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Beirut Soundtracks France: “The Flying Club Cup”

Published by

tyler

August 31, 2007 in the french, baroque, anytime, horns, folk, orchestrated and worldly. 1 Comment

Before even dipping into the latest Beirut offering The Flying Club Cup there’s a whole host of things to keep in mind.

For starters, while not a concept album, per se, Zach Condon was explicit with the intent of the album, and that intent is not so distant from Sufjan’s own 50 States project, on a much smaller (practical?) scale. Each song is meant to carry with it the air of a particular city in France, and as Joshua points out in his review, it makes atmospheres come alive with rich vibrancy through orchestration just the way the soundtrack for Amelie was able to. While listening to the album and trying to draw connections, it’s sometimes just as easy as a cursory glance at the track name to know which city it’s attached to, cities like “Nantes” or “Cherbourg” are directly connected to the track names (tracks #2 and #11, respectively), while others require a little more digging. Track #12, for instance commemorates the statue of Saint Appolina held at the church in Locronan, and still others are plays on French words (track #5: La Banlieu -> “banlieue” as French for “suburbs”). Translations aren’t always as fruitful, with tracks like “Un Dernier Verre (Pour La Route)” translating to “Last Drink (For The Road)” or track #8 “Forks and Knives (La Fete)” is fêteor celebration.

“Forks and Knives” celebrates with violins, and with easy-come drums that sway to-and-fro, backed by voices that almost cheer in the background, cheering for one old man easing and passing away “he means well, sang ‘I’ve got stories of wine, and of course my childhood forks and knives and then the hospital bed where I turn my life over and over again.” It is homage to the folks who live, breathe, and fade away from the lives of the cities themselves. If it wasn’t for the instrumentals, you might even well up, fortunately it is dosed up with a senile, blissful cheer and you can’t help but sway along.

Interestingly, that last track is followed up by “In The Mausoleum” which stings of piano work reminiscient of Charlie Brown, and for me at least, conjures up in those first few strokes an image of the children scurrying along concrete floors. I also can’t help but think of the famous bass-section keys from “Linus and Lucy“.

If you have a knack for Eastern-European instrumentals like I do, you’ll be delighted to know that Jeremy Barnes (A Hawk and a Hacksaw) is once again a real and strong driving force for the studio work on Club Cup, as is Owen Pallett (of Final Fantasy and Arcade Fire fame) present in supplying guest vocals and even some of the signature string arrangements he’s known for. The trio working in tandem like this is undoubtedly one of the reasons that Beirut, since Gulag has seemed to have aged nearly a decade, successfully generating a palette of decadent tracks, and without compromise can seamlessly move about between the playful and the emotional.

As a final and important note, the cover, lush with old-time beach fun (read: bold stripes and over-clothed women in lawn chairs) was Mr. Condon’s beloved inspiration that hung on his wall during his in-home composing sessions for The Flying Club Cup: “Back in the early 1900s, like the 1910s or 1920s, there used to be this hot air balloon festival in Paris– it’s titled after that and after this very bizarre 1910 photo I found. It’s one of the first color photos ever made, at the World’s Fair, and it…shows all these ancient hot air balloons about to take off in the middle of Paris. I just thought it was the most surreal image I’d seen in a long time.”

listen:
Beirut - Nantes
Beirut - Forks and Knives (La Fete)
Beirut - In The Mausoleum
Vince Guaraldi Trio - Linus and Lucy

The album is slated for an October 9th release on Ba Da Bing records, and Amazon has pre-orders up for when you’re ready.

[header image cropped from this photo]

Supersymmetry

Published by

tyler

August 29, 2007 in gaze, grassroots, horns, folk and tunes. 1 Comment

Common to whole music journalism thing is this tendency for historical throwback references. Marrying one band’s sound to another in a yadda-yadda meta-matchmaking of sounds is kind of our thing, but we don’t always stick to that.

After relating The Most Serene Republic to calculus I thought I’d be done with the mathematizing of music for a while, but almost prophetically a new release made its way to my mailbox by the name of Supersymmetry. To be brief, because even the wiki article on the subject will just be a confabbled mess of physics jargon to most people, supersymmetry was a branch to physics bourne out of the field of quantum theory. It gives us an anchor with which we can wrap our heads around multiple dimensions, and in the simplest sense allows for the possibility of multiple possibilities. It is X·Y = -Y·X. Easy, right?

