Archives : all posts by Sean

In honour of the bitter, blue-grey winter with which this city is afflicted, I think I'm going to present a week of moody, whinsome rock.

It's a tricky genre, because all of its bands orbit the same creative gas giant: Radiohead. That doesn't mean that they can't do creative work, but, well, comparisons are going to be made.

It's funny, then, that the group with which I commence Moody Week - The Stills - is a band for whom Radiohead isn't the first point of reference. Or even the second. Listening to Logic Will Break Your Heart, which made an astonishingly small splash when it finally arrived, I can understand why the A&R people were shitting themselves, why the band was hyped. The Stills sound like Interpol crossed with Coldplay, plus streaks of U2 and the Strokes (not to mention Joy Division). From this description, they should be the very recipe for alt.rock superstardom, and yet - and yet - has anyone heard them on the radio? I dunno if the Stills' PR people simply suck, if their live show is too heinous, if the band's ska origins are too laughable, or if I'm simply the only person who thinks they're any good, but the Stills' continuing anonymity doesn't make any sense to me. Is this anti-hype backlash?

In any case, submitted for your approval, two cuts from the Stills' debut LP, Logic Will Break Your Heart: yearning, wintry rock'n'roll, straight from the streets of Montreal (via NYC).

The Stills - "Lola Stars and Stripes". The song that opens the record, "Lola" boasts brilliantshining guitar over the simple smack of drums - I like best the way that guitar sound comes and goes, and that it's only used to mark the end of the chorus (which is casual and lovely), and not to jolt us at the beginning.

The Stills - "Let's Roll". Not sure if the thumping bass drum sounds more like something ripped out of Radiohead's "There There," or outta an Offspring or Green Day record. The band loses points for their line about a "wormhole," but the shiny Coldplay-esque chorus is the sort of thing that warms me right up as I tramp the streets. It's banal but absolutely reassuring.

(Oh, some web notes: 1) There have been some great songs posted on fluxblog lately, for any here who don't stop by (particularly the Tussle, DJ Dangermouse, Tussle, and Jose Gonzalez tracks). 2) I've seen the Charlie Brown-does-"Hey Ya" video, and I think it's unexpectedly lame - cool idea, but the same shots repeated endlessly, and with surprisingly little whimsy beyond the initial concept. 3) I was similarly unimpressed with the 40+ minute All-of-the-20th-Century mash-up by Strictly Kev (a contributor to DJ Food). Things were worked together in certain interesting ways, but the matches didn't reveal any of the deeper (melodic/thematic/rhythmic) connections which usually make mash-ups so fun. As I remarked in the MeFi thread, it sounds more like a run-of-the-mill soundcollage than a bona fide remix/mash-up for dancing or active listening. Also: how the heck is this representative of the 20th Century proper, and not just tiny slivers of it [particularly 1999-2003 hip hop and late 1960s pop]?)

two hip-hop bside rarity things today.

Beyonce ft. Ghostface Killah - "Summertime" (remix). This is a lovely, sashaying little remix, taken from a Ghostface mixtape. Ghostface is amusingly confessional, but the sincerity is ultimately really endearing. "this shit is real."

Kanye West and Common - "Better than Yours". A remix of Kelis's "Milkshake," and although it's missing the robotic "la la la la" of the original (ie, my favourite part), it's sorta cool to hear the song as bravado-filled rap, by Kanye and Common of all people.

it's really, really fucking cold in montreal right now. the wind is like this monstrous knife thing, cutting at your face. it makes me weep, really.

so the Arcade Fire are my new old favourite band.

I hadn't given up on them when I saw them at the end of last year, but I had, I think, lost faith in them. I wasn't sure I trusted their judgment. The group wasn't bad, but it wasn't the same band as the one that I had fallen in love with.

And they're still not. For the most part, the show last night lacked the particular pastoral magic that typefied the group's 2002 performances, and their s/t demo. After the concert I bumped into M from the Daily, who said she liked it but that she missed the record's feeling of "snowflakes-gently-falling." The disco bits are mostly gone, too: "Headlights" has been slowed right down, fuzzed right up, and it's difficult npw to imagine the song as a crowd-pleasing dance anthem.

