Outrageous Cherry – The Book of Spectral Projections

Outrageous Cherry formed in 1993 and has been playing around the Detroit area and elsewhere since then. This, in addition to several full-length releases, has helped them build a significant following. The Book of Spectral Projections was initially released by the UK-based label Poptones in the summer of 2001 (might I add, with much better cover art). This reissue by New York’s Rainbow Quartz brings the good tunes back stateside.
The record is hard to pin down to a genre because it feels reminiscent of so many things all at once. It runs the gamut from sleepy psych pop-rock to the more 70s garage-rock influenced sounds and back to something reminiscent of orchestral AM gems. There is a definite unity here, and it seems apparent, just from hearing this release, that Outrageous Cherry is a band that has grown into their sound and settled into something that they demonstrate real talent for.
The laid-back and rhythm-driven song “The Unseen Devourers” is guaranteed to get you bobbing your head to the syncopated chorus and lush, spacey meandering. This is one of the definite gems of the album worthy of any mix-tape with an innocuous theme. Another keeper is “There Where the Stars a Cracking Up,” a strummy acoustic number that draws a solid melody together with the same echoed vocals that are featured throughout the record. In fact, Outrageous Cherry really only shines when they are doing the more fun and upbeat numbers. The rest can come off as background music that isn’t particularly compelling.
After 12 or 13 songs, the record gets largely samey with few variations in tempo or song mood. An implicit darkness and unsettling nature is created in many of the songs because of weird hippie lyrics. This unfortunately clouds my overall opinion of a release that is solidly rocking at the outset. Still, Outrageous Cherry packs in some amazing rock-pop into the initial selections on The Book of Spectral Projections that are just about enough to redeem this release.

Rainer – The Farm

Without a doubt, the process of releasing records posthumously is a thorny issue. Sometimes putting out unreleased recordings after an artist’s untimely death can be a comforting act of closure to relatives and fans alike, but at the same time it can also be done for less than altruistic reasons. More often than not, it can be an act of exploitation to capitalise on the unceasing commercial appetite for a bottomless musical legacy (as with John Lennon, Freddie Mercury, Kurt Cobain, and countless others). Furthermore, it can lead to unreleased material being made available against the artist’s original living wishes (as with Jeff Buckley’s Sketches (For My Sweetheart the Drunk) – a collection of recordings he scrapped in dissatisfaction just before his premature death). In short, it’s hard to maintain the right balance of critical and compassionate faculties in the event of tragic circumstances, especially where there is money to be made.
Thankfully, no qualms are stirred over the release of The Farm, the final album by the late great Rainer Ptacek, the Tucson, Az. folk-bluesman (and occasional Giant Sand guitarist) who died tragically in 1997 after losing a long hard-fought battle against cancer. Everything feels so right about The Farm that it simply had to be released. Its spontaneity, craftsmanship, warmth, and loving compassion emphasises the fortitude and creative fire of an extremely gifted man who was cruelly struck down his prime.
Joined in the studio by long-time friends and collaborators, Howe Gelb (Giant Sand) on keyboards, Ralph Gilmore (drums), and Nick Augustine (bass), Rainer’s concluding statement is possessed with an almost supernatural freshness and vitality. That feeling is no doubt reinforced by the fact that chemotherapy had caused Rainer some memory loss, meaning that many of his latter days were spent relearning how to play and compose old and new songs respectively. Writing and recording again in the final weeks up to his death was evidently an emotionally healing diversion, and from it comes Rainer’s most sublime body of work. As he was laying down these final recordings, Rainer knew he was going to die, but instead of excavating his deepest regrets, fears, frustrations, and sadness, he conceived The Farm as a beautifully redemptive and near-celebratory farewell to this rude world.
Not without a dry sense of humour, Rainer opens The Farm with the remarkably raucous acoustic-blues rattle of “Junkpile” – a satirical swipe at his dubious next-door neighbours who let their dump of a slum home over-spill into his backyard. Herein follows a rich melange of styles, songs and instrumentals that capture Rainer at the apex of his abilities. The lushly arranged “Where We Are,” for example, shows the languid side of Rainer’s work, with his trademark National Steel guitar weaving in-between his small ensemble’s slow-jazz rhythms and balmy keyboard washes. Elsewhere, the solo-played “Hard To Remember” represents the rawer side of Rainer’s work, capturing his virtuoso acoustic guitar-shapes and gutsy vocals in full undiluted flow.
Approximately half of the record is given over to Rainer’s expressive instrumental explorations, just his 10 fingers and six strings improvising live to tape in the studio. These manifest themselves as either cracked porch stompers or as strung-out meditations, marking Rainer out as an equal to the legendary John Fahey. So whereas the scorching “Arabing” hits a near-atonal groove, the eerie exquisite strains of “Instrumental #10 (Chore Ending)” conjures the moving image of Rainer gazing longingly at the Arizona desert sunsets he would be seeing for the last few times.
But it’s the simple combination of Rainer’s wise courageous words and his wonderfully earthy emotive voice (somewhere between Hank Williams and Bob Dylan) that cements the classic status of The Farm. Three very special songs in particular highlight Rainer’s tight grip on genius – a trio of songs that allude to his illness and his close-nit family in personal terms but that still possess a universal emotional reach.
The first of the triumvirate is the opulent “Oasis,” a gorgeous bathing reflective number, with lilting band accompaniment, that finds Rainer comfortingly intoning “We can all return / Anytime we please / To the oasis / To the oasis / To the oasis of our dreams.” The incredibly evocative “Love is What,” with subtle piano support from Howe Gelb, is an unforgettable statement of romantic devotion in the face of harrowing times; “I want you to count the times you are sublime / Loving yourself is not a crime.” However, of the three diamond cuts, it’s the title-track that provides the highest watermark of the album, perhaps even of Rainer’s entire recorded output. Written during a brief period of remission from the first wave of his illness, “The Farm” is an impossibly poignant song that finds Rainer recalling his difficult early life as a refugee from Communist East Germany, as well as celebrating the birth of his daughter Lily. In respect of his early hard times Rainer yearningly wonders, “How did we ever survive with so much missing?” Rainer’s heart-melting adoration of his young child, reaches into a realm of beauty few songwriters are capable of ever reaching when he sings, “O Lily I love you / Don’t know how I ever / Ever got by without you / Never gonna leave here / Never gonna change that / No matter how many come to lay me flat.” Spine-tingling stuff.
The clumsily collected words of a wannabe music hack simply cannot do justice to the impossible wonder, humility, and humanity of this record. Despite and in spite of its painful conception The Farm is quite possibly Rainer Ptacek’s finest hour, and it’s a truly brilliant record in its own right. A long gracious goodbye. An honourable act of closure. A transcendental triumph. An absolute must.

