Nothing to me – Scott Bartenhagen from Scott Bartenhagen on Vimeo.
Here are two absolutely gorgeous new in-studio performances from Scott Bartenhagen, who brings his game-changing folk to Waynestock at 1 p.m. in Austin next Thursday. Don’t miss it.
Photo by David Greenwald
Ravens & Chimes’ “Carousel” was originally written for a Twilight movie, but instead, the dark, dusty ballad will soundtrack MTV’s “controversial” Skins. It sounds as sweet either way, with singer Asher Lack urging the song’s “Return to me” chorus to a distant lover (O.K., it’s Kristen Stewart) with passion that’s anything but undead. The song and two more fresh tracks are out now on iTunes as the Carousel EP, but here’s that title track for a taste.
Ravens & Chimes – “Carousel”: mp3
The band will swing around to Rawkblog and TwentyFourBit’s Waynestock party at the Liberty in Austin, Texas next Thursday with Sondre Lerche, ARMS, Little Scream and more. Details here and on Facebook. Free shirts, snacks, beer, jams.
All photos by David Greenwald
I had the pleasure of joining garage-rockers LA Font in the Village studios a few weeks back, where the quartet recorded their upcoming “Sharks” b/w “Lipsmack” 7″. The single, the band’s first on wax, is due in May from Sister City Records. I wish I could share the tracks with you — particularly “Lipsmack” — but since they’re still being mixed, you’ll have to come catch the band at Rawkblog and TwentyFourBit’s free, awesome Waynestock day party at the Liberty on Thursday, March 17. Free shirts from Etnies, free (and gluten-free!) snack bars from thinkThin and good vibes from Origami Vinyl, who are all sponsoring the event. Details and a free mixtape here and on Facebook.
In 2001, a year when albums leaked one song at a time and I had to walk uphill in the snow both ways to get to school, Radiohead released the album Amnesiac. Coming just months after the paradigm-shifting Kid A and stemming from the same sessions, it was roundly seen as Kid A‘s weird (but pretty cute!) kid sister. The full-lengths, as we forget so easily, only tell part of the story: to fill out the Amnesiac b-sides, the band went back to the studio for the first time since the lengthy, strained recording efforts that produced both albums and tracked a handful of new songs. The b-sides, free of the crushing artistic and commercial pressures that have weighed on the band like Atlas since “Creep,” resulted in some of Radiohead’s strangest, most beautiful material: “Fog,” my favorite Radiohead song, a track as murky and lovely as the subject of its title; “Cuttooth,” a piano-driven freight train that’s lyrics were later borrowed for especially paranoiac Hail to the Thief track “Myxomatosis”; “Worrywort,” a synthesizer ballad Vangelis would’ve loved that dealt with the exhausting nature of creation; and so on.
All this seemed to leave the world wide open, but 2003′s Hail to the Thief had different ambitions, and many of the directions explored on Amnesiac and its surrounding tracks seemed suddenly closed off. It’s important here to remember 1997′s OK Computer, a guitar album as vivid and ambitious as any guitar album has ever been: it is cathartic and invigorating like few recordings of any sort before or since. (Not that it matters much, but were it not for Bob Dylan, it would’ve won the Grammy for Album of the Year, too.) Radiohead has spent its four albums (five, counting Thom Yorke’s solo set The Eraser) since trying to see how far the band can go with limited resources: absent guitars, neutered solos, warped vocals, drum machines, anything to avoid the pleasure-center mainlining that had been their previous specialty. Its recent catalog contains plenty of fireworks and blown speakers, of course, but from a listener’s perspective, at times, the pursuit of restraint has seemed like an exercise in frustration: see the drum machine that enters at the end of In Rainbows‘ “Videotape,” only to peter out aimlessly rather than drive the song to a conclusion, or the solo-that-isn’t that closes HTTT‘s “Go To Sleep.” The band’s relationship with electronics has played into this: the complex, thematic marriage of drum machines and percussionist Phil Selway on Kid A and even HTTT highlights such as “Sit Down Stand Up” also led to Yorke’s brittle, too-minimal Eraser, an album that still often sounds like it’s waiting for some beat-maker to come finish it up.
