘freak folk’ album than their first, it still retains a daring, searching spirit. Whether this ‘more folk, less freak’ resulted in something to make it worth your time, well, we’ll get to that.

Released on either May 18 or June 14, 2004 (true date is unknown), 2 was part of a bumper crop of ‘freak folk’ albums released that year. Lost to time and popular memory, it doesn’t stand up to the rest of Dwyer’s work, and pales even further in comparison to its 2004 classmates: Animal Collective’s Sung Tongs, Joanna Newsom’s The Milk-Eyed Mender, Grizzly Bear’s Horn Of Plenty, and Devendra Banhart’s Rejoicing In The Hands (and Niño Rojo). Coming from the background of an Oh Sees fan, 2 is by turns charming and quaint, with its hushed vocals, banjos and sloppy acoustic guitars. Coming from the background of a music fan, however, it often sounds like a less refined, more forgettable version of its contemporaries. ‘Killed Yourself’ reminds me way too much of Devendra Banhart’s pre-electric music, to the point I thought maybe Spotify had switched over to him. You can probably guess what ‘Banjo, Sold For Rent’ sounds like: as obvious and boring as a ‘freak folk’ track featuring banjo can get, like listening to someone try to showoff despite having little skill on the instrument.

If it seems like I’m being too hard on 2, I guess I’m as surprised as you are. On paper, I should remember more of it and want to recommend it. It’s a much more enjoyable and easy listen than the first OCS album. When it does dip into similar noise tracks (‘Intermission’, ‘Fretting and Fussing’) or experiments (‘Bisbee’/’Bisbee 2’, ‘Untitled Pt. 6’), they don’t last as long and aren’t as carelessly thrown together. Well, maybe Dwyer could’ve left off the last track, a pointless lofi recording of a boy trying to tell the Goldilocks fairytale, but I digress. Objectively speaking, I should have more positive things to say about 2. Some of the songs are OK and point to later, better music…the Pink Floyd cover is interesting for how faithful it wants to be…it’s nice to hear John and Brigid (I assume it’s her, I couldn’t find any personnel info online) singing together for the first time…yet…

Yet I still don’t have many positive memories of 2. It’s a below average ‘freak folk’ album that would otherwise be lost to time if not for the subsequent work of its creator. While it’s playing I enjoy it…and once it’s over I forget it. It’s a vapor cloud of an album, one that can’t hold its form and quickly dissipates. Competent and crafted enough to be listenable, it has nothing that hooks you or stays with you. 2 is that most disappointing of albums in that it doesn’t offer enough to either love or hate.

Weekly Whiskey Episode 11 (For Realz)

Well, it finally worked. Hope it was worth all the trouble! I have just had one of the worst 24 hour periods of my life, as if the universe wants to make surviving til my vacation as difficult and painful as possible. Such is life.

Album Of The Week: Fuck Buttons- Tarot Sport

It's pretty telling that the first track on Tarot Sport, the new album from Fuck Buttons, is called 'Surf Solar', while the last is dubbed 'Flight Of The Feathered Serpent.' For a duo who mostly spent their debut hovering in place while exploring textural noise, droney minimalism, and, from time to time, incomprehensible muffled screams, it's quite a change to see them producing an album that has a sense of headlong momentum and movement. So, too, have they stripped away most of the noise and all of the screaming while still retaining their own unique electronic sound. Perhaps the biggest change from the (conditionally) must hear Street Horrrsing, however, is that Fuck Buttons are now making something definable as music instead of something that was arguably just musical experiments with the periodic table of sound elements.

Tarot Sport's most crucial progression is the way that the band have embraced the dynamics of songwriting rather than the dynamics of pure sound. The entirety of the album is one long suite that flows into each subsequent song; moreover, they also allow natural ebbs and flows to take place. There's a downright post-rock-ian "peaks and valleys, louds and quiets, minimalism and maximalism" structure to these tracks that helps Tarot Sport connect on an emotional level. I enjoyed Street Horrrsing as a sonic curio, a kind of intellectual think-piece, but it's not the sort of release I feel a connection with or wistfully get urges to listen to again. Not so with Tarot Sport.

I have to admit that I was skeptical when this album started getting really good reviews, since Street Horrrsing was such a demanding, difficult listen. But once the beautiful keyboard washes on the opening of the album kicked in, I immediately had to chuck my expectations out the window. One easy way to put it is that Tarot Sport plays like an IDM/post-rock remix of their first album, gutting out the screams entirely (vocals-without-screaming show up on one track, though I can't for the life of me remember which one), keeping some of the noise elements as texture and contrast rather than the focus, and adding in both persistent electronic beats and post-rock's emotional peaks and valleys. Hell, 'The Lisbon Maru' could pass for a particularly experimental Godspeed! You Black Emperor or Mogwai track, while 'Phantom Limb' has more in common with the experimental beat fuckery of modern Autechre than it doesn't.

Street Horrrsing may have gotten them on the radar, but Tarot Sport is the release that proves Fuck Buttons deserve whatever praise and attention they can get. There's a flow, pacing, and sheer enjoyability to the experience of this album that is years more advanced beyond the debut: in a year with some really excellent, epic, and memorable closing tracks, 'Flight Of The Feathered Serpent' is one of the best. 'Brothersport' and 'Watching The Planets', eat your heart out. Tarot Sport is not for everyone, as it retains some of the noisy textures/washes of sound of their earlier work, but those looking for what is arguably the best and most interesting electronic album of 2009 would be wise to seek it out.