My initial line of inquiry on listening to this Underwater Getdown album is on trying to decide why they would use this title: is it some physical characteristic of their sound and style? Undoubtedly they are quite liberal with giving the music a number of different spatial qualities: drums with echoes, vocal harmonies, and a general sense of fog looms over the album often quietening the main narrative in order of best fit, and darkening it as though it were illuminated by a damp street light on a moonless night.

It’s interesting to discover which parts of particular songs are highlighted with a punchy, crisp production. A song like “Monrovia” is wrought with the same sound and romantic lyricisim that made Bishop Allen famous. This song, while novel and even full of some of the same emotional urgency you might expect of Bright Eyes, it still says nothing for this Supersymmetry.

Moving on (backwards, even) past a few tracks like “Power Grid” and “Awake At Attention” - forgettable ones as the band dips into salty and unsavoury waters, we move onto their single. This is the track that lured me into the whole thing. A stargazing song, spatial and swooning the instrumentals are fantastic, and the lyrics the X on our map.

“Slingshot” is the song that makes the album name swell up with meaning and is what we’ve been digging at all along. It is whole world of simultaneity as the narrator wakes to find himself someone else. A Freaky-Friday swap this is not, and a roundabout lecture in physics it is far from. It is, on the otherhand entirely: a bleeding-heart tale of woe, one in which the band ironically finds its strengths and comes across as a musical blend of malady. Instrumentally it sounds like a blend of Arcade Fire and Radiohead - sans lyrical grandiosity and obscure accent, respectively. Being simple as the songs are is far from a criticism of the band, and after giving the album a thorough going-over it’s a relief to find that it’s not shockingly geeky or post-modern physics babble of metaphors.

subatomically split (and then listen):
Underwater Getdown - Slingshot
Underwater Getdown - Monrovia
Underwater Getdown - Patterns

Underwater Getdown are as of yet a wholly untapped talent from the southern state of Arizona, doing their own thing and selling physical copies of the album from their own site. $10 via paypal and you can get Supersymmetry to your door, with the sweet serenity of knowing that your pennies will probably go toward paying for another of their picturesque holidays.

James Blackshaw makes beards a thing of the past.

Published by

tyler

August 21, 2007 in dronez, instrumentals, psychedelia, folk and tunes. 1 Comment

Dragon lizards are born with beards, and male turkeys have the innate tendency to grow chest hair which we affectionately call a “beard”. We, like mountain goats, must brave this brazen landscape of follicular transcendence and nurture them to their fullest potential, all the while hoping for the best, most vikingest of beards to bristle forth from our chins.

Imagine to everyone’s surprise when they find out that the spirtually tuned James Blackshaw, like myself, can’t hardly even grow one. He can, on the upshot, play a mean 12-string though.

I’ve been dipping into the world of 12-string guitar, and not long after first setting foot in this realm did I find Sir Richard Bishop, who is perhaps the most prolific and worldly player alive today of this instrument. His fingers spider along the strings creating aural, sonic webs that entrap you in his state of mind, which is often one of spiritual dualism, both with a concrete appeal (often to the tune of an Eastern ceremonial tradition), and with an improvisational air that clues you in to the fact that he’s gone somewhere you can’t hardly imagine.

By no means is it a stretch to say that improvisation and spontaneity are a necessary condition for transcendence. That is perhaps one of the most fundamental ideas carried forth with Buddhistic (and related) religions. No amount of calculatable planning will ever lead anyone beyond; even modern-day thinkers like Maslow (of my own school of thought) knew that much.

James Blackshaw may not be as indoctrinated to the Eastern school of thought, but he certainly has technical ability nearly on par with Sir Richard. At 25, he’s already put out 6 full-lengths, 2 compilations, and a live CD. It is with his latest, The Cloud of Unknowing, that he abandons most any element that may soothe, in favour of those with a more characteristic light.

“The Mirror Speaks” for instance, has its entire atmosphere caked in the dirty tones of a frantic funerary ballad, and only in the hazy front of the piece do you hear notes that in their definition seem to be waging war on the darkness looming; a short-formed Ragnarok of sorts, as the demons dance on his 12-string. The end, a slow decay into one is as the two sides approach slumber, and for now rest.

