by Andrew Kaster

Tomboy begins shrouded in uncertainty. Noah Lennox’s words – “know you can count on me” – sound suspiciously like “no, you can’t count on me.” It’s the first album in which Lennox seems to have no idea how he wants to affect the listener, which is something he has never had trouble with before. Even though the instrumentation is more immediate, discernible, and intimate, his vocals sound more distant than ever. These are the same vocals that took the foreground of past albums, as Lennox has chosen to pile on the reverb and overdubs to nearly obscene amounts. In many ways, Tomboy is a soul-bearing experience for Lennox; a point of contention for those who aren’t particularly tuned to the same spiritual compass as he is.

It’s an album torn down the middle; half of the tracks are beat-heavy dance numbers, while the other half consists of near-madrigal drones. Repetition plays an even greater role than before here, as Lennox’s appeal on this record seems to weigh solely on whether or not his drones reach epiphany. While they most often do, there are times I’m left waiting for the sunlight to break through the heavily clouded atmosphere of some of these tracks. Needless to say, Tomboy works better as a headphone-listening album, drowning you in its vast ocean of sounds and rhythms. However, swimming through this album can be a bit of a stagnant experience when the tides are dull and repetitive, relying more on a polished sound than substantive songwriting.

That being said, Tomboy’s more droning tracks (such as the aptly named “Drone” or “Scheherezade”) are as cold and indirect as a cathedral choir. While beautiful, Lennox’s vocals are so distant from the listener that it’s hard to feel like Lennox is singing to you and not at you. On the other hand, groovier numbers such as “Slow Motion” and “Last Night at the Jetty” provide a simpler and more enjoyable approach to Lennox’s pop sensibilities. These tracks aren’t so aggressively hypnotic, allowing them to slowly work their way into your consciousness. These are also the songs that seem to have the most direction; they are songs that don’t get lost in the abrasive “beauty” of Lennox’s vocals.

Tomboy is nothing at all uncharacteristic or surprising coming from Lennox. His same sense of slathered sunshine and “good vibes” accompany some truly fantastic melodies. However, too often the album becomes directionless and tedious. Whereas Person Pitch was something to piece together (or, strip apart), Tomboy is an album that comes pre-assembled. With fewer moments to extract and absorb, this album simply must be taken as is. Lennox is preventing himself from spacing out and adventuring, as sounds that should appear and then evaporate return again and again to a degree of where it becomes overwhelming. Criticism aside, Tomboy is still terribly catchy whenever it gains focus (and more often than not, it does). And despite the coldness that permeates some of these tracks, Lennox still allows his electronic compositions to retain a sort of naturalistic spirit.

If anything, Lennox’s latest is an album that walks listeners through the same motions, proving his heart rests at home; somewhere quaint and cozy and not too far out of the ordinary. If ordinary life is a trip, then Tomboy is the drug (even if its high wears off rather quickly).

Panda Bear – Alsatian Darn

Panda Bear – You Can Count On Me

Panda Bear – Last Night at the Jetty

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by Andrew Kaster

Everything is a trend.

The pessimistic and unimaginative will lead you to believe there is nowhere for music to go other than in retrogressive reevaluation. The best we can hope for today involves artful fusions and re-interpretations of past sounds. We can do little but wait for the next trend to take hold. It’s simply not often we’re given an album that wades through the ether of the unknown and uninhibited. This is why when Collin Stetson puts his lips to the reed; he proves that in the midst of gimmicky musical tricks and impersonations, the belief that there is no uncharted territory in music is a load of bullshit.

New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges could be written off as some sort of avant-jazz concoction, though it would be downplaying the feats of this record. There are sounds collected here that are refreshingly original and exposed through Stetson’s iconoclastic methodology. Imbued with such vivid spontaneity (no overdubs or multiple takes were employed), they seem to be only possible through the sheer power of abstract, unhinged thought. With twenty-something microphones planted around Stetson as foliage, the sounds of violent clacking keys, the steady breath of Stetson, and the atonal residue of the instrument are recorded and mixed to different degrees. The result is something almost electronic in how otherworldly and humanly impossible it sounds. The gurgling tribal rhythms and oscillating tones of “Judges” and the samba beat of “Red Horse (Judges II)” provide the best examples of this seemingly sampled and manipulated sound. Both seem impossible to achieve without the aid of machinery, and yet the line between man and instrument are blurred ever so viciously.