Low – Canada EP

It’s good to know that Low aren’t just a plain old album-tour-album-tour kinda band. For every annual or biannual Low album, there’s always at least two or three interim releases across different labels (Tugboat, Kranky, Rough Trade, Subpop et al.), multiple formats (limited 7″, EP, mini-album), and sometimes releases in collaboration with others (Dirty Three, Spring Heel Jack, Piano Magic). And that’s before we even get to all of those compilation contributions. It’s a dual dream and nightmare for enthusiastic fans that seek to own everything. Now, all you Low addicts (particularly those of you with a US residence) should add this latest UK EP to your wish list for that long-overdue 10 CD rarities box-set.
The EP’s lead-track, “Canada,” is better known as one of the killer centrepieces from current album Trust. It’s an uncharacteristically soaring slab of psychedelic concrete, with a fuzz-cranked wall of guitars enveloping Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker’s intuitively intertwined vocals. It’s almost as if the diligent Duluth trio re-cooked the crunchy bits from their own “Dinosaur Act” (from 2001′s Things We Lost In The Fire) and added in a blend of aromatic Eleventh Dream Day spices and a dollop of Yo La Tengo sweeteners.
First of the unheard flipsides, though, is “Fearless,” a cover cribbed from Pink Floyd’s 1971 album Meddle. And by Low’s previous credentials, it’s a fairly straight conversion (check out their remarkable reworkings of The Beatles “Long Long Long” and Neil Young’s “Down by the River,” if you need convincing otherwise). But its near-jaunty folk-blues strumming and lilting vocals provide a welcome counterbalance to the tough gloom that pervades Trust as an album.
The third and final track is “Shot & Ladders 2,” an alternative version, as the name obviously suggests, of the last song on Trust. Swapping Alan’s lead vocals with Mimi’s is a masterstroke, allowing her to turn the song from a doomy look through the abyss into an intimate wintry confessional. Musically it’s a little lighter too, with the reverb-soaked guitars mixed down (until the very end of the track, that is) in favour of Mimi’s slow percussion and a brooding bass-line from Low’s undervalued third player Zak Sally. Anyone who has had the pleasure of hearing Mimi’s rare B-side revision of Alan’s “I Remember” (otherwise found on 1999′s classic Secret Name) will know what beautiful spells she can cast on her husband’s darkest songs. And come the inevitable Alan and Mimi solo albums (they’ve teased us with a few solo spots here and there, already), the latter’s release would automatically invite investigation.
So yet another Low EP – featuring one glimmering calling card from the current album and two previously unreleased gems to add any avid collector’s crown. Don’t wait for the forever-delayed rarities compendium, pick up the trail right here, right now. You have nobody to fear but your bank manager.

