Gigi - Maintenant

So for the last while, I've been having some serious envy issues toward Canada. You see, they have CBC whereas those of us who live in the Benighted States of America don't generally get such quality broadcasting. I used to enjoy CBC when I was younger and lived just this side of the
border, but I have since moved too far south to pick up their broadcasts. Some of the advantages are (for TV) Hockey night in Canada, which means a look at Don Cherry's sartorial choice of the week, which by itself is reason enough to emigrate north. It's like in the 80s when we'd all watch the Cosby Show to see what kind of ridiculous sweater Cliff would be wearing this week. Except better. Plus hockey. Anyway, and more to the point, CBC radio plays a metric shitload of really good music. Over the internets, I can really only pick up CBC 3, (which I am pondering fixing by purchasing a device which will let me listen to CBC 2 at night, which is a magical time when even unicorns cannot help but fucking go apeshit and gore people on their horns because the music is so good on CBC 2 at night) and so there I was. Listening to CBC 3 and this song came on. It was "Won't someone tell me" by Gigi. So taken was I, at that magical moment, that I decided on the spot that I must have this album. SO I GOT THE THING.

So, then. What's the deal with this band? Apparently some Canadian guy got his mitts on a couple of old plate reverbs like Phil Spector used to use to create his "wall of sound", and so he decided to make a Phil Spector record minus the murder and 3 foot high spaceball wigs. So over the course of a few years he wrote these songs and recorded them with whomever was around at the time and interested. The result was that he hit it out of the park. Not so much in that it sounds like Phil Spector produced it in the 60s, because it doesn't, or that the songs are derivative, because they're not, the greatness is in how he took this decades-old set of musical conventions and made them fresh again. That sound of old is just the thread that runs through these topically fairly modern sounding songs. I guess you could compare it to one of those new refrigerators that look like they're from the 50s, but without the kitsch. The songs are just good. Even though the songs were recorded over several years by a huge cast of people with a zillion different people singing, they mesh really well together. There's the plate reverb "air" sitting in the mix of course, and plenty of beats and arrangements contemporary to the 60s. The song structures aren't necessarily simplistic, and the lyrics aren't dumb. It draws stylistically, in fact, from a lot more than Spector's catalog. If Cruising with Reuben and the Jets is Zappa's reverent fun-poking at the cheesy music he loved when he was young, this is reverent evolution of AM radio gems. 15 tracks, 13 of them excellent. 2 I skip, and those are the 2 at the end. If you like Spector, or Bacharach, or Hugo Montenegro, and you don't get this album, you are a fool.

YMO - Solid state survivor

It's 2010, let's kick this off with a past look at the future! Who are these dudes and what is this shit? Well, they rose to prominence in the late 1970s as Japan's premiere synth group. They're pretty well regarded world wide, and with good reason. They're all top notch musicians and songwriters. They launched a style of music in their country almost singlehandedly. They mapped out a new way to write pop music that was weird. And unlike the pop music from Japan pretty much since, they sound unmistakably ethnic without being obtuse. This is the band that launched Ryuichi Sakamoto's career, and he's gone all over the place with his movie scores, avant-strange compositions, and general enthusiasm for the new. So what's this sound like, then? Awesome is what it sounds like. It opens with "Technopolis" and its thumping disco bassline, then the many synthesizers come in playing what you don't expect them to without ever playing anything out of place, though it goes from vocoders to weebly squiggles to ringy fancypants twiddles to triumphant horn sounds. Just YOU try to make that shit coherent. These guys do. Also, Yukihiro Takahashi. You'd swear the drums were programmed, but he just plays tighter than a nun's cunt, and does most of the singing while he's at it. The next track isn't that hot, but "Rydeen", one of the band's signatures, is a completely awesome, hard-driving piece of cheese. "Castalia", the next track, is slower and atmospheric, a deconstructed composition of the same kind you hear a lot in Sakamoto's solo career. "Behind the mask" somehow sounds like a robot rollerskating through a park on a sunny day with its choppy rhythms and laid back feel. They cover the Beatles' "Day tripper", then get cinematic again before they close it out with the title track, which probably gave Mark Mothersbaugh a boner. These guys are hugely influential, and even if early synth driven pop music isn't your thing, it's an interesting glimpse at the evolution of music, drawing from any sources that sound good. They STILL pack the house when they get together and play, which is only right. This is what the future will sound like when we finally get those fucking flying cars and silvery jumpsuits.