Stetson follows a modal and rarefied philosophy on New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges. Motifs with loose connections to minimalism and pop and thematic set pieces weave the terrible sadness that haunts this album. With tracks such as “All the Days I’ve Missed You” and the uplifting “All the Colors Bleached to White”, Stetson composes himself with a sort of militant dignity and spirituality. And through the few poetic readings on this album (courtesy of Laurie Anderson), the defeatist post-war keening is dramatically conveyed. “There are those who didn’t run, there are those who couldn’t take it” she calmly speaks in the midst of the manic “A Dream of Water”, casting a glaze of genocidal horror over the album. Later, her contributions seem all the more important on the track “All the Colors Bleached to White”. The words “and so we wave our shredded flags, not knowing what they mean” are spoken amongst an angelic choir, digging out a trench of emotional depth in the center of the album. Anderson isn’t the only guest vocalist though; My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Worde appears on the eerie cover, “Lord I Just Can’t Keep From Crying Sometimes”. Both the voices of Anderson and Worde are not merely superfluous though; they’re essential in providing a much needed soul to balance out the strange amniotic coldness.

Above all, the focus here still remains on Stetson. He literally breathes life into his instrument, personifying it as a daunting, wheezing, lumbering beast. Struggling through spaciousness and claustrophobia, he emits a tense atmosphere. It is sometimes beautiful (such as on the string-like vibrato of “From No Part of Me Could I Summon a Voice”), sometimes guttural (best achieved on the Flying Lotus-esc clockwork of “Home” and “Fear of the Unknown and the Blazing Sun”), yet always hypnotic and sobering. Stetson’s personality becomes one in the same with the saxophone, as his expressiveness bleeds into every key and every tempo. While amazingly technical, he never loses sight on the emotive power that he holds. As such, the album becomes meditative and wildly emotional all at once.

Despite all of the analysis, there is still nothing that fully explains how this album was crafted. The skill level seems almost fictionalized in its approach. New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges documents the inner-workings of the mind with levers, pulleys, and weights being operated by some sort of flawless intuition; call it instinct. It’s a daunting album with oceanic brevity achieved through its endlessly echoing drone. The best way to approach it is to do like Stetson. Become part of the mechanism: wheezing, breathing, spitting, groaning, and moaning in unison. By putting all of his ideas in the iron sights of his spur-of-the-moment reactions, Stetson discovers a new unalloyed and beating heart within the bowels of his instrument. The sound recorded here is not just the instrument and its performer, but the deafening cry that silence being torn apart makes.

Colin Stetson – A Dream of Water

Colin Stetson – Judges

Colin Stetson – The Righteous Wrath of an Honorable Man

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Daniel Smith is an odd man, there is no doubt about that. Overtly religious while at the same time outlandish and idiosyncratic, Smith has a penchant for being theatrical in his attempts to spread the word of his psychedelic gospel. However, it’s this sort of eccentric persona that has exiled him to the fringes of indie-pop. It begs the question of whether or not he has followers. Indeed he does, but it’s hard to believe that even his devotees will be wholly satisfied with Best of Gloucester County. Where his last effort, Ships, was charmingly bombastic and over-the-top (in the best way possible), his latest seems relatively inconsequential. The stripping-down of the loosely defined Danielson “family” (cultist insinuations aside) may be the cause. But more likely, it’s simply a matter of Smith running out of creative steam and finding himself unable to stand upright on his own. Where Ships was acute in delivering poignant orchestral stabs, Best of Gloucester County seems rather off-the-cuff, as Smith feverishly rummages through his typical melodic approaches in a somewhat unpolished and hurried manner.

Nonetheless, Best of Gloucester County is a perfectly enjoyable and pleasant album. The only problem is that it’s just that. The moments of spiritual brevity are sort of ephemeral, resulting in an album that sounds important but isn’t necessarily so. It’s akin to one rolling and amassing suite that never delivers infatuating melodies or emotional catharsis. While fans are still treated to the kind of “Daniel Johnston meets Genesis” crooning that has come to be expected from Danielson, the family quality that is just as expected seems to exist only in conservative amounts. The communal feeling that made past Danielson albums so celebratory seems to only blossom fully in the songs “Lil Norge” (a bouncy pop number reminiscent of primordial of Montreal tracks) and the somewhat glam “But I Don’t Wanna Sing About Guitars”. For whatever reason, the family seems noticeably absent on other tracks, revealing just how one-dimensional Smith is without collaborators.

