Great Album Covers: Parallax

It has been a year of very memorable album covers, from the classic 4AD aping cover of Wye Oak's Civilian to the crying crude drawing of Panda Bear's Tomboy to the oblique, borderline-suicidal looking cover of Destroyer's Kaputt. None, however, seems as in tune with its musical content as this.

Atlas Sound is Bradford Cox's solo project outside of Deerhunter, and his covers have featured deformed looking men with Marfan's syndrome-like bodies similar to Cox's own (I think Logos may even have him on the cover). This one, however, glamorizes Cox in a classic 50s/60s pop-vocalist way, with a washed out color style. Yet as close as he is to the camera on the cover, and thus to the viewer...as mellow and accessible as Parallax is as an album...it's all still quite distant and confused. Cox is deliberately averting his gaze, or perhaps he's distracted with a thought of someone or something from the past. Also note that he is still half in darkness.

Anyway, maybe I'm over-analyzing again. All that artsy intellectual ruminating aside, it is a hell of a great cover. And a hell of a great record. But that is a blog entry for another time.

Weekly Whiskey Episode 31

A 'classic' style episode with introductory ramblings, 2007 retrospective segment, and a brief talk-through of records I bought recently.

Washed Out- Within and Without

Is it harder to overcome a ubiquitous, beloved song or a critically acclaimed debut? Ask the hundreds of “one hit wonders” from the past and the answer becomes obvious. This problem becomes deeper when said song either belongs to or helps define a certain scene or subgenre of music. In this regard, Washed Out's career has mostly amounted to being known as one of the main pillars of chillwave as well as being the guy who made the music ('Feel It All Around') that Portlandia uses for its theme song.

Even setting aside whether or not he'll ever top 'Feel It All Around', it's obvious that Within and Without is destined to either disappoint or please only those who want more of the same. To be sure, there is no song here as good as 'Feel It All Around', and even this record's best moments don't top what he's done before. I will concede that they do often meet the level of his preceding material if only because they sound practically the same.

That's no exaggeration. The main difference between this album and the previous EPs is that the production is even more smooth and bright. Tracks like 'Before' and 'Eyes Be Closed' are the audio equivalent of when you bump up the exposure time on a camera and everything becomes blindingly bright and, er, washed out. What's more, even while the lyrics may occasionally be dark or unsettled, the music goes down as smooth as a particularly sweet German-style white wine. Sometimes, contradictory lyrics and music can work well...but not here.

As for the smoothness part, that's the other minor new wrinkle on Within and Without: most of the harder beats and murky lo-fi/mid-fi production of the EPs are gone. In their place Washed Out has taken a few steps closer to out-and-out synth-pop, albeit a spaced out, slow motion, and dreamy kind of synth-pop. Unfortunately, this sounds much more interesting and memorable than it is. Even when he's attempting something new, as on the electric piano ballad 'A Dedication', the music has a curious ability to be forgotten soon after. When there are hooks, they don't so much sink into you as they pass right through; more like arrows than hooks, really. If you'll allow a bit of autobiography, I'll note here that I listened to this record at least three times before starting this review and I still can't name a song or hum a melody without having to consult iTunes.

Within and Without is an enjoyable, impossible to hate record even if it does have arrows-instead-of-hooks which neither cause pain nor get your attention. Without any rough edges or imperfections, this record ends up being the hipster equivalent of smooth jazz or muzak. It's the perfect soundtrack for American Apparel magazine advertisements or the fifth or sixth day of a staycation, when you're almost looking forward to going back to work because you've been sleeping too much.

3 Poorly Drawn Stars Out Of 5

Girls- Father, Son, Holy Ghost

Of all the retro influenced indie bands on the way up, Girls have the most interesting backstory, leader Christopher Owens having grown up as part of a religious cult. Yet for all the drama surrounding the band's past and the reportedly drug fueled making of their debut, Album, they've been a relatively forgettable band for me. At times on their Album they sounded like a more glossy and professional version of Wavves (like on 'Big Bad Mean Mother Fucker'). With more listens, my opinion of it has dulled slightly over the past couple years. By and large the band's reach surpassed their grasp, giving their music the feeling of a group trying on other sounds instead of forging their own.

Father, Son, Holy Ghost continues this “trying on sounds” feel though it is more successful at it. 'Die' posits the band as Black Mountain-esque 70s inspired rockers though not as beefy or slavishly retro. If Girls still haven't perfected their own sound, this record is at least entertaining because they're trying on some new hats and doing it well. Moreso than the debut, this is a record of ambition. It's telling that only three of the songs are less than four minutes long, with 'Vomit', 'Just A Song', and 'Forgiveness' offering just enough ideas and wrinkles to justify their length. Meanwhile, tracks 'Saying I Love You' and 'Magic' continue Girls's reverence for classic 70s AM pop music, though they sound too similar to Album and their influences to be true standouts.

