Recommended Listening

The Field- Yesterday & Today

noreply@blogger.com (jeph) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 03:35:00 +0000

If you're anything like me, you get worried after you discover a new, spectacularly good album. Yeah, this one is great, but what about the next? Can its creator make lightning strike twice? I've wondered about this ever since I first found The Field's astounding techno-trance-crossover record From Here We Go Sublime. It remains one of my all-time favorite albums, but its formula and ingredients are so easy to dissect (micro-samples of old pop songs, gauzy electronic filter sweeps and barely-danceable percussion) I was seriously concerned that its follow-up would be either more of the same, or a series of jumbled missteps. The Field's contribution to 2008's Pop Ambient collaboration reinforced these fears- it's a pretty tune that wouldn't sound at all out of place on Sublime, but also did absolutely nothing new.

It was with profound joy and relief, then, that I discovered that Axel Willner's sophmore LP is neither a bland retread nor a catastrophic retooling. The album opens with a gradual fade-in of the standard loops and ambient chords, backed by an insistent reversed drum beat. This first track takes a good four minutes to really get going, but once the "real" drums kick in, it all snaps into place. The track rewards as classic minimalism, as well- listen closely and you discover tons of different layers fading in and out, new chords and dissonances previously unheard in The Field's music. It's a tentative but effective modulation of the sounds we became familiar with on Sublime, and it's the most subtle track Willner has produced to date.

Track two is a total curveball- a (fairly) straight-forward cover of a pop tune that eventually dissolves into a wash of long chords. It sounds like The Field covering an Air song, or vice versa, and it's completely different from anything he's done before. I was initially thrown, but after repeat listens, it's starting to make sense as a deliberate artistic decision (more on that later).

Track three ("Leave It") is as close to straight-up trance as The Field has gone, and like the album opener takes a few minutes to really get started. In this case, the big change comes when a DFA-esque bassline and delayed snare hits fade in around minute 3, and the backing chords fall into one of Willner's trademark back-forth progressions. Once all the elements are in place, the song is content to power along essentially unchanged for another 8 minutes- it's a little much if you're sitting there actively listening to it, but it works great as the backing track to whatever you're doing (drawing comics, for example).

Track four, "Yesterday and Today," is where the album really takes off, and where we begin to see some sure intimations of where Willner could take his sound from here on. It opens with (you guessed it) more gauzy sample-trance, but after 2 1/2 minutes, drops abruptly into a chopped vocal riff that would be right at home on a Daft Punk record. But instead of cranking up the distortion and glimmer into a pop-techno anthem, The Field slowly brings in the filter sweeps, ticking percussion, and microsamples. Then, just when you think the song has done everything it's going to do, a NEW section sneaks in that, again, references US dance acts like LCD Soundsystem, !!!, and The Juan MacLean.

"The More I Do" brings us back to more familiar ground, albeit with a heavier beat than anything The Field ever did on Sublime, and from there we segue into the most intriguing song on the album, "Sequenced." It's a MONSTER- deep, vintagey synth line pumped up by hot-as-fuck live drums, a slick bassline, and gorgeous backing chords that sound equal parts fog- and French-horn. I hear a ton of !!! influence in this track, and can only imagine how hard it must slay live. It eventually morphs into a major-key album-ending cooldown that leaves me utterly satisfied, every time.

My initial-listen Twitter synopsis of Yesterday & Today was that the first half of the album is relatively forgettable and the real meat was in the monster second half, but the longer I listen to it as a whole, the more I'm convinced of its overall viability. Not only are the first three songs serious growers, they help cement the central theme of this album: transition. Each track seems to present a different direction The Field could go in, from subtle modifications to the formula that worked so well on Sublime, to misty covers of other people's tunes, to DFA-esque live-band dance jams. Almost every track morphs into something very different from its beginning section, often multiple times. And there's no denying that at least two of these songs (the titular fourth track and "Sequenced," specifically) are out-and-out masterpieces. It's more subtle, and more muscular, than anything Willner's previous work, and it rewards close listening in a way that very little on Sublime did.

Yesterday & Today isn't a case of lightning striking twice, it's a case of Axel Willner building a monster Tesla coil and directing the lightning where he wants it to go. I can't wait to hear what he does next.

oh god this is awful

noreply@blogger.com (jeph) — Thu, 14 May 2009 12:45:00 +0000

I'm on my fourth draft of an article about how PItchfork has devalued music criticism and even moreso criticism OF music criticism and it's pretty much all pretentious bullshit, so here's the gist:

Most of Pitchfork's writing is shit, but most of the criticism of Pitchfork's writing is shit too. Let's all actually talk about MUSIC instead, okay?

Also Merriweather Post Pavillion is incredibly overrated, it has like two really great songs on it and the rest is forgettable OH YEAH ANIMAL COLLECTIVE APOLOGIST SOCIETY REPRAZENT WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Band of Horses- Cease to Begin

noreply@blogger.com (jeph) — Fri, 01 May 2009 05:52:00 +0000

These days, Band of Horses are my go-to band for getting people into indie rock. Both of their records are so solid, and such good signifiers of everything stereotypically "indie" (jangly guitars, loping, pop-inflected vocals, effective appropriation of another genre- in BoH's case, countrified southern rock) that they're a can't-miss proposition.