It isn’t until the final four tracks on the album where Best of Gloucester County seemingly finds purpose. Beginning with the lulling “You Sleep Good Now” (featuring longtime collaborator Sufjan Stevens on banjo), the album assumes a placid and pensive character that carries over until the final, twinkling notes of “Hosanna in the Forest”. Though not nearly as hedonic as the rest of the album, it’s during this winding-down where Smith is finally able to stand strong on his own. Possibly it’s because these four songs are considerably more introspective (“sons and daughters, my bruised ego needs you,” he yearns on the beautifully folksy “Denominator Bluise”). It’s nevertheless an approach that works on an album that sounds increasingly more like a solo effort in comparison to past Danielson efforts.

The image of Danielson may be a bit of a faux pas. However, it was nevertheless something to unify the sporadic ideas of Daniel Smith. The construction of Best of Gloucester County isn’t so lithe; Smith undercuts his own momentum through what sounds largely like a mere retread of the same ideas he expressed on Ships (sans the explosive orchestral backing). It’s a bit of a more “low-key” album, which fails to compliment Smith’s hubris. While always too playful to be preachy, Danielson sounds unable to mature into something more interesting, at least on this record. Delirious troubadour, surreal evangelist, Ed Wood of Christian persuasion; you can call Smith whatever you wish. The fact remains that he’s simply a bit of an oddball who is only as strong as the family that surrounds him. A Christian moral if there ever was one.

Danielson – Lil Norge

Danielson: Grow Up from Sounds Familyre on Vimeo.

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by Andrew Kaster

Completing the triptych journey he began four years ago, indie-pop’s Lothario provocateur Kevin Barnes finally exhibits strengths absent from much of Montreal’s recent material: subtlety and depth. Though the trips down realms of blue-eyed soul and processed funk acted as an entertaining diversion from the caustic Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, it shows that – without the catharsis – Barnes simply isn’t all too interesting (and at times, he can be jarringly annoying). For the good part of three years, of Montreal has been operating solely on fumes and residual spectacle. thecontrollersphere however, is a release so relentlessly catchy and psychologically savage that it draws fourth a somewhat hyperbolic conclusion: this is easily among the best releases from of Montreal. At the very least, it makes up for the “filler-pop” of some recent Of Montreal material.

While still exploring the promiscuous ego of Georgie Fruit, Kevin Barnes cycles through the densest of Montreal release yet. And though he claims that the songs on this EP are merely leftovers from the False Priest sessions, I can’t help but feel that he’s understating their quality by playing coy. Though the funk and soul tinges are still broad enough to recognize this as a logical progression, the songs here certainly don’t feel lifted from the same place, time, or even mindset of the band that recorded Skeletal Lamping and False Priest. The most apparent deviation from Georgie Fruit’s Dionysian mindset is opener “Black Lion Massacre”, a dark avant-garde piece within the vein of This Heat. Further severing his symbiotic relationship with the fictional Mr./Ms. Fruit, the hallucinatory pastoral folk ballad “Flunkt Sass vs. the Root Plume” channels the spirit of early career David Bowie (mellotron and overly dramatic vocals included) to create a nostalgic piece of psychedelia.

The remainder of the album acts as a testament to Barnes’ indefatigable nature and reputation as a pop composer. Whether he’s raiding foreign discotheques for peculiar and alien sounds (such as on the quasi-Mesopotamian epic, “Holiday Call”), or wrestling with the rattle and hum of bi-polarism (i.e. “Slave Translator”), Barnes composes himself with a sort of strategic bravado, the likes of which that made Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? so compelling. Even the lyricism is becoming more and more compelling as the story of Georgie Fruit retrogresses into a sort of Disco Bloodbath. Deconstructing the celebutante, Barnes drops lines of hopelessness, such as “even this ghetto world that has nothing doesn’t want me” and “I’m cutting myself and I feel like dirt”. Though lewd sex acts are still treated as pillow talk, it’s becoming more and more obvious that the coke trails are coming to an end and Georgie Fruit is becoming more and more spiritually violent.

The orgasms are getting shorter, the ecstasy is wearing off, and all the while the hangovers are deepening. Killing off Georgie Fruit could very well be the smartest artistic choice Barnes has made yet, for it provides a narrative that is emotionally taught, while at the same time, wildly entertaining. When he croons “I was only stabbing your heart because I was trying to get your attention” during the closer, one can’t help but think back to the ostensibly gloomy passages that were sprinkled throughout of Montreal’s poppy palette. Georgie Fruit was fun, but it was little more than an excessive celebratory victory lap. Even though Barnes has always been (and will most likely always will be) firmly rooted in the tenants of camp, pomp, and kitsch, his chameleon transformations will always be unpredictable in one way or another. Will he explore the realms of Euro-centric couture? Experiment with sounds much courses and callous than we’ve become accustomed to? Barnes has always been a man whose genius comes across as accidental in the way in which it blossoms. Much like his spiritual fathers Prince and Bowie, he’s unpredictable in both the best and worst ways possible. If there is anything thecontrollersphere succeeds in, it’s that it makes the future for of Montreal seem much brighter. “Rebirth suicide, rebirth suicide” he mutters on “Slave Translator”. And as history shows, indulging in what seems to be artistic suicide produces the most interesting results.