Album of the Week: Sonic Youth- The Eternal

Back on an indie label, minus Jim O'Rourke but plus former Pavement bassist Mark Ibold, Sonic Youth are closing out this decade with an album that may not best their greatest from this decade (2001's Murray Street) but certainly affirms that they still have it. Whatever 'it' is. The Eternal is fantastic noise-pop that is arguably more successful than even Murray Street at splitting the different between noise/lengthy psychdelic improv and pop/melodic songwriting.

If you'll allow me a slight detour, I have to wonder how much having different members has done for Sonic Youth during this decade. Once the band stabilized with now-permanent drummer Steve Shelley around the late 80s, it wasn't until Jim O'Rourke became involved in 200ish that they released their most critically acclaimed and beloved album in years, Murray Street. After two solid albums that followed in the footsteps of that album (reaching a refined, polished, almost noise-less level with 2006's Rather Ripped), O'Rourke left the band to pursue his own projects and the band picked up Ibold as a full time touring bassist and eventual new member. After performing their classic Daydream Nation in its entirety a few times, not to mention going back to the indies after sticking with a major for so long, you have to wonder how much playing their older material along with the fresh blood of Ibold added to The Eternal. Certainly I don't remember noticing the bass lines of Sonic Youth songs before--but that's probably because for a few albums, they didn't bother with any.

So, then, the album. The Eternal sees the band playing all their best cards while adding some new wrinkles to the mix--'Poison Arrow' has the band singing together where normally Thurston, Lee, or Kim solely sang. It's weird to hear their voices together after so long but it works very well. Perhaps the biggest appeal of the album to me is the unforgettable force of Sonic Youth once again playing it loud, heavy, and noisy. While I loved Rather Ripped as much as anyone, it had a little too much drift and lightness, the guitars chiming when they normally ripped and tore. This album still has some of that, but it also brings the 'classic' Sonic Youth guitar skronk and mid 90s psychedelic improv to the fore again. The ultimate effect is an album that, yes, reminds me of my favorite Sonic Youth songs and albums but never sounds like a copy or throwback. Album closer 'Massage The History' has an almost 10 minute run time that makes me think of the Washing Machine/A Thousand Leaves era but has an acoustic guitar(!) and dreamy vocal from Kim that would be more at home on a Yo La Tengo album. 'Sacred Trickster' is probably the most thrilling shot in the arm opening song of a Sonic Youth album in well over a decade, propelling the album to full speed where even Daydream Nation took a few seconds to work up to the full frenzy of 'Teenage Riot.' And 'What We Know' makes excellent use of Ibold's bass, dancing with the always sublime Steve Shelley's drums, revealing what I always assumed about Ibold from his previous associations with Sonic Youth as well as underground in music in general: he was actually wasted on Pavement in a lot of ways. The focus of Sonic Youth has always been the upper registers of noise and atonality, but The Eternal is a refresher course both on how Shelley is and has been their secret weapon along with whoever is pondering the bottom end on bass.

The best compliment I can pay to The Eternal is that it has me curious to see where Sonic Youth will go next. Sonic Nurse and Rather Ripped were good, even great, albums but they didn't leave one wanting more. The Eternal does. It may not end up on my best of '09 list but it's an endlessly satisfying release and probably the best I've heard this year from bands in the "old, established band have still got it" category. Regardless of how I feel about it by year's end, The Eternal will remain an excellent release from a band with no shortage of fascinating and great albums.

Yo La Tengo- I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass

Though I love I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One, Yo La Tengo's other verbosely titled album, And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out, has always held my heart in its hands. The dreamy, surreal atmosphere of it makes for perfect summer evening listening yet the album is also sure to get in at least a little of Yo La Tengo's patented noisy side with the brilliant and brilliantly placed 'Cherry Chapstick.' Yet 2003's Summer Sun mostly saw the band continue the strand of And Then Nothing... while eliminating any but the barest traces of distortion. So when the band released I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass, it felt like a signal to fans that they were going for that I Can Hear The Heart... sound, both albums with long titles and a lot of stylistic variety but always an undercurrent of indie rock and noise pop.

Well, this 2006 album is bald faced sequel to that album. It's an inferior sequel, sure, but it's still good. Actually, taken on its own merits I Am Not Afraid... is an excellent album, and was one of 2006's best, but compared to Yo La Tengo's ever growing discography, it comes off as a bit of a regression. Certain songs recall previous Yo La Tengo classics and the entire album feels like it's paced and patterned after I Can Hear The Heart... So assuming you want more of that 1997 classic, and any music fan should, this is a must hear. The reason I withhold a more ringing endorsement is that, much like Radiohead's Amnesiac in comparison to Kid A, here are two albums that feel of a piece yet have enough different songs and directions to be equally fascinating. Ultimately it'll probably come down to personal preference and/or which one you heard first. Who knows.

I love the way the album is bookended by long squalors of krautrock-drone-beat-meets-noise-pop ('Pass The Hatchet, I Think I'm Goodking') and a psychedelic, self referential jam ('The Story Of Yo La Tango'), I do, but it's the songs in between that offer the most surprise and delight. 'Mr. Tough' is sung in a falsetto voice with a jaunty piano melody; James McNew, the band's secret weapon/underutilized vocalist, offers the chamber/orchestral pop ballad 'Black Flowers'; the tongue in cheek 'Watch Out For Me Ronnie' takes the band into full punk rock territory and has fun along the way. Yet in the midst of these highlights are songs that, as said before, merely recall other Yo La Tengo songs without adding anything. Or are sub par. 'Daphnia' revisits the same ambient instrumental territory as 'Green Arrow' from I Can Hear The Heart... but takes twice as long to have the same effect. 'The Race Is On Again' is a mid-tempo mellow number that reminds me of something off of And Then Nothing... but isn't languid/dreamy enough and, well, damned M.O.R. And 'Song For Mahlia' is much too pleasant for its own good, another song that reminds me of And Then Nothing... but wouldn't fit in with the special atmosphere and finesse of that album.