It’s hard to describe what it is to be entranced by this music, but to say that he himself recognizes the drone-like features of his music is to say a whole lot. It is at once a fog of threaded states of mind, and it seems almost as though he were depicting the mind’s tangled activity itself in song as a microcosm, with the unconscious as the hazy overtone, and the conscious as the intermitently defined plucking of strings.

I think the one clear line to be drawn between his works and Sir Richard’s would stem from his young age; he has a furor that is hard to restrain, and because of this it tends to go fewer places within each 10-minute span - the places though, are assuredly just as rich wherever they may go.

entrance:
James Blackshaw - The Mirror Speaks

The Cloud of Unknowing is out on Tompkins Square records, and can be had for $15, over here.

I am the dotted line.

Published by

tyler

August 10, 2007 in lo-fi, anytime, wordy, fuzz, folk and tunes. 3 Comments

Okay so I’ll admit: I have the habit of moving music (from whatever source) to my iPod as soon as I get it. I feel like if I’m to hear something for the first time, it should be in conditions as close to an isolation chamber as I can manage, and so It’s rare that I feel like auditing something new at home, at the helm of my control tower (as Alley affectionately calls it) where traffic and cat noises abound.

The way I listen to music is not unlike reading an adventure book for the first time. I navigate on whim or fancy, barely taking the time to digest the names what’s being clicked through until something perks my ears, or the adventure suddenly comes to a dead end. It would seem that on my iPod this morning was something like a prophecy.

It’s been within my circle of friends for a while now an intricate series of debates on art, creativity, and essentially what it means to embody culture. Being a mash of artists, philosophers and psychologists, we each tackle these things with a head full of our own ideas, and I usually love what comes of it, but lately it seems that these questions, too, have been headed for dead ends.

After seeing to it that my iPod play something, the first thing that came about was this track by Deer Tick. The words, surreal:

When I talk about these debates we have, I see these dead ends in form of an apparition, which is to say in no form at all. They seem to be headed nowhere because honestly I don’t think anyone is taking them anywhere; part fear, and part fatalism I think we’ve forgotten that life and art are more than simple fill-ins. The mind is more than alchemical, the world is more than mere reductionism, and life is more than simply humble routine.

The trouble I think is in our education: this professional training is more like definitional exercise than mentoring, and when that mentality bleeds into other aspects of life (like the very core of creativity) we somehow think we can change the world by definition. Motile minds we have no more.

Anyway, I know I can only blather in philo-spaek for so long before Matt comes back from vacation and shuns me for being a weirdo. I prefer to talk about something real to me than simply gush about this track, so think about it, and think about this Deer Tick song: “Art Isn’t Real” - it’s more than just strings and strings of words. Pretty strings as they are.

P.S. If you really need a sense of the music, you can go by FEOW!’s description: “[It] is not going to be the record they play at the dance party in the warehouse that you got all done up for. This will be the record you listen to on the drive back, alone and after you’ve sobered up enough to make it.” Personally, it reminds me of a folked-out Black Heart Procession married to a stripped-down, early John Vanderslice.

isolate, (for just a little bit)?:
Deer Tick - Art Isn’t Real
Deer Tick - Standing At The Threshold
Deer Tick - Axe Is Forever

The album, War Elephant lands in just shy of a month on FEOW! Records. You can find Deer Tick’s website here, and then there’s also his Myspace.

Flight of the Conchords extend their play.

Published by

tyler

August 7, 2007 in tongue-in-cheek, folk, videos and tunes. 0 Comments

I was turned on to these guys a while ago, but I live in the underground so I hope by now you’re all savvy with these guys. They began their career like most comedians, doing the stand-up routines, (the comedy hard-knocks), then found themselves with a BBC Radio gig, and eventually wound up with an HBO special. The HBO show is really a damn funny one in all regards, and I recommend you look it up.

What it amounts to is two guys who have no idea what love means, spending all their days being infatuated with someone or other, making every sort of faux pas you can imagine. Oh, and also it’s a folk musical. Without that last part it wouldn’t amount to much, I suppose; did I mention it’s funny?

