Thursday, January 27, 2005

My New CDs for January 2005

Has it really been more than 3 weeks since I posted to this thing? Unbelievable.

Stopped by Skoolkids last night & did some shopping. It's been a couple of months. I was due.

I bought two DVDs:

Peter Gabriel collection
Residents' Commercial Album

...and a bunch of CDs:

Mastodon - Leviathan
Autolux - Future Perfect
Liars - They Were Wrong So We Drowned
M83 - Before the Dawn Heals Us
Hidden Cameras - Mississauga Goddam
Blonde Redhead - Misery is a Butterfly
DFA Comp #2
Fiery Furnaces - EP
Chemical Brothers - Push the Button

Of the CDs, I've listened to parts of the first five. Here's what I have so far:

Mastodon: Heavy as hell. And catchy, but not in a QOTSA way or a System of a Down way, more in a Monster Magnet way. 30 seconds into the 1st song, I was dialing Spoo cuz this is the sort of shit he might like. One of my colleagues was flipping through an issue of Spin in my office and happened on a profile of the band. She told me she'd known the Mastodon guys for a long time from Atlanta, and even pointed out that she'd had to hold one of them over the toilet on more than one occasion. She's incredibly smart, pregnant by a co-worker whom she's been dating for only slightly longer than she's been pregnant, and covered with tattoos. Four songs in, I'd had enough. I put in Autolux.

Autolux: Seemingly the umpteenth attempt at adapting the Sonic Youth sound to a more populous genre -- in this case, shoegaze. I heard Lush and Curve layered over trademark SY guitar tunings; you might hear My Bloody Valentine. We'd both be right. Curiously, it's produced by none other than Mr. Sam Phillips: T-Bone Burnett. Yet it sounds absolutely nothing like O Brother!, and nothing like Counting Crows either. I noticed this morning Autolux was added to the bill for the Secret Machines Cat's Cradle show in March. Which is good, cuz I kinda like 'em. And they're rumored for Coachella, too! Yay!

Liars: I braced myself for awful and experienced nothing of the sort. Sure it's abrasive, but it's surprisingly listenable. I think it should be considered a legitimate evolution of post-punk: post-post-punk. The dancefloor roots are there, but suppressed. Noisy loops (not unlike the interminable final track on their last CD) dominate the top layer of the soundscape, but there's some catchy melody that drifts in and (mostly) out of visibility there, too. Vocals are intense and the lyrics are obtuse (just look at the title), but it all holds together surprisingly well. Worth a listen.

M83: Bought this one on cred, as my only exposure to their work has been the occasional song bit on radioio Edge. Boy am I glad I did. Imagine Air, crossed with Radiohead, crossed with Caribou (may Manitoba Dick rot in hell, btw), crossed with Orbital at its hardest, crossed with Jean Michel Jarre at his most grandiose. Factor in the gorgeous (but judicious) use of the loud/soft dynamic utilized by Mogwai. And the trippiness of Spacemen 3. What you get is this beautiful and breathtaking record. This is, in fact, everything I was hoping Fennesz would be (but which, sadly, it wasn't). Count on me stuffing my sweaty self into the M83 tent at Coachella. I'm a convert.

Hidden Cameras: This has got to be the gayest CD I have ever heard. I mean that literally -- gayer by several degrees than anything Magnetic Fields ever recorded, this is as gay as gay CDs get. But don't let that sway you! These guys (& gals, if we're being particular) opened for Fiery Furnaces, after which I wrote:

"...from Canada, The Hidden Cameras. I knew they’d be cool when I discovered the drummer and the cellist in the back of the venue playing Galaga before the show. Six folks on a tiny stage, from left to right: 1) Bearded crunchy guy playing upright bass, 2) Seated skinny gayish guy playing cello, 3) Chick drummer, wearing a one-piece Mr. Goodwrench auto mechanic’s outfit, who swears a lot and squirms and bounces like she really really needs her Ritalin, 4) Singer guy, who also plays guitar, who looks an awful lot like a short Krist Novoselic, and who sounds like a more guttural Luka Bloom, 5) Beefy looking guitarist guy, who wears his hair like a British football fan, and who looks remotely like Flea, 6) Keyboardist chick who looks like a grown-up version of Heather Matarazzo as Dawn Weiner, and who dances a bit like her, too. They play a unique brand of folk-stomp indie pop, lyrically focused around some rather lurid queer stuff like golden showers, etc. But their show is so damned fun, their music so catchy, that it’s hard not to like them, and it’s easy not to notice they’re really a bunch of pervs ."

I stand by these gays, I really do, because their music is much more fun than it really has a right to be. Not since The Beautiful South, who've made a career of hiding perversely morose lyrics in cheery melodies, has there been a band that so successfully distracts the casual listener from its lyrical meaning. Listen to it, and you too will soon be singing along: "I want another enema mena mena!" Just like me!

posted by Bill Purdy, 10:59 AM

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