Is it a sin for a band to be content with making music that sounds like them?? This may seem like a pointless question, but I think you know what I mean. I'm running into a similar problem with the new Wilco album, actually. Wilco (The Album) sounds like Wilco; most of its songs remind me of other Wilco songs. I end up liking the album when I listen to it because I don't feel particularly strong about it either way. I guess the same can be said for I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass.

Album of the Week: Sonic Youth- Washing Machine

"...Sonic Youth, an institution whose guitars are often emulated and never replicated. As does everything else on a record that will startle no one and sound fresh in 2002."

I sometimes forget how long Sonic Youth have been around, but they're a band of survivors who have a lengthy discography three decades deep. There are a few patches in my knowledge of Sonic Youth so any proclamations I can make about their stuff feels kind of half-cocked. Thankfully there's Robert Christgau, who has had a sometimes acrimonious relationship with the band (specifically Thurston Moore), with the quote above. I'm not sure about the claim that it will startle no one, but it's 2009 and Washine Machine sounds as fresh and interesting as their newewst, The Eternal.

Every Sonic Youth album manages the trick of clearly sounding like a Sonic Youth album yet possessing its own distinct identity. Daydream Nation is a sprawling double album; Bad Moon Rising allows its songs to flow together in a suite-like fashion; Murray Street patiently unfolds into glorious psychedelic and noisy avenues. While I've yet to hear Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star, Washing Machine feels like the point where the band re-asserted their experimental and sprawling tendencies. Sonic Youth spent most of the early 90s/late 80s moving toward stripped down, short pop-style songs, but I would argue that they manage this best when the catchy pop moments bubble in and out of the noise and guitar trances. So with 1995's Washing Machine they began to move back to this approach, leading to the lengthy psychedelic/experimental A Thousand Leaves, all those SYR releases, and their material from this decade, which has expertly twisted the threads of punk rock energy, noise/psychedelia, and indie rock/pop.

I really love Washing Machine. In my book it's a five star album but I'm willing to concede that for most people it's got some problems. For starters, it's a weird album even for Sonic Youth: the band closes it with a 19 minute song (which can be heard in its full 25ish minute runtime on their The Destroyed Room collection) yet caved in to their record company and broke up the opening 'Becuz', moving the instrumental outro to later in the album as an untitled track. At the same time, the title track spins out into a white noise mid-section that would put off any casual listener then follows it two songs later with the Kim Gordon/Kim Deal (of the Pixies/Breeders) duet, a homage of sorts to 60s girl groups. The second problem is that the album has no sense of flow or progression. This isn't essential to have a great album but Washing Machine never builds any momentum or a sense of purpose, wandering about for 40 or so minutes before investing the remainder of its runtime on 'The Diamond Sea.'

The final problem with Washing Machine is that there's nothing here to hook newcomers. There are a handful of great 'starter' albums for getting into Sonic Youth, but there's really nothing on Washing Machine that's poppy or accessible enough to pull neophytes in. 'The Diamond Sea', the song part, anyway, is an excellent psychedelic ballad, but there's at least 15 minutes of noise and improv wrapped around it; 'No Queen Blues' has Steve Shelley's patented bouncy drums and some brilliant guitar sounds but ruins its chances with a noisy outro; even Gordon's straightforward 'Becuz' goes for too much chaos and skronk. As mentioned earlier, Sonic Youth were better at mixing the noise and pop at other points in their career, but Washing Machine definitely (one might say, defiantly) sticks closer to noise and rock force than it does memorable songwriting and pop elements.

...which is why I love it so much. Despite the caving in on 'Becuz', from here on out the band did whatever they wanted to, and Washing Machine has a devil may care, relaxed feel. True, Sonic Youth's 90s output is an uneven, contentious set of albums. Nothing really won them the acclaim and interest that Daydream Nation and 2001's "return to form" Murray Street did. But maybe that's why the 90s are such a fascinating era for the established Sonic Youth fan. To paraphrase Christgau, Washing Machine still sounds fresh, but I would add that it can also startle and surprise, too. You just have to already like the band to enjoy it.

Crystal Antlers- Untitled EP

Between bands like Deerhunter, No Age, Liars, Animal Collective, Deerhoof, and Comets On Fire, it's been a pretty diverse and excellent decade for noise rock/pop. And I'm not even that much of an expert to know some of the newer and/or more underground bands that have emerged in the past few years who fit into that group, too. But I think that Crystal Antlers are the first band who take a direct influence from that group while also still maintaining their own sound and inspiring a listener to want to follow their career. And all they've got to their name so far beyond live shows is an EP and a MySpace page.

Listening to this untitled EP for the first time, I very quickly thought they were some kind of Comets On Fire rip off. Specifically Field Recordings From The Sun and earlier era Comets On Fire, when they hadn't quite let their classic rock influences bleed through: noisy, wandering guitars; swirling noise and distortion all over the place; rock solid but loose and rocking drums and bass; an unhinged singer who either shouts or screams everything. But on subsequent listens, this EP starts to take on its own identity and character. Crystal Antlers aren't as jammy as Comets On Fire, for starters. And while they maintain a stupefying level of noise and distortion they sometimes let in moments of psychedelic relief, always showing a keen ability for knowing when to ease up the attack and when to press it home. I don't know how else to explain it, but this music is the sort of stuff you think you'll only want to listen to a couple times before filing it away but then quickly becomes a daily staple. It goes from headache inducer to fist pumper. It helps that, like the aforementioned Comets On Fire, they never forget proper songwriting and rocking amidst all the chaos.