On the flipside, if you only know them by their HBO presence, you should definitely do some digging on YouTube, lest you miss something like this:

And now, these guys are finally kick-starting their real musical career, still with the folk-comedy bit as their game, but at least with some studio material this time. The EP, titled The Distant Future is an amalgam of studio and live tracks - just about half-and-half, and the tracklist goes like this:

It landed today @ Amazon via Sub Pop, and at a mere $5 it ain’t no wallet-busting business.

you into it?
Flight of the Conchords - Business Time (EP version)
Flight of the Conchords - Robots (Live) (EP version)
Flight of the Conchords - Something Special for the Ladies
Flight of the Conchords - Frodo (2000 L.O.T.R. rejected demo version)

Devendra’s “Seahorse” is epic.

Published by

tyler

August 6, 2007 in epic, folk and videos. 0 Comments

After seeing this over at GvsB and just sitting in awe through Devendra’s “not music video” of the most powerhouse folk-goes-epic tracks I’ve heard, well, I had to say something. It makes my spine tingle even after my fourth listen through, so who am I to keep to myself? Here’s to waiting for the album.

You can see the high-res video over at Devendra’s own site.

dig it mp3 style:
Devendra Banhart - Seahorse

When all of a sudden Neil Young drives past and gives you the finger.

Published by

tyler

August 6, 2007 in lo-fi, not-summertime, wordy, summertime, folk, fuzz and tunes. 3 Comments

French Quarter makes music that is sparse, emotional, and foot-tappingly rhythmic all at the same time.

In this one recording I came across, they were apparently playing live in the alleyway behind the Elna Rae house, and that is not just the location, but also what the recording is called; it was recorded and released by one avid fan to a private music tracker which has since been buried.

The title becomes all the more appropriate once you hear it; and it starts to dig under your skin only after you hear the ambient accompaniment in the form of animals and quiet crowd sing-alongs. There were two dogs that began barking scarcely into their second song and some awkward laughter ensues. He then asks “should we wait for the dogs, or keep going?” and to that comes two crowd responses “no, keep going… play louder,” and as he does the dogs seem to fade into the mix like they were somehow an integral part of the set.

This band is really just one man, Stephen Steinbrink, who describes his own music as “smoking Sandias and listening to In Utero while driving through New Mexico in your Volvo, when all of a sudden Neil Young drives past and gives you the finger.” I’d hate to pin it down as rooted in Neil Youngery, because that never does anyone any justice, but he does have a way with words.

There were more lyrics I wanted to share here, but after typing them out just now they lost something that I just can’t explain.

At the half-way mark on their set comes a gem no one was expecting, but to my delight he manages to twist a Bee Gees hit in ways I never thought were possible. Seriously, there was only one chuckle when Stayin’ Alive came on, and after the first verse it was clear he wasn’t trying to perk any grins. It’s as if his voice commanded something in the words which caused it to lose its 70s groove and take on a whole new meaning. It’s this very callous folksong air that distinguishes him, especially at a live setting like this.

There were no track names given, but I split the recording up into parts for you all (labeling the two cover songs). Enjoy!

listen?
French Quarter - Track 01
French Quarter - Track 02
French Quarter - Track 03
French Quarter - Track 04
French Quarter - Stayin’ Alive (Bee Gees cover)
French Quarter - Track 06
French Quarter - Harvest (Neil Young cover)

You can find him over here, at his Myspace.

The Strength of the Eskimo.

Published by

matt.

August 2, 2007 in coffeehouse, classy ladies, indie and folk. 0 Comments

I randomly stumbled across this CD by Eskimo & Sons this morning on a friend’s recommendation. It is by a band based in Portland, Oregon that, as word has it, are making quite a stir in all the local record shops thereunder. The album name, verbosely titled How Does it Feel to be Crushed by One Man with the Strength of a Million?, is kind of reminiscent of classic Tortoise and, in a loose sense, I think the comparison might be an adequate one to make.

The music is sort of folky, dreamy. It is there but it doesn’t force itself upon you like, say, M.I.A. does. Featuring piano, acoustic guitars & drums, the band makes music that could be compared to a more jazzy Iron & Wine meeting a glitch-free Postal Service. Or a less dramatic Stars. In any case, it is post-rock for a warm Sunday afternoon.

And really, while the music is proficient, it is the vocals of Danielle Sullivan, whose voice at times reminds me of CocoRosie without all the sinister undertones (see the background vocals at 1:30 on “No Shit”), that really make the songs memorable. My only complaint is that I only wish she would sing more on the album.