The best thing about BoH, though, is that even for someone thoroughly immersed in the last 15 years' worth of independent music, they throw in enough catchy hooks, ear-grabbing lyrical turns, and barreling rock riffs to stand out in the crowd. It's refreshing, in a way, to hear a band so thoroughly comfortable with themselves, so free of affectation or the artificial drive to be "experimental" (ps GOD I am tired of LA noise bands jesus SHUT UP about the Smell scene already).

What I am trying to say is that if you listen to Cease to Begin and do not enjoy it, I'm pretty sure there is something wrong with you. It's a great record.

Fever Ray- Fever Ray

noreply@blogger.com (jeph) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:57:00 +0000

It would be easy to describe this record simply as "The Knife 2.0," but that would be selling it short. Fever Ray is the solo album by Karin Dreijer Andersson, one half of The Knife- but to hear this record, you'd think she made up 60 or 70 percent of that band. The eerie pitch-shifted vocal harmonies are present, but the kooky witch-party-on-a-pirate-ship lurch and swagger of Silent Shout has been replaced by a brooding, paranoid-nostalgic sense of melancholy. The lyrics read like blog posts filtered through a fugue-state, and the wonderful compositions back them up superbly. The overall atmosphere is something like if Depeche Mode did a dubstep record, but even that description doesn't do this record justice. Like all of Dreijer Andersson's previous work, this one must be heard to be believed.

Röyksopp- Junior

noreply@blogger.com (jeph) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:52:00 +0000

OH MY DEAR SWEET BABY JESUS I CANNOT STOP LISTENING TO THIS RECORD.

Royksopp, perhaps best known for the catchy little ditty used in those Geico commercials, have put out what is unquestionably their best work yet. I may do a track by track breakdown at a later date, as every song deserves its own paragraph, but here's the Cliffs Notes version: Insanely catchy songs, jawdropping, amazed-laugh inducing disco diva vocals from the likes of Robyn and The Knife/Fever Ray's Karin Dreijer Andersson, and production that's always glossy but never overpowering. Easily the most addictive electronic record since Daft Punk's live album. Can't recommend it enough.

Animal Collective- Merriweather Post Pavilion

noreply@blogger.com (jeph) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:48:00 +0000

Don't believe the hype.

That being said, this is a pretty good record- I say "pretty good" only because with the album essentially bookended by two of the best songs Animal Collective have ever written ("My Girls" and "Brothersport") the bulk of it seems diminished in comparison. Still, every song has its merits, and only occasionally do they veer into the annoying Animal Collectivisms (the yelping, oh god the yelping) that hampered so much of their earlier work. Definitely worth checking out.

Gui Boratto- Take My Breath Away

noreply@blogger.com (jeph) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:41:00 +0000

Whereas Chromophobia was like a strobe-light rave on the beach, Take My Breath Away is like a disco-ball freakout by the poolside. Wait that sentence is USELESS AND PITCHFORKY NEVERMIND

Basically this record is melodic, syncopated, accessible techno that doesn't mark a significant deviation from Boratto's previous work, but adds a slightly different flavor to the mix. Basically the record is worth buying/downloading/whatevering for the track "No Turning Back," which is the single most epic thing Boratto has yet recorded. Yeah, the vocals are a little cliche, but JESUS when the main hook kicks in it's a hell of an adrenalin rush. Highly recommended, especially if you're just getting interested in modern dance music. It's a great gateway drug.

Krallice- Krallice

noreply@blogger.com (jeph) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:37:00 +0000

Insane, epic black metal from members of Orthrelm and Behold...the Arctopus. All the typical BM signifiers (ragged-throat screeching, high-velocity tremolo picking, blastbeats) are there, but instead of the typical black metal soup they've been superheated and spun out into a breathtaking Gothic blood cathedral. Flowery metaphors aside, the riffs are astounding, the recording is superb (a sad rarity in the BM scene) and the songs are incredibly good. "Energy Chasms" drops my jaw every time I hear it.

Kylesa- Static Tensions

noreply@blogger.com (jeph) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:33:00 +0000

High On Fire style riff-metal with crazy-ass dual drumming and well-placed psychedelic flourishes. Finally, a two-drummer band that gets the mix right.

Systems Check

noreply@blogger.com (jeph) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:15:00 +0000

Hey, welcome to the new QC Recommended Listening page. The way this is gonna work is whenever I find a new album or band that I like, I will post a short review here! Pretty simple. I'm using Blogger because I can't be arsed to cobble together something that exactly matches the rest of questionablecontent.net, but that may change in the future depending on how ambitious I get.

Anyway, I hope these recommendations will be useful to you. As a final thought, please consider monetarily supporting the artists whose music you enjoy. Music should be free, but it is also expensive to make.