Les Sans Culottes – Faux Realism

I admit, the name of the band, Les Sans Culottes, and their latest release, Faux Realism, sound plenty pretentious. And yes, this New York-based septet likes to play in costume, answer to clever nicknames, and act pompous. So what’s so different between Les Sans Culottes and the rest of this rash of hot new bands coming out of the Big Apple? For starters, Les Sans Culottes admits they’re from Brooklyn, not its more glitzy neighbor. Unlike the strutting Strokes and the broodingly suave Interpol, costumes like theirs will only be seen in paid advertisements for future Austin Powers movies. They answer to theatrically awful nicknames such as Celine Dijon and Jean Luc Retard. And like the nicknames, Les Sans Culotte’s pretentiousness is decidedly self-deprecating and intentionally comical. Unlike their peers, who bend and stretch the truth to sound either “real” or “serious” or “intelligent” or goodness knows what else, in their interviews, Les Sans Culottes prevaricate for laughs. They know they’re full of it, but that’s part of the fun.
Les Sans Culottes splashes out cheap cologne by the bucketful. Compared to the rest of the New York buzz bands, that fromage-swinging, chain-bedecked, bell-bottom and op art print cocktail dress smell is like a breath of fresh air. Faux Realism is a collection of straightforward, exuberant guitar pop songs styled after the 60s French “ye ye” pop movement. Don’t go looking that up on the Web yet. I already did, so I can save you the trouble. Ye ye pop is Austin Power’s crooked-toothed grin. It’s “Laugh-In,” tomahawking elbows and head-swishes. It’s hippy-lite, pop-heavy, meeting somewhere between early Kinks and Doris Day. It’s in French. And it’ll keep you smiling the whole way through.
In Faux Realism, lead vocalist, “Clermont Ferrand” (name apparently for a region in France) leads his fellow Francophiles through a blistering set of 11 roughly hewn, infectious pop tracks. He introduces several songs in an outrageously bad French accent and shouts through most of the rest in gleefully overblown French. Grouped with him are the 60s sex kitten vocals of “Kit Kat le Noir” and “Celine Dijon.” The two coyly purr in “Les Sauvages,” and “The Tongue of Romance” (guess the language), and dutifully belt out Ferrand’s counter in their best French. Dijon’s rousing audience rave-up in the live “Le Coq Sportif ” is so funny, you can hear the audience giggling and collecting their breaths long after her impromptu game of “Simon says.” The rest of the band tries hard not to let the vocalists steal the show. “Mars Chevrolet’s” keyboards wrap the songs in perfect 60s-pop, kitschy melodrama. “Jean Luc Retard’s” bass pounds, and “Cal d’Hommage’s” guitar slides up to the seductive songs with the subtlety of Pepe le Pew and roars through the up-tempo tunes in huge French-fried blasts. Meanwhile, “Pascal Blasé’s” drums pound away, making sure Les Sans Coulettes remains a party band.
Several music journalists have pointed out recently that the recent rash of hip new bands are stripping off all those layers of musical shellac that have built up since the last purifying flood of the early 90s. Agreeably, these bands have done wonders bringing the rock back to the roll. Les Sans Culottes probably shouldn’t be mentioned in the same breath as the rest of these more “important” bands. They’re not doing anything that serious, and that is why they deserve to stick around longer and make some money while they’re at it. And it’s nice to know that New York’s rock scene is big enough to hold seven musicians with a penchant for 60s French-language pop music in addition to its droves self-important rock stars and hipsters.

Stella Luna – Stargazer EP

Stella Luna’s label, Clairecords, proclaims themselves “the indie record label for the modern shoegaze set.” Little more needs to be said. Stargazer is a half-hour EP that surely fits neatly within anyone’s definition of shoegazer music. All four tracks bring us back to a time – slightly less than a decade ago – when cutting-edge music meant that that guitars were distorted and fuzzy, the vocalist was way, way off in the distance, and songs dragged on for an eternity.
The mood of the EP is set by the first track, “Change,” which opens with a full minute of steady, tuneless white noise. Eventually the sounds mutate into a swirling wall of guitar distortion, complimented by slow, echoing drums and vocals that drift in and out of hearing range, never rising above the level of a half-whisper. While trying to listen to this EP intently can be frustrating at first – assuming you’re conditioned to expected melodies and prominent vocals that never arrive – there is something very relaxing about Stella Luna’s music. As soon as you stop trying to decipher the lyrics and simply let the sounds wash over you, everything falls into place. Personally, I found the music quite soothing when I was stuck in yet another Toronto rush hour traffic jam.
Stargazer is not for everyone. A full hour of the type of music found on the short EP could be monotonous, to say the least, and since I’ve heard nothing else from the band, I’m not sure how their music would translate to a full album. For anyone who is open to new sounds, and for anyone who has a fondness for shoegazer music in general, this is a rare and precious find in the year 2002.