The first two tracks of this EP burn by without a look back until we get to the magnificent 'A Thousand Eyes', which is the Rosetta's Stone to getting this band and why they're good. It starts with some spacey guitar noise and a minimalist melody with tinkling percussion before the full throttle assault hits again, underpinned by an electric organ. Then there's that great moment where the chorus comes out of nowhere and the singer's voice strains to hit the high notes. A brief pause and we're off again, repeating the cycle before we slow things down at the 2:00 mark and let the noise quiet a bit. A psychedelic rock interlude ensues, complete with organ and guitar overlapping each other while the bass and drums pound out a slow motion wallop. Then some "hoo hoo hoo" wordless vocals sweeten the deal a bit, the mix growing denser until we break right back into the chorus. This song reveals all the elements at work in the band's sound: noise, psychedelia, pop songwriting, and flattening rock. On a similar note, the EP closing and appropriately titled 'Parting Song For The Torn Sky' is seven minutes of the best stuff Comets On Fire never recorded, the paint peeling howls enough to stop hearts and awaken the dead. The whole EP package brings to mind old stand-by adjectives like 'incendiary', 'pulverising', and 'powerful' while also demonstrating that sometimes it's not just hyperbole when these terms are used about music.

It's tempting to play a guessing game for how Crystal Antlers's debut album will sound--less noise, more noise, more pop, less pop, more psychedelic, less psychedelic??--but I suppose it's enough for now to enjoy this 6 song sampler platter and appreciate how the band has managed to combine those elements already. This may not be the kind of "out of the blue, fully formed, shot across the bow" that TV On The Radio's debut EP was, but it's still damn good.

Album of the Week: No Age- Nouns

There's a phenomenon for cases of moderate to severe hypothermia known as "paradoxical undressing." There are theories as to why it happens (maybe the intense cold affects the part of the brain that regulates body temperature or maybe blood vessels give out from exertion and thus a surge of blood reaches the limbs and warms them) but since it doesn't happen to every victim and it's dangerous to test, scientists still aren't sure. The first time I heard about this I was reminded of how you're actually more in danger in the desert with less clothing on because lots of light clothing will shield your skin from the sun and keep you from getting sunstroke and sunburn as quickly as you would otherwise. I bring both of these up because it reminds me of the strange phenomenon of listening to noise-y music: you get so used to the ugliness of it that it wraps around to pretty. I don't know why it happens, but I think some immoral parent should raise their children on atonal noise and then expose them to pretty harmonies and see what the results are.

Anyway, this very notion lies at the heart of the noise pop masterpiece Loveless by My Bloody Valentine, an album that is every bit as loud and piercing as the Velvet Underground's best but is somehow incredibly beautiful and warm. I suppose noise and feedback themselves aren't inherently cold or warm, ugly or pretty. It's all in how it's used. This is a lesson that the band No Age have taken to heart.

Nouns is interesting and successful in the way that all the best noise-pop is: it plays with the borders between the inherent dichotomy of the genre itself while maintaining a unique, singular sound. Though only a duo, No Age recall bigger, better-known bands like the aforementioned My Bloody Valentine and noise-pop elder statesmen like Sonic Youth. Where they differentiate themselves is with their use of noise, electronics, and the dynamics of a two-person band. Unlike the less successful noise-pop of Times New Viking, No Age understand that you don't need awful production to make your songs seem experimental and dense. Even with the poppier moments like 'Here Should Be My Home' the album shows an understanding of what makes this kind of music fascinating and timeless; as I alluded to earlier, the best noise-pop concerns itself with the borders between things like noise and pop (duh), warmth and coldness, loud and quiet, ugly and pretty, machine and natural. The instrumentals of Nouns are perhaps the best place to note this, particularly 'Impossible Bouquet' which has an Animal Collective-circa-Sung Tongs acoustic guitar buried in a hive of guitar loops and electronic noise. And while I don't know the words too well, I find the songs with vocals surprisingly catchy despite being buried in fuzz or distortion. Again, Times New Viking are the opposite of the spectrum, a place where I can't really hear their songs and what little comes through doesn't leave an impression.

Nouns is one of those great albums that improves with each listen while giving you the notion that the best is still ahead. I like to call this 'The Bends effect', named after the second album by Radiohead. I loved The Bends but in the context of the rest of that band's discography it comes off like an engagement ring rather than the wedding, honeymoon, or marriage. Wherever No Age end up from here, Nouns will remain an excellent piece of beautiful noise-pop and one of 2008's best "unexpected, from out of left field" releases.

Album of the Week: Deerhoof- Offend Maggie

Deerhoof are an endlessly fascinating band assuming you're a fully baptised member of the tribe who enjoy their music. They're the sort of group who elicit extreme reactions from listeners: you either love them or hate their guts and the guts of the people who listen to them. I don't think of Deerhoof as an extremely experimental band but I have a very skewed perspective. I think it's easy for people like me to forget that bands like the Fiery Furnaces and Animal Collective sound like absolute, intolerable, and pretentious crap to most people. At any rate, if you've never liked Deerhoof before, Offend Maggie will do nothing to change your mind, so you may as well just click away from this review right now and I'll count to five before continuing.

....five. OK, the haters are gone.

