Weekly Whiskey Episode 25

Whew, sorry it's up a bit later than usual again. I'll do better next week!

Essay: Only A Fan Could Love Quebec

Like many similar bands from the “alternative” era, (like, say, Primus), Ween were a really weird band in the early 90s who didn't fit in with grunge or alternative rock. They still benefitted from the willingness of major labels during that time to sign any band they perceived as being alternative and with a chance of having a hit song. Ween's brush with the mainstream came from their single 'Push th' Little Daisies' though celebrity fans like South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker certainly helped.

Ween's time on a major label (Elektra) saw the band, much like They Might Be Giants, moving away from their acerbically strange, 4-track, just-the-two-of-us-playing-everything-and-using-cheap-equipment aesthetic into music that, while still odd and far away from their labelmates, became more polished and professional sounding. Concurrently, Ween pushed their gift for genre experiments as far as it could go, putting out an album of legit country music, 12 Golden Country Greats, and a (loosely) nautical themed homage to the progressive rock they grew up on, The Mollusk. This all culminated with White Pepper in 2000, a succinct record of accessible tunes and some classic rock nods. Ween left Elektra shortly after its release, supposedly due to the label putting out the Paintin' The Town Brown: Ween Live 1990-1998 release, which they had intended for their then-new Chocodog label.

Back on their own, so to speak, Ween seem to have been inspired to return to their roots. This is mainly apparent in the Shinola, Vol. 1 collection, which gathered together outtakes from the band's past. However, the band also went back to their earlier sound for their next album of new material, 2003's Quebec, an album only a fan could love. It's certainly possible that you could lay it on someone who didn't know a thing about Ween and they might 'get' it, or even like it, but the combination of weird lyrics and concepts with weird music means the average listener will wonder what the hell they're listening to. To be fair, Quebec is more akin to White Pepper than Pod, sonically speaking, yet it's still got enough outright bizarre songs and such a variety of styles that it's among the band's most varied and demanding albums.

“Demanding” is indeed a good way to put it because, with 15 tracks in 55 minutes, Quebec never stops throwing curveballs at you. Ween produce some of their best genre experiments here, whether it's the jam band twangy groove of 'Chocolate Town', the Pink Floyd nod 'Captain', or the dreamy psychedelia of 'Alcan Road.' More importantly, there's also Ween following their impulse for off-the-wall pastiches ('Zoloft' sounds like lounge music married to easy listening pop music filtered through, well, drugs) or indescribable oddities with primitive sounding instrumentation, like the drum machine grind of 'So Many People In The Neighborhood' or the fake-out endings of the instrumental 'The Fucked Jam.' Somehow it manages to hold together as a cohesive record and not a slapdash collection of disparate tracks.

Quebec may not qualify as the band's best album; it certainly doesn't qualify as their weirdest. Nevertheless, it's the sort of record only a fan could love: only someone intimately familiar with Ween's discography could make much sense out of this sprawling, diverse, and seemingly random record.

Weekly Whiskey Episode 24

Aaaand it's episode 24! You know what to do.

Squarepusher- Music Is Rotted One Note

In the past, jazz used to be what hip hop or rock are today, which is to say, a mass market, pop culture, and socially relevant genre of music. It survived and remained vital for so long because it kept changing and incorporating elements of other music. However, now jazz has become an element that's incorporated into other types of music. It certainly still exists as its own genre just as blues and reggae do but they, too, are mostly perceived by modern music listeners as elements to add to other kinds of music. Or, at the very least, niche music for small audiences.

During the 80s and 90s, when jazz fusion had burnt itself out and jazz traditionalism had come into prominence, some predicted a new jazz fusion using elements of hip hop and/or electronic music. While this may have happened in some cases, it never really became a thing, so to speak. In fact, what typically happens is the opposite: non-jazz artists sometimes incorporate jazz into their music. This can take the form of anything from the subtle jazz touches on some albums by The Roots or Tortoise to full-on hybrids like Q-Tip's Kamaal The Abstract. In all these cases, however, the jazz part noticeably calls attention to itself, such that you aren't hearing an entirely new style of music so much as you are hearing someone make obvious jazz references.

By that standard, one of the most interesting and unique examples of jazz added to another genre is Squarepusher's Music Is Rotted One Note. It's the sort of record I find myself returning to when I feel burnt out and bored with music, that dreaded “I've heard it all before” sentiment. This album reminds me that there is still a lot of possibilities left: its dark atmosphere and production style feel more akin to something by Burial yet it is arguably Tom Jenkinson's most successful attempt at using his virtuoso bass playing and talent with live drums in an electronic context. The result is something that doesn't sound like jazz, electronic music, or even an electronic musician playing with jazz sounds or tropes.