KARP - Self titled LP

One of the things people don't get is that it is actually called "Self titled LP" and not "KARP".
KARP stands for "Kill All Redneck Pricks", since the band was from Tumwater, WA, and there are tons of rednecks in that vicinity. They formed in the early 90s and kicked ass until the end of the decade, when Jared went on to sing for the amazing TIGHT BROTHERS FROM WAY BACK WHEN, hooting and hollering and proudly shaking a tambourine. But back to KARP and the album at hand, here. It fucking rules. It is sludgy playing with crispy guitar tones. The drumming is fucking crazy double bass drum shit kickery. Wish it were clearer in the recording, though. Damn low budget studios. This album is sludgier than other stuff they did, in a Kyuss sort of vein. It's a whole lot less laid back, though, and it's generally aggressive and crazy and awesome and it starts off with "Bacon industry", which is just amazing to hear as it gets rolling and then the cries of "we're coming after you all" which sets the stage for all the awesomeness that follows. It's easy to imagine these guys dismembering rednecks and burning down their trailers like a bunch of stoner vikings when you listen to this.

THIS IS SOME FUCKIN' RAWK.

Takako Minekawa - Fun 9

This is a really good record. It's one of those deals that you either love or hate, though. She's said to be part of the "Shibuya-kei" scene, although that moniker never really did a lot to describe any of the musicians ascribed to it. She's a synth player who writes songs about cats and numbers and stuff. Usually her songs are driven by some old-fashioned drum machine, and have layers of synth come in and maybe some reverby guitar or something. More often than not she sings in a very childishly high register, so a lot of people will be turned off right there. Whatever, I say. It's all part of her charm. She's just not interested in adhering to any conventions at all, so she whips up some bleepy soundscape and sings about something weird, and the best part of it all is that at the end of it all you notice that you've not only been entertained, but that you're very relaxed. The first track, "Gently waves", is 2 minutes of multitracked a capella with no lyrics, and which doesn't feel a capella at all. Then she takes you through textures and the occasional more structured pop kind of song, but nothing is ever derivative of anything. She plays with the stereo format in ways most musicians forgot you could. It's a great album for headphones. The album ends with "Fancy work funk" which is not funk music, nor is it suited for work. This album is like rolling around in some clouds for a while and then landing in your bed with a bag full of candy. Drugs just make it more so. It floats in, plays with you, and floats away again, and you say "I shall check out more of her music" or else you just say "what the fuck? That is unlistenable" and put on Bob Seger while I tell you that I have met many people in my life, and that you are not among them. True story, ask Ira about it.

Neko Case - Middle Cyclone

So, this one's been out for a week now. I got to hear it streaming on NPR for a week or so prior to its release, and dutifully went and got my copy when it came out. Neko Case has made a trend of her albums subtly improving from one to the next, while all being excellent. I guess it's a pretty fine distinction to make between being disappointed and feeling let down, but let's say this is a bit of a letdown when viewed against the fibonacci-like thread of her entire catalogue up to this point. Don't take that to mean I don't like this, though. Like I said, I dutifully got a copy as soon as I could, and I did so because it's still a fine album. I listened and listened again, and when my feelings on the matter were clear, I decided this: Her strength in performing is at its peak when the songs aren't too slow, and this is a slower album than the perfect "Fox confessor brings the flood". Of the 15 songs, 4 of 'em could have been on her last album. 2 of 'em were covers, (a first for her) Sparks' "never turn your back on mother earth" and Harry Nilsson's "don't forget me", which I saw fit to turn my back on and forget, respectively. One is a field recording of frogs croaking at night and lasts for a half hour. I really like that one, actually, but I also like the sound of Sonic Youth plucking bedsprings in Wharton Tiers' basement, so be advised. The remaining songs are all quite good. The remaining songs are all too slow for me. Almost all of them pick up at some point in the song, which I like. A couple don't, which is meh.
The title track sounds almost like a lullaby, and then a damn music box comes in. Don't try so hard to put me to sleep, Neko! Still, it's a good song. Everything she wrote for this album is good. It's just a whisker too slow to be truly great to my ears. This one straddles the razor's edge of A and B material for me. What to do? Oh, I'll give it two letter grades. That'll work.