Unlike many of their retro influenced contemporaries, Girls lack any true experimental, psychedelic, or noisy influences. This isn't to say their music is always easy or simple, as the above mentioned long songs testify to...yet even at their most extreme, the songs of Father, Son, Holy Ghost are more akin to, say, Todd Rundgren's Something/Anything? or the less extreme bizarro moments of A Wizard, A True Star than they are other 70s experimental pop like Brian Eno's solo albums. Where Rundgren tipped his cap to 1950s/1960s R&B, Girls do so to the music of his era. Rundgren, however, put enough weird elements and eccentric lyrics in those albums to make them far more than just barely-original songs aping the past. Unfortunately, I still get this feeling when I listen to Father, Son, Holy Ghost, even if it is, yes, a bit better than their debut at avoiding it.

Actually, that's a good summation of Girls' second album as a whole: it's a bit better than their debut. It took me more time to get tired of it, and as a whole it's, well, better. But only by a bit. Considering the wild backstory as mentioned in the opening of this review, it's a little disconcerting how, well, orderly and normal the band's albums have been so far. If the band would forge more of their own identity or go off in some weird directions, they might be capable of something truly great.

4 Pooly Drawn Stars Out Of 5

Weekly Whiskey Episode 30

In this episode...well, you'll see.

Madlib- Shades Of Blue (Unedited)

Just a short review tonight while I work on all the other Essays and reviews I've got going on. Think of this as a trifle; a side project of my normal reviews, if you will. That's a good state of mind to have when also doing something like listening to Madlib's Shades Of Blue, his "invasion"/remix of Blue Note records' vaults. But that's a bit unfair, actually, because even with high expectations, a wet dream like letting someone like Madlib have full access to a jazz label's catalogue turns out to be better than it has any right to be.

Allow me an example of just what I'm babbling about. MF DOOM is a sometimes-prolific artist, and his long running Special Herbs series of instrumental tracks from his various albums and producing gigs is the kind of interesting-but-inessential trifle I mean. They function pretty well as albums in their own right, the sort of kind you might spin when a friend is over and only a couple times a year listen to on your own. It's not as good as hearing the finished products with rappers over them, in the same way that Madlib's tracks here should be "not as good" as hearing them fleshed out with rappers.

However, Madlib's old friend J Dilla likely taught him something about instrumental hip hop with the legendary Donuts, because these songs are even more fleshed out and enjoyable than you'd expect judging by, say, early Madlib circa The Unseen by Quasimoto or mid-period Madlib as heard on Madvillainy by Madvillain. But enough of that technical crap. Madlib finds some deep grooves and head nodding hooks in some unlikely places in those vaults. It's the kind of stuff most MCs would kill to rap over but not be good enough for. A non-rapping appearance by even the formidable MF DOOM on one of the tracks also speaks to how complete Shades Of Blue is without MCs.

Anyway, it comes on two records, so you know the sound quality and mastering is great. And if you're a fan of Madlib, you're probably a record hound who knows what a difference that makes. Or anyway, you're probably a record hound who'd dig this album a lot.

5 Poorly Drawn Stars Out Of 5

Essay: Three Stray Thoughts (Unedited)

1) I've recently been digging into more hip hop, and between discovering the joys of Wu-Tang solo albums via Ghostface Killah and finally getting into the Madlib Blue Note jazz remix record I have, I've been setting aside the reviews and/or other albums I meant to be working on right now to enter into one of these pure discovery periods. What I mean is, I'm listening to music as a pure listener/fan and not a critic. I'm not worrying about whether or not I'm going to review something; I'm not thinking about things I want to say or pose about it.

I think this is how Madlib always makes music.

The dude is ridiculously prolific, to be sure, but I get the feeling for him it's all about pure creation when making music and pure enjoyment when listening to it.

Madlib's debut as his alter ego Quasimoto, called The Unseen, is one of the weirdest hip hop records I've ever heard. It has such a sluggish, slow motion/stoned flow to it...even if you're perfectly sober, it seems to last for two hours. It's an album of scope and variety such that one track, even on your first listen, is bound to hook you and keep you coming back until you love it all.

2) I'm working on a series of essays to discuss and define all those bands like the Vivian Girls, Thee Oh Sees, Black Angels, Woods, Wavves, White Fence, Wooden Shjips, Crystal Stilts, Best Coast, Surfer Blood, Kurt Vile (to some extent), The War On Drugs, Ducktails, Real Estate, Girls, Beach Fossils, etc. I feel like they all have a certain retro vibe in common even though they all sound different.

It's got me to thinking about what sets apart certain bands from other similar bands. How do we define sound in terms of differences? I feel like I resort to vague explanations like “they're more jammy” or “they're more noisy”, but in the end, aren't all genre labels just vague explanations? You could take any genre or subgenre and find a few bands that don't precisely fit your parameters. Yet it's a paradox because without genre labels or vague explanations, it's almost impossible to talk about music in any meaningful way.

3) Lately I've been thinking about doing more posts about non-music topics, so let me use this opportunity to say that the weird CGI Resident Evil movie is on Netflix instant streaming, and that it's well worth a watch if you're a fan of the series. It practically feels like watching a Let's Play of a Resident Evil game, or perhaps an hour and a half or so of cutscenes from a game edited into a movie.