of Montreal – Slave Translator

of Montreal – Black Lion Massacre

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by Andrew Kaster

“Is your heart too big for you to know that its broken?” asks Mat Cothran (sole member of Coma Cinema) on the yearning denouement of Blue Suicide.  Cothran is ostensibly obsessed with the past, dwelling on failed tryst and subsequent attempts to cope. Perhaps it is presumptuous to assume that all listeners can sympathize with him, though it is this aspect in which emphasis is placed. As hard as I may have tried to avoid vicarious emotional attachment, I found myself transported back to my dimly starry-eyed teenage years, contemplating things I don’t fully understand and yearning for human interaction and isolation all at once. Blue Suicide is an album caught in pensive thought, a piece of faded nostalgia that is inherently as bittersweet as our fondest memories. We naturally recall pleasure more readily than pain, though there’s no escaping the fatalistic realization that those moments will never return. Throughout it all, Cothran never wallows and flounders in the melodrama. Instead, he composes himself with a sense of equanimity. This is a “bedroom record”, designed for personal and contemplative use that reads more or less like an inner monologue stumbled upon (author anonymous), its text poetic and confessional while being both romanticized and beautifully honest.

Compartmentalizing heartbreaking dynamics with a pessimistic twist, “Business as Usual” coaxes you into the album’s defeatist perspective. “Giving birth in the prison pit / No one cares, it’s easier to quit”, urges Cothran amongst layers of keyboards and a steadily charging rhythm section. The second track continues to exhibit his immaculate pop songwriting skills. While twee, “Hell” is still touching and sincere: “You are a mirror image of the God she’ll never know / That created hell to show you how to be alone,” he croons. Cothran continues to be fantastically consistent on sprinkling these semi-languorous melodic gems throughout the course of the album, such as on the Smashing Pumpkins-inspired “Lindsey”. The greatest song Jeff Mangum never wrote, “Caroline, Please Kill Me” (without a doubt, the catchiest and most jubilant cut off of “Blue Suicide”) is just as nostalgically blissful. Breezy airs of pop constantly glide throughout the album as melancholic remnants stay suspended in its rafters, always undercutting every sweet moment with a sour note.

“Blue Suicide” never relies too much on its lighter material, choosing instead to cast the spotlight on slow burners such as the mellotron-driven “Her Sinking Sun” (which recalls the fuzzy, dotting pop of “On Avery Island“), folksy Lennon-esque ballad “Gentlewoman”, and condensed epics such as “Whatevering” and the title track. Things are always kept fresh, as the responsibly short song lengths (only two tracks exceed a three-minute run time) begin to crystallize into an increasingly morose narrative. Poignant sensations are also frequently made through use of eclectic instrumentation, running the gambit from folk tinged acoustic guitars, shoegazer synth, violins, trumpets, and whatever else Cothran could find lying around his home. Enamored with smeary and malleable textures, Cothran paints a lurid retroactive vista through his production techniques, resulting in something that is lo-fi, and yet, lush; it is earthly and yet ethereal. These colors never dry. Instead, they run and mix together into a beautiful mess.

Through a kaleidoscope of sounds, instruments, and production techniques, listeners are provided lyrics addressing various emotional vicissitudes. We are beckoned to “run from the past as it explodes”, a past that releases feelings of fading ontological consciousness. Blue Suicide might as well be the guidebook on how to be alone, as Cothran manages to somehow find warmth and company in lonely solitude. It is the perfect soundtrack to those introspective late night walks; the sensation of disappearing and reappearing awaiting you in every movement between the light of streetlamps and the dark veil of the AM. Sometimes desperately searching for happiness (“Caroline please kill me, send my spirit to your mind and I will hang out with your feelings until the end of time”), and sometimes given into placid depression (“Being alive makes me feel like a whore / And it’s nice, it’s alright, I am already bored”), his words and feelings are murky, mysterious, and in constant flux. Probably the most totally exposed moment is found on the track “Eva Angelina” (a pseudo-tribute to the pornographic actress of the same name), lyrically detailing slow and lonely personal decay. No friends, no motivations, no plans. Cothran confines to Eva Angelina through the chorus (“I want to know…what Eva Angelina knows”) and reinforces this assumption through the verses:

“Working in a state of fear
Been crying underwater the last few years
Spent inside a house I hate
Paper peeling off the walls
A work devoid of all meaning
Blood inside your head begins boiling
To a surface that I have not seen yet
Watching your parents bury your first pet”

It’s hard not to sound hyperbolic when writing about an album that delivers a knock-out punch like this one; it is an album so consistent and refreshing without actually reinventing the genre in any way. It could be said that Blue Suicide is merely a knit-quilt of indie-rock’s finest yarns. What sets this apart from the seemingly endless waves of homespun indie-pop is the sheer amount of professionalism and ear for melody that this grassroots magician has. In a world where indie rockers have “evolved” from slackers to messiahs, Mat Cothran has position himself squarely in the middle and recorded a nonchalant emotional epic free of any pretension, nostalgia pandering, or lofty expectations. There’s a natural charm to the works of Coma Cinema as potential brevity is traded in for retrogressive subtlety. There are no attempts to make this album sound any bigger than what it is: just the weekend project of some presumably lonely guy, recorded in various basements, garages, and sheds. Blue Suicide is an album of such high caliber that it puts yesteryear’s over-hyped and better-equipped critical darlings to shame, and it stands as a testament to the rising potential of humble songwriters working out of the confines of their dated home studios. If all artistic potential is fully realized in one brilliant and creative gust, consider Blue Suicide a fucking tsunami.

Coma Cinema – Business As Usual

Coma Cinema – Hell

Coma Cinema – Her Sinking Sun

Official Site / MySpace / DOWNLOAD

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by Andrew Kaster

If you find yourself tiring of familiar sounds while sitting atop the peak of modern critically acclaimed psychedelia, consider Young Prisms’ debut Friends for Now, an exhilarating breath of suspended free-fall into phosphorescent abyss. Eschewing the languorous nature of most shoegazer bands, Young Prisms enter realms of impertinent and concentrated rocking; antonymous to the preconceived notions of the genre. While somewhat as derivative as their contemporaries, there’s something about the peppy approach of this Californian quintet that makes their album more genuine than critics may be willing to admit. Taking a sonic shotgun to the ears, songs such as “I Don’t Get Much” and “Breathless” mark a terse statement on the band’s part as they ride on waves of raucous guitar and steady krautrock rhythms. Adding to their reputation as shoegazer revisionists are the momentous shifts in tempo and dynamics that appear in the tense and focused tracks “Sugar” and “Feel Fine”. The trip reaches its peak on the hallucinogenic and swaggering denouement “Stay Awake”, ending the assault on your cerebral cortex, leaving you half-deafened in its wake.

The only minor complaint I have about this album is the consistent effort they put into paying tribute to the genre, while keeping innovations somewhat restrained. Like all of their contemporaries, keyboards shimmer, drums echo, and voices whir only to evaporate, making for a distinctly familiar setting. The band’s main distinction (besides their uncharacteristically energetic nature) is the clear dichotomous composition of guitars. Though the oscillating tones meld into palpable and full-bodied atmospheres, you’ll often hear the guitars combat one another. As one enters bright and laconic lead parts, the other is taking broad strokes to paint a thick and vibrating buzz. Though somewhat jarring and heavy, there is a “lightness” to the music that keeps everything uniformly poppy, akin to Jonathan Donahue’s early work with Mercury Rev and The Flaming Lips.

Shoegazer is often dubbed as “the scene that celebrates itself”, and it’s easy to see why; flouting the doctrine that these bands adhered to is a difficult thing to do. While Young Prisms hold onto tradition, they have taken a detour into a sunnier and more urgent world that makes Friends for Now such an engaging listening experience. Through their subtle surf-rock influences, bleeding heart chord changes, and ability to get locked into hypnotic dancey grooves, it is easy to excuse them for sprinkling “oohs” and “ahhs” and various other familiar sounds throughout the album. While most of their psychedelic-pop contemporaries are often staid, Young Prisms pull up their bootstraps and deliver shatteringly loud, droning neo-psychedelia that will leave you paralyzed.

RIYL: Mercury Rev, The Flaming Lips, No Joy, Eternal Summers, Woodsman, Golden Ages, Sun Airway

Young Prisms – Sugar

Young Prisms – I Don’t Get Much

Young Prisms – If You Want To

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