This might be the band’s first “real” release (it was preceded by a 7″ released back in October, 2006) but it must be said: they are definitely off to a good start and I look forward to hear what they come up with next.

sounds of hush:
Eskimo & Sons - The Blizzard.
Eskimo & Sons - No Shit.

How Does it Feel to be Crushed by One Man with the Strength of a Million? is now on-sale through BoyGorilla Records for a scant $7. You can also check out what the band are up to by visiting their homes.

East Coast Leaves, Floating ’round Like Embers

Published by

tyler

August 1, 2007 in minimal, folk and tunes. 0 Comments

[sea wolf press shot]

Looking at this history of this last decade of music you might notice that bears & wolves are all the rage. I mean, you’ve got your Panda Bear, Grizzly Bear, Thunderbear, Minus the Bear (does that one count? think about it.); then you’ve got your Wolf Parade, We Are Wolves, Peter And the Wolf, and Wolf Eyes. I honestly think a Bears vs. Wolves band is in order, to redeem the 2000’s in a way not unlike the current war that seeks to offer similar redemption in a seas vs. land struggle.

You can thank Jack London and Alex Brown Church, for adding yet another wolf to the pack. That name has a history rooted in the 1907 novel by Mr. London, and is more than just exercise in name-dropping old books as you might imagine.

“But, – and there it is, – we want to live and move, though we have no reason to, because it happens that it is the nature of life to live and move, to want to live and move. If it were not for this, life would be dead. It is because of this life that is in you that you dream of your immortality.” – Wolf Larsen. From The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London.

That is the quote Dangerbird Records chose to use in bridging the gap between these two gentlemen in their biography of Sea Wolf, and it does it pretty well.

Church, who is Sea Wolf’s singular driving force is first and foremost a songwriter, with striking words like the autobiographical story in “I Made A Resolution,” where he relates to the listener the proverbial 2′x4′ that cleared his mental cobwebs only after having to deal with an imprisoned father, and a murdered brother.

I’ve been listening to his EP that was released back in May: Get to the River Before It Runs Too Low. The album is a serene work with catchy melodies which is both simple & concise; I’d have to put it along the same lines as M. Ward’s Transfiguration of Vincent. It’s folk music at its most vulnerable, and leads in with a beautiful cello & guitar pair on the title track “You’re a Wolf” which I’d suggest you acquaint yourself with.

Sea Wolf has an LP dropping later this year called Leaves In The River, and for now you’ll have to satisfy yourself with the EP which can be had at Amazon, and the few songs that are out around the ‘nets.

howl?
Sea Wolf - You’re A Wolf

see also:
Sea Wolf’s Myspace.
Rock Sellout for another track and a pretty picture.
blogs are for dogs also has a track, from the LP.

The Thrills just aren’t very Thrilling.

Published by

matt.

July 31, 2007 in tummy ache, indie, grassroots, folk and tunes. 0 Comments

Perhaps it is to my detriment that when I hear the word “thrill”, my mind immediately adds an “er” and conjures images of 80’s dancing zombies. But I don’t think so. That shit was badass and deserves all recognition it gets.

Yet, such thoughts have no place here as, if something could be the complete opposite of badass… it is the Thrills, the band.

A quintet from Dublin, The Thrills make low-key indie rock - at times sounding like Coldplay without the production or a more modern Neil Young. The fact that their latest offering, Teenager, is themed around teenage nostalgia doesn’t really help matters. Based upon the sound of the album, these guys’ adolescent lives were as exciting as Canadian History 101.

Not to completely dismiss the album… As, at times, it is “pretty” or, at very least, maintains such a distinct tone throughout the album that, if one likes one track, they will almost surely like them all. It is kind of like a humorless Belle & Sebastian or less academic Colin Meloy juxtaposed against sickeningly sweet melodies. This is the kind of album that real teenagers would get beat up for listening to.

The implicit intention of the album is to revisit the glory days of the sunshine of the Beach Boys or the candidness of the Smiths, but I fear the band accomplishes neither. Instead, they offer up a plate of polished & warm easy-listening nostalgia. Which, really, might be all some of you might want of a record but, personally, it doesn’t quite sit right. At least my adolescence had some spunk, damn it.

as if in a dream:
The Thrills - Restaurant.
The Thrills - No More Empty Words.

Teenager hit shops everywhere yesterday and can be purchased from the likes of Amazon or the iTunes Music Store. For more information, make sure to visit the band’s website.