B-b-b-but, the Arcade Fire last evening were extraordinary. They took advantage of me, opening with a shuffling sort of country waltz, like a cabaret version of Royal City: this is the sort of stuff that automatically makes me warm&fuzzy. Once they were in the door, though, they threw off the shambling folk clothes and loosed an hour+ of brazen, brilliant, breath-taking rock music. They were monsters up there, the size of mountains, stamping through cornfields and cities and oceans. The "angst" and "anger" that had bugged me before was reframed as momentum, passion, fierce love. The sheer volume of it - the blast of electric guitars, the sneer of accordion, the panic and poetry of Win's vocals, Regine's siren howl. And the drums: I owe Howard a big apology. Whereas the last time I saw him I heard sloppy, one-note drumming, this time he was thunderous, intelligent, massive. He was a giant hurling fiery boulders down the Marianas Trench. The band's rendition of "No Cars Go" may have been the best they've ever done - the frenzy, the spirit, the musicality, the iceberg-huge crashing, blazing finale. Drums drums DRUMS, violin as a worthy substitute for Will's synths, the yelling and the repetition repetition repetition. The Arcade Fire don't do chamber pop any more - in fact, they don't do pop - but the rock they play is wild and varied and rich. Apart from nu-"Headlights" and "Alexander [?]", every single song they played could be an indie megahit - heck, maybe even a bona fine Billboard hit, with the right producer. Their sounds-likes circled like frantic birds (from Modest Mouse to New Order to Coldplay), and yet it was braver, wiser than all of this. Like Broken Social Scene with its gloves off (and with lyricists worth their salt); like the Flamings Lips if the Lips had been living in a post-apocalyptic no-dancing dystopia and were only now emerging, high-hats ringing, broadswords raised, to reclaim the Earth for youth and love and dream.

The band had stripped away the slightly-annoying theatrics, and Regine (at least) had reinjected her familiar-wonderful fun-wicked allure. It was serious business though: I do miss the whimsy, the gaiety. Still, this new thing - this awesome, driven, clear-eyed music - is as fine as anything else in the whole world right now. It's far better than Montreal's other wunderkind-du-jour (the Unicorns, the Stills, Wolf Parade, uh, Sam Roberts). It's brighter and more lovely and more long-lasting. It's liver and wholer and smarter. It feels, and it fills, and it's got choruses that you can sing along to. It's magnificent.

So yes - the Arcade Fire are back. And if they can make a record which meets the promise of their material, it will explode. Maybe I'll explode. Maybe.

(next show: with the wrens on feb 6!)

Iron and Wine - "Naked As We Came". The second tracked from Iron & Wine's freshly leaked album, Our Endless Numbered Days, destined to be released this spring on Sub Pop. Gone is the hiss of Sam Beam's home-recorded debut, and while it does come at the cost of a little fuzzy intimacy, the clearer fingerpicking - as well as Sam's light (!), free voice, - means that for the first time Iron & Wine doesn't sound like a wet blanket. This is twinkling, fleet-footed folk music, something that I can finally imagine arising out of Beam's Florida home.

Mùm - "Weeping Rock, Rock". Well isn't this interesting. Also from an upcoming album (in this case, Múm's Summer Make Good), this is a noisier, more muscular track than anything I remember off Finally We Are No One. The Icelandic lapfolk group shows a surprising musical depth, here, with the distant blare of horns, the snow-giant crash of drums, and a ghostly-sung melody which feels like something out of Jeunet's Paris-gone-weird City of Lost Children. This is real song, albeity a peculiar one, but isn't nearly so expansive and flat as the band's previous work.

Jonathan Richman - "Give Paris One More Chance". Boy am I kicking myself for missing Jonathan when he was in Montreal a year or two ago. He's like the happiest punk ever, so punk that he needn't be. I love where he almost-sort-of-laughs, here, how he strums away with saxophone and backing vocals, how his goofy rhymes just tumble ever-forward, bad french and all. This track makes me dream a) of Paris, b) of Jonathan Richman playing "Dave" on a new-and-awesome Chimpunks record.

King Geedorah - "Monster Zero". This is the awesome sample-ridden interlude track from last year's MF Doom/King Geedorah record, Take Me To Your Leader. It's a strange little concept album, but this cut boasts Doom's sense of play at its best: oldschool sci-fi samples weave and build into an impressive little climax, and some of the quotes are absolutely terrific (from old records to 2002 anthrax-guy TV coverage). All of this, of course, over a smashy drum sample and a comfortable jazz organ-line. There's no rapping to be found (which means that it's not representative of the album as a whole), but "Monster Zero" should be a hit for the Kid Koala/DJ Food/DJ Shadow crowd.