Offend Maggie is a mighty fine Deerhoof album. I was more than pleased to hear that the band had added another guitarist to their fold while recording the album because, in my opinion, the band functions best with two guitarists. Deerhoof's sound started to congeal into something interesting with Reveille in 2002. But it was with their next two albums, Apple O' and Milk Man, in 2003 and 2004, recorded after Chris Cohen joined, that they really started to record some great stuff. I still hold The Runners Four as their high point, being a fascinating and sprawling double album and all, but moreso I think it was because they sounded like a band. When Cohen left, their next album, Friend Opportunity, became a lean collection of experimental pop that simultaneously expanded both the band's pop and experimental sides. It's an odd album by any standard, with almost a third of its length given over to the final track, which was an 11 minute epic. Though I like Friend Opportunity, it sounded like a studio album made with little regard for live performances. Watching the now-threesome version of Deerhoof perform shortly after its release, they felt a bit limited. They did a good job of pulling off some of the older material even with only one guitarist, but Friend Opportunity was a bit too ambitious for its own good. 'Kidz Are So Small' doesn't quite translate well to the stage when the same guy playing the odd samples and keyboards has to play the guitar parts, too.

Offend Maggie is a return to the classic two guitarist Deerhoof sound and I welcome it with open arms. The more time that goes on, the more I think of The Runners Four as a masterpiece, so it's good to see the band...well, not returning to that sound, but hearkening back to it. At the same time, while Offend Maggie isn't as good as The Runners Four, it is a musical feast for fans of the band. The emphasis on this album is definitely on the instruments, from the clashing-and-interlocking guitars, bouncing Paul McCartney-esque bass lines, and the ultimate secret weapon of the band, the controlled chaos of Greg Saunier's drums. Deerhoof does their 'spastic prog rock, stop on a dime' stuff here better than ever. However, the downside of all this is that the vocals and lyrics are buried. I'm a fan of Satomi's voice beyond the surface "hey, listen to that weird Japanese chick sing random stuff!!" enjoyment of hipster irony-nauts, so it's a bit sad that I can't really tell what she's singing most of the time. Meanwhile, Saunier continues to deliver his one or two vocal turns per album with 'Family Of Others'; much like his drumming, his voice is a secret weapon for the band, with his child-like innocence and Brian Wilson-esque register.

When the initial excitement of a new Deerhoof album wears off, the inevitable conclusion is reached: it's just another Deerhoof album. You can't fault a band for sounding like themselves, but Offend Maggie is, in the end, Deerhoof doing Deerhoof. This album features some incredible songs but it would be hard to argue that there's anything entirely new about it. Again, this is not a bad thing, but Offend Maggie features some now-standard Deerhoof tropes from albums past, with the annoying/unlistenable song ('This Is God Speaking'), the repetitive-but-addictive song ('Basket Ball Get Your Groove Back'), the epic album closer ('Jagged Fruit'), and the awesome song that doesn't get the praise it deserves ('Buck and Judy'). While Offend Maggie does offer some new tidbits (the acoustic guitar intro to the title track, the sly use of pianos/keyboards here or there) this isn't really an album about change. This is a 'consolidate lessons you've learned' kind of release, putting the emphasis on band dynamics, interplay, and "let's do what we do best" songwriting. This makes for an easy, compulsive listen. Kinda like Wilco's Sky Blue Sky or Radiohead's In Rainbows in that regard, two albums that didn't do anything new but were nevertheless really damn good.

So where does this leave us?? Well, if you're a fan of Deerhoof--which I assume you are if you made it this far into this review--you should rush out immediately and buy this album. It's another great album from a band who've been on a winning streak for five years. Those of you non-fans who've made it this far into my review, well, you won't like Offend Maggie and are best served by giving Friend Opportunity or The Runners Four a try, albums that are a bit more welcoming to newcomers but still have all the elements of Deerhoof that will either excite or sicken you.

The Jesus And Mary Chain- Psychocandy

Since you can't get more than a paragraph or so into a review of Psychocandy without bringing up feedback and noise, I figured I would just attack it head on. I used to hate noise and loud volumes, and I still generally avoid them when I can. I have always hated being around the kind of people who malevolently pop balloons at parties, play music ridiculously loud in their cars, and are incapable of sitting still and being quiet for more than five seconds at a time. Moreover, I was genuinely nervous the first time I listened to the Velvet Underground since I had read so much about the 'noisy' aspects of their music. The idea of feedback scared me for a long time after I accidentally touched the strings of my electric guitar to the amplifier while showing it to a friend shortly after I got for a birthday and a horrendous, deafening, indescribable racket erupted into my ears and body. At some point, though, I began to like noise, feedback, and distortion, probably when I started to hate the world, myself, and other people. I even got around to 'playing' feedback with my guitar. All that said, I still don't like noise music. I have occasional dalliances with it, sure, but I usually require some kind of modifier to go along with 'noise', whether it be 'noise-pop' or 'pretty noise.'

I figured I would just lay all of that out there because Psychocandy, despite the 20+ years of criticism since its release, is still referred to as 'noise pop.' And going into the album with that assumption (and the deadpan recommendation from a record store clerk that it was his "favorite album for about five years"), I was misled. I've been struggling with the album for a few months now, and the curve of my experience with it is pretty much identical to my original relationship with noise and feedback. On first listen I was kind of terrified of the album. It seemed so bleak and menacing, all nihilism and skull throttling bursts of white noise. I didn't listen to it for awhile, afraid to admit to myself or anyone that I didn't like such a 'classic' album because the feedback scared me. Empowered by alcohol, I have since made repeat excursions into the cityscape of Psychocandy and have finally come around to it. It's a great album, but it's great more for what it sounds like than what it is.