Music Is Rotted One Note transcends genre labels. There's a seemingly formless, improvised abstraction to the record as a whole, and specifically tracks like 'Circular Flexing', which makes use of rhythmic and melodic elements but never in traditional rhythmic or melodic ways. The drum beats, even the live/non-sampled ones, seem chopped up and edited, as on the stuttering 'Ill Descent.' Meanwhile, chords and riffs on organs have a sound heavily evocative of Miles Davis's late 60s-to-mid-70s electric/fusion sound while also retaining their own feel, half of the time employed for dreamy and atmospheric effect and the other half of the time as punctuations and accents for drum beats or Jenkinson's (sometimes) rapid fire bass lines.

Even with some relatively accessible songs, like 'My Sound', Music Is Rotted One Note defies easy digestion and understanding. It's a record which has no “ah ha!” moment, has no hooks; I'll be damned if, an hour or so after hearing it, I can hum any of the melodies. Nothing about it is easy or obvious yet unlike most difficult or challenging music, its appeal is immediate. It remains a fascinating listen, one that I appreciate more every time I come back to it. 

5 Poorly Drawn Stars Out Of 5

Weekly Whiskey Episode 23

Episode 23, aka the Post-Rock episode, is here! A little later than usual, but eh...

Grouper- A I A : Alien Observer/ A I A : Dream Loss

It's difficult to express the kind of impact Grouper's Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill (hereafter referred to as Dragging) had on my life. “Difficult” because the impact has been subtle; I can't point to any specific revelations or feelings it's given me yet I know it's had an impact all the same. I think about it or hear its songs sometimes when I'm daydreaming or just after I've woken up. There is something profound and moving in the music of Dragging that speaks to me on a level similar to My Bloody Valentine's Loveless. In both cases I can specifically define how the music works, how it was made, what genre it belongs to, and so forth, but all this objective talk of the “form” the music takes doesn't begin to capture the subjective experience, its “function” if you will. Yet these are albums that a wide variety of people have very similar subjective experiences with and I think that speaks to the success of the creators to bring their specific visions and ideas to life.

Superficially, Liz Harris's 2011 double album as Grouper, entitled A I A : Alien Observer/A I A : Dream Loss, sounds identical Dragging. She uses the same haunting, ethereal vocals, floating in from the distance on dense fog walls of reverb and delay, and the same indistinct guitar/organ drones, simple repeated melodic motifs, and soundscapes. The total effect is like standing in dense fog with the music seeming to hang in the air and also simultaneously to be slowly drifting away from the listener. So, pretty much like Dragging, then? Kind of. The subjective experience of this double record is quite different from Dragging. The songs on these two albums are longer, less structured, and less traditional. The music feels more unsettled and uncertain than the last album. This mostly comes on Dream Loss, where Harris even brings in some distortion on the noisy 'I Saw A Ray', a track that would seem more at home as an instrumental on a No Age record or perhaps on Wye Oak's recent Civilian.

If Dragging was a water album, Alien Observer and Dream Loss are wind and cave albums. The vocals on the aptly named 'Wind Return' from Dream Loss sound like they were recorded on a portable mic while standing on a windswept beach at dawn, Harris getting louder and less coherent to be heard over the wind and water. The title track of Alien Observer tells a tale of wanting 'to take a spaceship to the stars', which would seem to suggest a spacey sounding track, but it's the simplest arrangement (and shortest song) on the two records. A simple bubbling keyboard line and Harris's almost-discernible vocals come through relatively restrained reverb, suggesting a deep cave either on a high mountain or far under the sea.

By any normal standards, the A I A albums are monotonous and distant-sounding, neither engaging the listener nor providing any memorable songs. Hell, half the time the songs bleed into each other, as 'I Saw A Ray' does into 'Soul Eraser', as if the delineations between tracks are meaningless. Yet judged by the standards of capturing a moment, a feeling, or an atmosphere, Alien Observer and Dream Loss are as perfectly realized as Dragging even if the things they make you think or feel are more vague and less comforting than that record.

5 Poorly Drawn Stars Out Of 5

Great Album Covers: Bitches Brew

I really did mean to post a review today, but I still haven't given Grouper's double album, A I A: Alien Observer/Dream Loss, enough time or listens to formulate a coherent opinion about.

Still, I recently let a friend borrow a Miles Davis boxset I own (The Cellar Door Sessions one) and it in turn forced me to finally listen to some electric Miles again. And hot damn!

Some of the by turns peaceful/stormy, Earthy/otherworldly music of Bitches Brew is previewed by this cover, so before you even hear the music you already, somehow, intuitively have a good idea of what it's going to sound like judging by the cover.

Extra points go for this being one of those awesome "the album art wraps around onto the back" covers, using the sweating woman as a sort of hinge between the two.

See? One could say it is truly bitchin'. If one were so inclined.