As Radiohead nerds — and, in the ultimate High Fidelity seal of approval, there are very likely more Radiohead nerds than exist for any other modern band — know, Yorke found those beat-makers and took The Eraser on tour in 2009 and 2010 with a band dubbed Atoms for Peace. At any given time, two, often three of the band’s members would be handling percussion; Flea, shirtless and stroking his bass like a Paul Rudd wet dream, needed no assistance. The inherent vitality of live performance helped fill them out, but even bootlegs reveal songs reaching their full potential: claustrophobic skeletons emboldened with coursing blood and thickened muscle. Perhaps Yorke realized that he could do his less with more. Read the rest of this entry »
The Wrens, 2004 / photo by David Greenwald
In a better world, the Wrens would be co-headlining shows with Spoon and pumping out a new album a year. Instead, it’s been eight years since the band’s The Meadowlands, and we don’t have much to show for it. “Crescent,” a demo from the Dear New Orleans charity compilation, is one bright spot — a song that makes the band sound like they could lay down another five-star classic tomorrow. Fingers crossed.
In 2006, Kool & The Gang’s “Summer Madness” appeared on a LeBron James/Nike commercial, one of the greatest music supervision decisions of all time. “Summer Madness” is about as good as a song can be, four minutes of Kool & The Gang reinventing the word “smooth” and exploring the new possibilities of ’70s synthesizers; the rising tones that comprise the track’s hook escalate like a skilled masseuse heading toward a happy ending. It’s the sexiest moment on the group’s Light of Worlds, their seventh studio album, though not the hottest: that honor goes to the unstoppably funky “Street Corner Symphony,” whose disco breaks and jabbing horn blasts only slow down to high-five Stevie Wonder.
The group is at its best when it’s instrumental; the effortless opening minutes of “You Don’t Have to Change,” the kind of track that has to soundtrack Aziz Ansari lovemaking fantasies, turn rough when a wobbly vocalist utters, “I walked / like a zombie in the night.” “Fruitman,” a proto-healthy eating anthem, sounds more Sesame Street than serious in the wake of the vegan and raw food movements. But though the Gang’s message may be a bit dated (and their singers less charismatic than Wonder or, say, What’s Going On-era Marvin Gaye), the musicianship remains revelatory. The synths get another turn in the future-soul spotlight on the upbeat “Whiting H. & G,” and the washed-out reverbs of “Here After,” meant to evoke heaven, echo all the way to, well, Washed Out. At a trim 36 minutes, the set’s as tight as the band’s rhythm section, though I’ll offer one improvement to the tracklist: “Summer Madness” sounds even better on loop.
Kool & The Gang – “Summer Madness”: mp3
(Light Of Worlds
Per Wikipedia, East Village broke up long before Dropout, their 1993 debut, was released. Alas for the pre-Bandcamp era. The song “Strawberry Window” emerged some time later, on the 2006 two-disc deluxe edition of the album, but it was worth the two-decade wait: it’s a flawless slice of New Wave pop, as shimmering and suffering as the Cure’s better-known “In Between Days” or “Friday I’m In Love.” (Via Skatterbrain)
East Village – “Strawberry Window”: mp3
More lost classics in The Canon, Examined
Like the Clientele’s early, more whispery work, Two If By Sea’s “Apron of Flowers” jangles under a London fog — though the band hails from London, Ontario. The song’s not much more than a handful of chords and featherweight percussion, but its loveliness belies any considerations of heft. The same is true for compilation single “Westbound Train,” which adds a Yo La Tengo synthesizer and ironic dance groove to the mix to charming, reverb-swaddled effect.
Two If By Sea – “Apron of Flowers”: mp3
Two If By Sea – “Westbound Train”: mp3
(The band’s Staysail EP is out now on February Records.)