See, Psychocandy is not 'noise pop.' But that doesn't help, does it?? Genre distinctions are entirely meaningless and arbitrary; they're shorthand for referring to a general "feel" or "kind" of music when we're too rushed (or lazy) to completely lay down the full story. Allow me to explain what I mean, then. 'Noise pop', to me, is music that allows--wait for it--"noise" and "pop" to co-exist peacefully. This can be pop music with experimental/noisy undertones (see: Deerhoof, Sonic Youth, et. al.) or noise as pop music (see the ethereal, beatiful noise of My Bloody Valentine's Loveless). However, Psychocandy is much more noise than pop most of the time. What little pop there is to be had isn't the 'Beach Boys' kind of pop reviews often refer to it as. Rather, it's more like the Velvet Underground, a druggy, languid pop with a singer who doesn't care. At the same time, most of the songs have a shrieking torrent of noise either constantly on tap or waiting to be poured for the listener. This isn't noise, feedback, and distortion as an enhancement or interesting texture to music. Rather, it's noise as an impediment to enjoying the song that is trapped underneath.

The sad truth about Psychocandy is that, without all that howling noise, nobody would really care about the album. Only 'Just Like Honey' stands up as a classic pop song with or without noise, and it's one of the least feedback-drenched tunes from the album. Without the incredible aural headache you're exposed to on 'Never Understand', all you'd be left with is a sub-par take on Joy Division/Velvet Underground inspired British 80s music. It's telling that the band never recorded another album like this, and the shoegazer bands who are its obvious descendants crafted music that was much more successful at blending 'noise' and 'pop' in a symbiotic way. You can tell they looked more closely to 'Just Like Honey' and 'Inside Me'--which, in retrospect, sound really similar, down to the drumbeat--for inspiration, music that was still challenging and 'noisy' but not so excruciating and forceful about it.

And yet...remember when I said earlier that I liked Psychocandy more for what it sounds like than what it is?? Well, Psychocandy was like a shot-across-the-bow for the 80s underground scene. You're very unlikely to hear an album quite like it from this era, and its sheer extreme-ness garnered it endless talk and debate in British music magazines at the time. Listening to Psychocandy at loud volume is really the only way to hear it for what it truly is: a noisy monolith, a middle finger to polite-and-proper British pop music, and a reptilian-brain-stem endurance test. Psychocandy is an album you experience as much as you hear, and even if you don't like noise music, it's hard to argue with its committment. The Jesus & March Chain weren't fooling around when they recorded this music. The feedback and noise are actually more extreme than that of the Velvet Underground; even if the resultant songs are nowhere near as good or enduring, the sheer sonic assault of the album is brilliant. I mean, is it even music?? It's the sort of album that makes me reconsider what 'music' can be, and what it means to 'enjoy' something. I don't 'enjoy' watching Silence of the Lambs or Schindler's List, yet they're incredible movies. Or should I say "experiences"?? Like them, Psychocandy is not enjoyable in the way I typically associate with its artform, but it is an incredible experience.

To be succinct, what Psychocandy is isn't important, because it's not 'noise pop' and the songs buried below the noise are mostly forgettable. But what Psychocandy sounds like is important because it's an incredible piece of sound violence, nihilistic and painful, that is like nothing you've heard. I don't like it as a piece of music made up of discrete songs to enjoy, but as a slab of noise to be played at loud volume so that I feel it in my whole body. Amazing.

Times New Viking Sound Like Shit

It's exceedingly rare for me to listen to an album and really, truly, want to love it but be unable to utterly adore it because it actively tries to make me not like it. But such is the situation I find myself in with Rip It Off by Times New Viking.

Almost everything you read about this band will say something along the lines of "beneath the lo-fi production, treble-y hiss, and red line distortion lie songs of startling melody and creativity." That's true, but it's often offered as a kind of excuse. The truth is, in 2008, signed to Matador, Times New Viking must have purposely chosen to release an album that sounds this bad. It reminds me of early Pavement as heard on the Westing (By Musket And Sextant) compilation: below average to miserable sound quality that still doesn't ruin the quality of the songs. The difference there is that it was Pavement's first few releases, and with their proper recording debut on Matador, their sound hadn't changed so much as it was refined to a keen edge and you could actually hear it.

On Rip It Off, loud, distorted guitars, thudding drums, and the occasional organ chunks grind their way to the top of the mix, trading space with barely audible vocals. On one hand, the sheer visceral sound of the album has me pumping my fist and shouting "indie rock finally has balls again!!" On the other hand, if the songs didn't sound like they were recorded on the monophonic cassette voice recorder I have in my closet somewhere, I would like it a lot more. Again, my assumption is that the band intentionally wanted the songs to sound so noisy and lo-fi, and I simply don't think it works. When the most shocking moment of your noise-y indie rock album is the part where the sound cleans up for the acoustic ending of 'End Of All Things', something is wrong with your aesthetic.

In the end, I give Times New Viking some grace points. I begrudgingly respect any band who release something that sounds so defiantly lo-fi and noisy in this day and age, not to mention with song titles like 'Times New Viking Vs. Yo La Tengo.' Maybe next time if they meet us halfway, and let us hear the great songs they have buried beneath all the crap, they'll truly have something worth praising.

Album of the Week: Yo La Tengo- Summer Sun

Yo La Tengo- Summer Sun (2003)

Sometimes you meet someone at just the right time and you find you have an album or band in common, and that music becomes the soundtrack to your romance. I can't listen to Summer Sun or And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out without thinking about a summer 3 years ago when I had first begun to go out with a girl. During our second or third date, we went to her parents' house in the country to relax and enjoy the muggy summer night. Listening to the two albums by Yo La Tengo, which have always felt of a pair to me, they perfectly encapsulated the feel of the season and the growing affection between the two of us.

