Mt. Egypt isn’t a mountain, or a country: It’s a man and his mourning. Travis Graves is the frontman of the mostly solo project, which on this record gets by on little more than his singing and strumming. Graves sings with the ragged glory of Neil Young; much of Battening the Hatches finds his vocals straining like Shakey in his Buffalo Springfield days. The songs are as sad or sadder than Young’s, almost pathetically so: “He better be good to you / I will never have the chance to try,” he sings in the title track.
Most of the tracks, adorned simply with piano or guitar and occasional backing vocals, are spontaneous-seeming ruminations on depression: Seeing Will Oldham’s darkness and diving into it. Graves’ sense of failure is profound. Even “New Song,” the album’s closest thing to a rock song and bearer of its most optimistic title, finds him praying “that I live a little bit longer.” The music and production has a ramshackle, broken-down quality that echoes the lyrical angst and, in 2003, would’ve placed the album alongside similar efforts by Oldham and Bright Eyes. If you’ve got loneliness rumbling, Battening the Hatches can help weather the storm.
With its rotating cast of vocalists and Malt Shop Memories meets indie-pop bent, if I didn’t know better, I’d assume Gigi’s Maintanent was a new Saturday Looks Good To Me album (or one by the Magnetic Fields, for that matter). Nevertheless, Gigi – a project by Nick Krgovich (P:ano, No Kids) and Colin Stewart more than a proper band – has crafted a worthy addition to the genre.
Though the singers change from song to song, all share a uniform devotion to the sincere style of the girl group era, with the music wrapped up in horns and strings and sung with an unpolished exuberance. Phil Spector would’ve whipped out a revolver over some of these performances, but they’re never sloppy – just loose enough. The songs themselves are what you’d expect – snappy rhythms, unrequited romance and big choruses broadened by a touch of reverb. There’s no obvious “Be My Baby” here, but the album, which hits its stride on its second side, is a stand-out overview.
‘50s and ‘60s early-rock source material may be the stuff of critical drooling these days, but Gigi’s most notable moments come when the group updates its influences a bit. Take “The Marquee,” a sexy song that slinks with the jazzy cool of Bacharach and David, down to that songwriting team’s trademark flugelhorns, or “Dreams of Romance” – a Latin-tinged track with wounded, Devendra Banhart-like vocals from Parenthical Girls’ Zac Pennington.
On the more sock-hop ready stuff, the fun is hearing indie singers out of their element – the typically (and wonderfully, I might add) downcast Rose Melberg is as bright as a day at the beach on “Alone at the Pier,” and K Records standby Mirah does her best Diana Ross on “Won’t Someone Tell Me.” I only wish they’d reeled in Jens Lekman for a couple of these — then Gigi would really, ahem, drink your milkshake.
Gigi – “Alone at the Pier” (ft. Rose Melberg): mp3
I leave tomorrow for London and Manchester, where I’ll be speaking with Pitchfork’s Ryan Schreiber, Drowned in Sound’s Sean Adams and others on a panel about “Blogging in the U.S.A.” at In The City. We’re up to bat on Wednesday afternoon, if you’ll be at the festival. I’m still taking both LDN suggestions and ITC band recommendations. Pre-scheduled posts and reviews will continue as usual next week because I love you. Will sneak in some ITC show coverage when/where I can and — if you still care! — I’ll try to wrap up the Matador 21 photos. Phew!
The whole girl-fronted garage band sings ’50s doo-wop thing’s about as flat as Matador at 21 champagne at this point, but Tennis have a few things in their favor: A good chunk of this song avoids the cliched guitars in favor of sweet melody, and charismatic singer Alaina Moore’s vocals sound like they’re just itching to escape from Best Coast dissatisfaction to happier, more confident climes. The A-side of this Underwater Peoples 7″ gets a bit noisier, but fingers crossed Tennis goes hi-fi on its January 2011 debut.
In my No Age review the other day, I mentioned how bands don’t make first albums anymore; instead, they’re making demos and MySpace tracks and digital 7″s until people start paying attention. The flip side of that is bands aren’t necessarily trying to sell their first albums. The Internet is littered (or blessed, one might argue) with free EPs and singles and even whole records — like the Goodbye Radio’s The Year We Didn’t Have. The band tells me this one’s just to get people’s attention — when they finish their sophomore album next year, they’ll try to actually sell the damn thing.
It seems like a bizarre situation, right? To accomplish the serious goal of completing a serious, professional-sounding record — which this is — and sacrificing it on the altar of social networking and Internet buzz? As someone who’s been getting digital albums for free one way or another for the last decade, I’m surprised to have mixed feelings about this, but there they nevertheless are.
What I’m trying to say is The Goodnight Radio’s The Year We Didn’t Have is a wonderful record and we should give them money for the pleasure of having heard it. Read the rest of this entry »
Our friends at Yours Truly taped a session with dream-pop act Memoryhouse, one of the year’s best new bands, back in July; here it is. New song “Pale Blue,” eschewing the samples of the group’s The Years EP, is autumnal and evocative, Denise Nouvion’s vocals arriving with a bittersweet quality that turns the words “We’re not alone” from anthem to ambiguous. Promising stuff as we wait for their 2011-due full-length debut, as is the equally lovely My Bloody Valentine cover waiting after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
In a year in which Local Natives have ascended almost all the way to indie godhood, Ottawa act The Acorn — who were first, and better — deserve a little more attention. (Which is not to say Local Natives aren’t the best new live act of 2010 and totally great in general.) The stop-motion video for “Restoration” reminds me of Legends of the Hidden Temple; the song reminds me of how folk music should sound at its most fiery.
Mt. Egypt isn’t a mountain, or a country: It’s a man and his mourning. Travis Graves is the frontman of the mostly solo project, which on this record gets by on little more than his singing and strumming. Graves sings with the ragged glory of Neil Young; much of Battening the Hatches finds his vocals straining like Shakey in his Buffalo Springfield days. The songs are as sad or sadder than Young’s, almost pathetically so: “He better be good to you / I will never have the chance to try,” he sings in the title track.
With its rotating cast of vocalists and Malt Shop Memories meets indie-pop bent, if I didn’t know better, I’d assume Gigi’s Maintanent was a new Saturday Looks Good To Me album (or one by the Magnetic Fields, for that matter). Nevertheless, Gigi – a project by Nick Krgovich (P:ano, No Kids) and Colin Stewart more than a proper band – has crafted a worthy addition to the genre.
I leave tomorrow for London and Manchester, where I’ll be speaking with Pitchfork’s Ryan Schreiber, Drowned in Sound’s Sean Adams and others on a panel about “Blogging in the U.S.A.” at 
In my 