I had intended to be finished reading The Iliad by this time this evening, but instead, I've not cracked the book open. Alas and alack. Achilles and Hector will have to wait for another day.

As part of some late-winter-cleaning, I put together a big list of CDs that I've got for trade (and, I guess, for sale), which I posted at montrealshows. As you can see, there's an extremely wide variety of material - not all of which is good - but if there's anything that you're interested in, either email me with a list of CDs that you've got for trading, or else a $ offer. Blog comments work, too. Montreal or Ottawa residents preferred, but if there's a will, there's a way. Hopefully some fancy-ticklers there...

As per Michelle's challenge [via tons of other blogs], I've tried to come up with my own "favourite artists for each letter of the alphabet." It's much harder than it looks, if only because artists-one-couldn't-care-less-about (eg: Xiu Xiu) try their damndest to make it on. And then, of course, there's the glut of great bands that orbit B, O, and S. But anyway, in onanistic fashion, here's my personal alphabeticized musical profile-of-the-moment.

A: Arcade Fire, the
B: Beatles, the
C: Cat Power
D: Davis, Miles
E: Eels, the
F: Frames, the
G: Gomez
H: Hayden
I: Iron and Wine
J: Jurado, Damien
K: Kid Koala
L: Lucksmiths, The
M: Mogwai
N: Neutral Milk Hotel
O: Okkervil River
P: Palace
Q: Quest, A Tribe Called [yes, i'm a cheater]
R: Radiohead
S: Songs:Ohia
T: Tragically Hip, the
U: Unicorns, the
V: Velvet Underground, the
X: Xavier Cugat [see Q]
W: Waits, Tom
Y: Yo La Tengo
Z: Zombies, the

Oh right: some music for you to download.

A Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band with Choir - "Sow Some Lonesome Corner So Many Flowers Bloom". I don't think many people would argue that A Silver Mt. Zion have let themselves go, a little, when it comes to their band-name. They also let themselves go when it came to the title of last year's album, "This Is Our Punk-Rock," Thee Rusted Satellites Gather and Sing. But the fact remains that a) they're better than Godspeed You! Black Emperor, the band for which this is a "side-project," and b) they've recorded some of the best post-rock in the world. Crashing crescendos, sure, but also an ear for timbre and composition that exceeds the simplistic dynamics of both Godspeed! and other lesser peers. "Sow Some Lonesome Corner..." is the best thing on Rusted Satellites, a drear collage of thrusting strings, downward-winding electric guitar, and a fantastic mountain-music "so fa la so" choir. The band uses silence wonderfully, and over the track's sixteen minutes, there's a bit of everything - from lulling calm, to noise, to a melodic mist and broken-up samples. If you're interested in catching them live, ASMZ is playing Montreal on February 1st and 2nd - and tickets are only $6 - but word is that the shows are almost sold out. (I'll be going on the 1st.)

Radiohead - "Skttrbrain" (Four Tet remix). The song is a perfect match for Four Tet, first of all. The original is stretched-out and whinsome, Yorke's voice like a piano playing gently in an empty room. Four Tet adds in jumbles of percussion, a more flickering guitar, bells and steampunk sounds. All of a sudden, Radiohead's barren, boring tune has this thick inner life: it's like we're hearing the thump and ooze of Yorke's lovesick robot heart. Organic and fascinating and a much, much better track than the original.

Jim Bryson - "Sleeping in Toronto". A review of Bryson's new record, The North Side Benches will be posted soon on tangmonkey, but here's the album's most radio-friendly cut, a sing-along bit of anti-Toronto propaganda. it comes as part of a long line of Canadian pop-rock with a slight country twinge, but Bryson does it better (imho) than Kathleen Edwards or Blue Rodeo. His voice is so lovable, his "ba ba bas" so serious-but-fun. Like old-school Wilco, with the Beatles-prog removed.

Oh - ILM is inadvertently doing this astonishing Rough Guide thing, with CD-length introductions to every genre/artist conceivable, and new ones being added every hour. Look here. (I've only done one so far.)