While Yo La Tengo are primarily known for their sprawling, diverse masterpieces like I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One or their early noise/pop gems like Painful, I've always loved their two albums released during the first half of this decade. And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out is generally acknowledged as the superior of the two, and I would tend to agree. Both albums bend toward the narcoleptic/melodic/poppy/free floating/beautiful/air-y/reserved side of Yo La Tengo's sound, playing their post-rock, kraut rock, and jazzy cards from their hand instead of the entire deck or the noise/pop cards.

If any album in Yo La Tengo's discography could be considered a secret masterpiece, it's Summer Sun. The album was released in 2003, during a time when affection for the band was at a low ebb. I certainly don't remember anyone going crazy over the album, and if you didn't happen to like the dream pop direction And Then Nothing... was heading into, then Summer Sun seemed to confirm all fears that Yo La Tengo were becoming a blood-less, noise-less rock band. I mean, at least And Then Nothing... had 'Cherry Chapstick', right??

Perhaps, but my affection for Summer Sun has grown over the past 5 years. It's the sort of album where, in the course of your review, you try not to use words like "mature" and "nuanced" because for many people those are euphemisms for "your Dad will like it, and he never liked (insert band name here) before" and "it's really boring, but if you listen to it more, it becomes slightly less boring." But, well, Summer Sun *is* more mature and nuanced than previous releases. Not only does it further prove that the band are masters of restraint when it comes to ballads ('Don't Have To Be So Sad', the gorgeous closing Big Star cover 'Take Care'), but it shows their capability with instrumentals ('Georgia Vs. Yo La Tengo', most of 'Let's Be Still'). Furthermore, it proves that bassist James McNew is an underutilized vocalist with 'Tiny Birds.'

The odd thing about the album to me is that even the people who think it's fairly mediocre seem to love most of the songs from it. 'Season of the Shark', 'Little Eyes', 'Today Is The Day', and 'Don't Have To Be So Sad' are four of the greatest songs Yo La Tengo have committed to tape, and much loved fan favorites to boot. However, I will admit to one thing: the album could easily lose 'Winter A Go-Go', 'Moonrock Mambo', and 'Let's Be Still' and be both leaner and better for it. And I say that as someone who actually likes these songs.

Summer Sun is a tough album to sum up because my opinion of it is necessarily paradoxical and muddled. It's at once one of the least essential Yo La Tengo albums and at the same time one of the most rewarding and unique. If you're a fan, you've probably already heard it; if you aren't a fan, you're better off starting with I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One or, really, any of their albums released from Painful onward. Still, it's a gorgeous seasonal album that I dig out every time the weather turns warm, and I feel like that summer romance I spoke of earlier might have been slightly less rich if I hadn't had it.

How To Survive a Whiskey Hangover With The Field and Meteos

There is nothing on Earth like a whiskey hangover. It is similar to other hangovers, but somehow worse, more vile and life altering. You wake up in the late morning, and you think you might have gone blind, so you peek one eye open, which somehow hurts. Then you open both eyes and look around the room, a process that hurts even more--sunlight streams in the window, sending a hot light knife into the area behind your eyes which throbs appropriately. The hardest part (well, one of them, anyway) is getting up and out of bed.

Once you do, go to the bathroom and splash some numbingly cold water on your face. Drink a glass or two of water. If it stays down, proceed to try to eat some food. Try to keep the food down. Drink some really strong tea or coffee. Wait a few minutes. Take some aspirin or Tylenol and some nasal decongestant (for some reason when I drink my nose gets really clogged up). Still keeping it all down?? Starting to feel a bit better?? It's time to take your mind off the pain and sickness. No, don't drink more!!

I used to try to medicate hangovers with noise. I thought that it would blow all the bad shit out of my brain through sheer agony. But now I'm more about soothing my brain with repetitive, mellow music. I have discovered that From Here We Go Sublime by The Field is perfect for this. Attach a drool cup to your face and put this on with the iTunes visualizer running. Much better.

For further relief, dig out Meteos for the Nintendo DS. No, not the fucking Disney version. The original. Haven't played it in awhile, have you?? Feels good, doesn't it?? Yes. It might not be as hypnotic as its more popular, readily available brother Lumines, but I find it easier on a hangover.

Assuming you did puke at some point, drink some water, nibble on some dry cereal, and lay on the couch all day watching whatever is on the History Channel or Discovery. Documentaries are the best TV show for getting over a hangover.

Of course, the ultimate hangover cure, as stated in Knocked Up, is to get stoned. But assuming you're like me and don't have access to said substance, I think the above will do you just fine.

Primer: Animal Collective Part 2

Album: Sung Tongs

Why Should I Care?? Sung Tongs is basically the landmark moment in the AC discography. It was the album that got them attention from both critics and music fans alike, partially due to mistakenly being lumped in with the 2004-era ‘freak-folk’ boom, but mostly because it is a fantastic album in its own right. Though I like the previous albums to varying extents, it was only with Sung Tongs that they started writing great songs. ‘Leaf House’ is quite possibly one of the most perfect introductions to the band. Anyway, Sung Tongs represents the logical conclusion to the acoustic experiment of Campfire Songs.

Buy, Ignore, Or “Borrow”: Buy.

Album: Feels

Why Should I Care??: If Sung Tongs perfected the AC’s folky side, then Feels represents the perfection of the electronic side. According to the band, every song is a love song, but these are love songs as filtered through the warped AC lens. The album has a warm, reverb drenched vibe made all the more paradoxically familiar and strange due to the oddly tuned instruments the band used. In short, Feels is every bit the masterpiece Sung Tongs is for very different, but not necessarily opposite, reasons.

Buy, Ignore, Or “Borrow”: Buy.