Alice Cooper - Killer

What a great album. Can you imagine being a 14 year old in 1971 and picking this one up? With its greasy looking cover and a song about dead babies. Man, what fun. Anyway, it opens up with "under my wheels" and the only time is slows down is on "desperado" which is allegedly about Jim Morrison, but is still pretty good once it gets going. 8 tracks, 5 of which are classic Alice, but there are a couple of rock suites, namely "Halo of flies" and "Killer". They were dabbling in prog, and neither make for very good prog tunes, but fortunately the band was so ill-suited for it that they both come across as "let's play with some stuff that sounds cool". This being the early-ish days of stereo recording, people played with that format a lot more, and they did it to good effect here. Bob Ezrin produced this, which kind of shows, but in a kind of "tried to wrestle control away and was overpowered" kind of way that plays out well in the capable hands of the Alice Cooper band. This is one of those non-classic rock radio, non-hipster co-opted, Non-critically acclaimed, under the radar, old, good rock records that if you ever see a cute girl buying, grab on to her and don't let go, because she just passed the litmus test with flying colors.

Local Rabbits - This is it, here we go

Since I did Sloan a turn, I'll keep spreading the love for our Canadian brethren and tackle the final release from Montreal's superb Local Rabbits. Vocalists/guitarists Peter Elkas and Ben Gunning are perfect foils for each other. Their voices are very different and distinctive on their own, which plays out especially well in the song "Purple & Grey", a conversation between a penis and the brain which keeps it in check. I know, it sounds sophomoric. Trust me, it's not. In fact, it's a rollicking galloping tune with plenty of wit and a great guitar solo and a perfect drum track, though the outro could have been shorter. The band's songwriting has garnered them a lot of comparisons to Steely Dan. I hear it, but they have just as much in common with Thrush Hermit, if not more. Still, jazzy bits and smoothitude float on the surface of their terrific lyrics and tasty guitar, with some really well-placed synth and keyboards thrown under chord progressions that are well, well above the level of sophistication one usually sees coming out of a rock band. Unfortunately, this was their swan song. I haven't picked up their other releases yet, but I certainly shall.

If you're a fan of the Dan, the Halifax exposion, both, or just well-done rock music, get this.

Ween - Chocolate and cheese

Since Crack smoking seems to be a theme today, and since my ears have been accused of smoking it for liking Ween, here's some just for Chuck. Yeah, dude.

16 tracks, two of which I skip. These are "Candi" because it's terrible, and "Drifter in the dark" because it kind of breaks up the flow of the album, despite being a decent song. That leave 14 pieces of awesomeness. It kicks off with "Take me away", which is lounge music at its most exciting. Then it gives you spinal meningitis before it releases you with "freedom of 76". Then, just when you can't put your finger on it, and you cry a tear for eddie, all of a sudden, the roses are free. "baby bitch" is a great song about a shitty girlfriend, "mister would you please help my pony" is awesome if you like songs about fucked up lungs, you skip drifter in the dark most likely, and then Voodoo lady comes on and makes you tap yer toes. If you're Scott Manzo and live on Joppa road, you'll love the song they wrote about it. Even the Sunoco down at one end. Then Candi comes on, you skip it, and listen to "Buenas tardes amigo" instead, because cowboy epics with lines like "maybe I'd sell you a chicken with poison interlaced with the meat" are always good. The H.I.V. song is good, somehow, and "what deaner was talking about" and "don't shit where you eat" are a great way to wind things down. This album is fucking awesome. And for the record, neither my ears or my mouth are crack smokers. I just like music that fucks off in all the right places.