I haven’t posted music up here in a few days, in part because I haven’t had a chance to digest any of my new music. I have had a Big Star song stuck in my head, though, and I thought if there was anyone out there who doesn’t own everything by that band, perhaps I could send a wake-up call. Big Star was a late 70′s early 80′s group fronted by Alex Chilton. They made three albums, all of which kick a bucketload of ass, and then disappeared. Holocaust is my favorite Big Star tune, but it represents only one of this bands many facets. Ah, I love em.
Holocaust.mp3
Devotchka might have made the best album of the year. For years they’ve been on my radar as a band that blended international influences from Mexico to Moscow, but I mistakenly wrote these guys off as merely filling the indie-world-music nitch alongside bands like Gogol Bordello and Beirut. Not that the bands in that nitch are bad, but in my opinion they don’t solidly transcend it the way Devotchka does with their latest.
You might have heard Devotchka’s music before. Their score for Little Miss Sunshine is apt to stick in your head, despite playing its assigned supporting role. If you’ve never heard the wonderful voice of Nick Urata belting above the multi-ethnic sounds of the band, however, you haven’t heard Devotchka. I don’t issue comparisons to Roy Orbison lightly–next to Otis Redding, he’s probably the best male vocalist in history–but Urata earns the comparison. There’s no question the voice is not quite as pure as that of the Big O, but Urata is in the ballpark nonetheless. Look: if you’ve got a group that’s instrumentally and compositionally competent to record scores, and you’ve got a vocalist like Urata, the only way you could go wrong is by having illiterate lyrics. No worries there. The songs are written carefully and intelligently, without having too heavy a hand and without irony.
I really cannot recommend this album enough. Go check out their gorgeous website and buy an album or two while you’re there. (Check out their song “Transliterator” when on their website. It’s the best song I’ve heard this year. But, since it probably doesn’t best represent their sound, I’m including a different track here.)
Along the Way.mp3
The debut album by The Dodos is both exciting and frustrating . It’s exciting because there are high points on this album that transcend those on any recent release and because there is such a curious confluence of influences here that a novel result is achieved. Unfortunately the frustration comes because the album as a whole is a little uneven. There are still more than enough splendid tunes here to warrant a purchase, but one will be drawn to the skip button now and again.
While the first track is a bit worrisome, sounding as if Ben Gibbard discovered the banjo, things quickly advance to more interesting terrain as the band finds its stride. The trick with these songs, or most of them, is an underlayer of rapid percussion (highlighted by staccato rimshots) and an Andy Partridge style vocal track in minor key. Guitars come in two distinct but equally interesting flavors: blues riffy and rhythm. The former works best when it gets the song going, but the songs really explode when the rhythm guitars take over in a hand-blurring frenzy. There is definitely a bit of a formula here, but it’s a damn good one and during the few tracks the band departs from it you might find yourself wishing its return.
My most frequent reference point remains later years XTC (skylarking, etc.), but that’s mostly because of the melodies. The rest of the sound belongs with the recent crop of bands who are using percussion to good effect, such as Yeasayers and Vampire Weekend.
Fools.mp3
Sometimes you hear an album, learn a bit about the artist, and simply know that you will buy everything that artist has ever done. This is what has happened with Kan Mikami. I first heard songs from the Japanese folk legend on a serendipitous download, I bought his album “I’m the Only One Around” at a dear price on import, and I’m suddenly in love.
Facts about Mikami are a little difficult to discover if Japanese isn’t in your repertoire, as it certainly isn’t in mine, but he was apparently a central part of the 1970s folk revival in Japan, and after apparently laying low in the 80s he reappeared on the PSF label and has been recording and performing his “Japanese Blues” pretty much continuously ever since.
Mikami sings and plays guitar, and does both with a harsh, somewhat angst ridden tone. Though his lyrics are, of course, perfectly hidden to me without a translation, there is a bleakness and desperation conveyed by his plaintive yowling that makes the actual semantics unnecessary. (As it happens, the translations I have found confirm that his themes match his musical mood. Lonely bedsheets, forlorn prostitutes, and more than a modicum of angry sentiment are among the bases covered.) It is an existentialist folk, to be sure, and it is the perfect soundrack for a darkstreet. Comparisons don’t come easily, so listen to a couple of tracks instead. The first is from his 1989 album “I’m the only one…” The repetitive guitar plucks here just kill me: they’re like rain falling over the scene of urban decline he’s describing. The second track comes from a live performance that, I think, is more recent and is collected on a disc called “Igi Nashi!” There’s some gritty guitar work here and some of his more idiosyncratic vocal contortions. I have no idea what he’s singing about, but it doesn’t matter.
The only place I’ve been able to find his stuff is at Forced Exposure Mailorder and it is quite expensive, but it’s also quite worth it.
InFront of Hachiki.mp3
Narayamabushi.mp3
There are only a handful of artists who have long careers and who remain badasses throughout. Forget about the David Bowie’s and Mick Jagger’s whose badassery stems from inventing and embodying an archetupe. I mean those whose artistic longevity reflects a deep and ever furthering artistic sensibility that remains new and authentic album after album. Think Tom Waits. Think Bob Dylan. Think, yes, Nick Cave.
I’ve never been a serious bolo tie wearing Cave fan, but it might happen yet…despite the fact that the dude first started making music the year I was born. His new album, Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! exudes the spit in your face vitality that rock music should be about, all the while being an impressively literary album in the vein of Dylan and the beats. There are still the tried and true ballads and noirish escapades, with organ and keys under Cave’s fingers, but there are also VU style rockers and genuine pop songs. “Albert Goes West” is one of the latter, and I’ve included it here. My favorite track, though, is probably “More News from Nowhere” which feels like Cave’s new themesong. It spans eight excellent minutes, but like other great long riffs (I’m thinking Elvis Costello’s “Tokyo Storm Warning” for some reason) I’d be happy if it were twice as long.
I suspect Dig!!! might not hit old fans as solidly as it did me, but at the moment, it’s probably my favorite album of the year.
Albert Goes West MP3