Album: Strawberry Jam

Why Should I Care??: Well, for starters, 2007 was what I would call a ridiculously good year for music. I’m in the process of making a 2007 mix CD for a friend and I’m having a tough time narrowing it down. With that in mind, Strawberry Jam easily clinches the top album of the year. It is perhaps the most perfect thing the band have yet released, a noise/pop/psychedelic/electronic quilt you can wrap yourself in and never want to come out of. ‘For Reverend Green’, ‘Peacebone’, and ‘Fireworks’ alone are reason enough to need this album.

Buy, Ignore, Or “Borrow”: BUY.

Also Of Note: Young Prayer by Panda Bear (Buy); Pullhair Rubeye by Avey Tare & Kria Brekkan (Buy); Person Pitch by Panda Bear (Buy)

Primer: Animal Collective Part 1

As my current favorite band, I've been itching to cook up an entry about them. I could--and did, on Epinions.com--write lengthy reviews of each album, EP, and side project, but instead I'll spare you the headache and take you through their discography, a few steps at a time.

Album: Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’re Vanished/Danse Manatee

Why Should I Care??: Now packed together as a 2-for-1 CD set, the first two Animal Collective albums are fitfully brilliant and a pretty good value to boot. Critically speaking, they’re my two least favorite Animal Collective albums because they aren’t much like what was to come, and I find them tough to listen to all the way through in one sitting because—especially on Danse Manatee—the songs range in quality from terrible to great-but-not-as-good-as-what’s-to-come. Basically, they sound cool but they aren’t terribly memorable.

Buy, Ignore, Or “Borrow”: Buy. I’m a sucker for a good deal.

Album: Hollinndagain

Why Should I Care??: As it stands, this is the only official live Animal Collective album. There are live tracks scattered across various EPs and singles, but they don’t have the flow of a live show. That said, Hollinndagain is frustrating because while it does give a taste of the live AC experience, it’s nowhere near as rewarding and refined as modern live shows. Essentially, the Animal Collective used lots of electronics, feedback loops, and odd noises and while it sounds cool, just like their previous studio material, it’s extremely tedious and unrewarding. As it’s largely improvised, or sounds like it is, that makes it pretty worthless.

Buy, Ignore, Or “Borrow”: Ignore. If you must hear what they used to sound like live, then “borrow” it.

Album: Campfire Songs

Why Should I Care??: This album is a cool concept and a great result, and easily the best thing they had done up to that point. Campfire Songs was recorded in one long take on a screened in porch on acoustic instruments, with ambient sounds picked up on the mics as well as field recordings added later. There is a haunting, entrancing quality to this droney folk album, an aesthetic that would be perfected on Sung Tongs and Panda Bear’s solo album Young Prayer.

Buy, Ignore, Or “Borrow”: Absolutely buy. This is the hidden gem of their discography.

Album: Here Comes The Indian

Why Should I Care??: This marks the first time their electronic/experimental side produced a great album. Though they weren’t writing “songs” quite yet, the lengthy soundscapes and small bits of melody that intertwine point forward to modern masterpieces. Also, ‘Two Sails On A Sound’ is amazing to listen to while you’re driving through a heavy rainstorm during the day.

Buy, Ignore, Or “Borrow”: Buy. You’ll come back to this album again and again.

Album of the Week: Yo La Tengo-Painful

I'm currently in the midst of a really nasty cold, coughing up my lungs every few minutes and blowing my nose constantly, but the one advantage is that, between my general feeling of being out of it and taking NyQuil at night, I've been in the perfect frame of body and mind to listen to Painful.

The long and short of the Yo La Tengo story is that they're a band of music nerds. Their knowledge and love of the art form is ridiculously encyclopedic, and to top that off, they've been around since 1984 (coincidentally, the year of my birth), so their discography is suitably vast and varied.

Painful falls neatly into the halfway point of their existence, released in 1993, and is something of a watershed for a number of reasons. It was the first album released on Matador after years of casting about in the indie minor leagues, an association that continues to this day. More importantly, I would call it the beginning of the 'modern' Yo La Tengo sound. Though not the first album with then-new bassist James McNew, it is the first that refined the band's sound, perfecting their noise/pop and druggy/psychedelic side with their pastoral, calm ballads and folky moments. Later albums would expand their sound even further, such as the masterpiece I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One, but there is just something special about a moment when a band finally matches their unique sound to genuinely great songs, and Painful is it. Lastly, and this may be the kind of nerdy footnote that the band themselves would love, it marks the first time when the last song on the album is arguably the best.

The early 90s were something of a time when noisy bands tempered their sound to appeal to a more mainstream audience. Yo La Tengo contemporaries Sonic Youth were going through the beginnings of their accessible/classic rock influenced era at the time of Painful so it's interesting to note just how uncompromising the album is, yet it's noise and feedback are not alienating. I've never thought of Yo La Tengo as especially difficult or experimental because their rough edges are rounded off a bit. Even the explicitly noisy tracks like 'Sudden Organ' and the second version of 'Big Day Coming' use distortion and feedback as a textural/melodic device, such that it becomes a blissful, warm sound. In short, this is the kind of thing people mean when they say noise/pop, and while there's a very fine line between the two, when they're balanced just right as they are here, it is glorious. Especially while you're floating around due to illness or cold medicine.

If I were forced name my favorite Yo La Tengo album, it would never be Painful. I don't think that's an insult, really, because their discography is startlingly consistent, and it's hard to displace I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One or And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out in my estimation. All of that said, Painful is a perfectly sublime album in its own right as well as being the cornerstone upon which the modern Yo La Tengo is built. It's that rare beast: an important album and an addictively listenable one at that.