Examination of The… – We are the Architects of Desire

“Oh my lord.” This was the reaction once I caught my breath and allowed my heart to slow down and return to a normal pace. Take a listen and tell me if you don’t feel the same way.
“An Ocean Of Lust,” the opening track on Examination of The…’s latest effort, We are the Architects of Desire, is a lengthy instrumental of sorts, with samples programmed on repeat, set to the sound of various metallic crunches, computerized blips and bleeps, and a wide array of maniacal eeriness. These rather somber few moments in no stretch of the imagination prepare you for what is about to happen. Without more than a second’s notice, the follow-up track, “Romantic Instances that Blur the Line Between Sweet and Sultry,” completely knocks you on your ass. It is a hefty dose of slightly melodic hardcore, complete with vocal chords that sound as though they are being shredded, guitars that cry out in agony, and a rhythm section that beats you over the head every chance it gets.
“The Belly of an Architect” and “The Feeling is Always / Never” take a similar approach, buzzing through your skull before you have a chance to catch your breath, pummeling away with just enough sense of melody to keep things from getting too grating, and brimming with such a potent sense of conviction that it is difficult not to take notice. That slightly melodic side steps further into the spotlight with “Each Lust in Prada,” an equally heavy and intense but vaguely calmer intermission placed comfortably in the middle of the album. Things then kick into full gear again during the second act with songs like “An Overindulgence,” “She’s No Stitch,” and “The Incision and Sweet Taste of Uncertainty,” while “Black Hair…Black Eyes” offers a brief sort of respite in between, though it isn’t exactly mellow. Closing things out is “Lady Red / They Spy Down From Prison Towers All Around,” which returns to the slightly slower and more chugging metal sound of “Each Lust In Prada,” ending with some eerie electronics that allow you to finally take a step back, catch your breath, smoke a cigarette, and clean your jaw up off the floor. By now, you’re completely spent.
Ten tracks blur by in barely 23 minutes, which should give you an idea of the pace of this album. Featuring former members of bands like Eclipse of Eden and Spirit of Versailles, the guys of Examination of The… are friends with and currently touring with buddies Planes Mistaken For Stars, and that is where the most logical comparison comes from. Examination of The… is far too aggressive for the casual listener, but they will be adored by fans of quality hardcore and could easily appeal to those who walk a line somewhere in between. For example, I am not a hardcore fan. Most of it just sounds the same to me and sloshes together as a headache-inducing, unintelligible mess. I am more than willing to admit this, as well as the fact that I enjoy some of what people are now labeling “screamo,” and Planes Mistaken For Stars is one of the heaviest things in my record collection when it comes to this sort of thing. But I enjoyed this album, which, despite all the personal rambling, really says a great deal.

Loaded Dreams – In it But Not of It

Loaded Dreams are a band hailing from New York who formed in 2001, and this is their debut release. The band was originally formed as a two-piece with members Lynda Kady and Gene Park who then enlisted others to fill out the sound. The band has a very distinct dream pop feel to it, sort of like that of a fuller Galaxie 500. Lynda Kady’s vocals are very strong and have their own presence but do not over power the proceedings.
“Shin On” starts the disc off with some strong vocals that come over a humming musical backdrop. This song sports some nice guitar work and a very strong rhythm section performance with good drum work. “Lovely Day” also has a very cloudy approach with atmospheric guitar layers and overflowing electronic elements. Kady asserts herself very nicely on this song with her husky vocals taking the fore over the accompaniment that plays to her strengths. “Mercy is another standout track with Kady to the fore and the band providing nice sparse backing. Kady’s vocals have a beautiful quality to them, while the melody just floats in the listener’s ears.
Loaded Dreams have started themselves out nicely with their first collection of songs. The band has a lot of good going for them, but they do have room for improvement. Kady does have a strong voice, but on occasion she sounds like she is reaching too far out of her vocal range, showing weakness. Also sometimes the songwritng is a little lackluster and lacks much that is memorable, but the songs are still fun to listen to. It’s a good start for this band that creates very nice melodies that show a lot of heart with many things working for them.

The Gathering – Black Light District

Twelve and a half years ago, The Gathering played heavy metal in a small town in the Netherlands. Apparently the sound struck the small Dutch town like an abdominal cramp, in a good way. The Gathering became a big thing in the Netherlands, and through travail and travel they were able to build themselves a wide fan base, even amidst genre metamorphosis and cycling band members. Today, The Gathering plays experimental and atmospheric rock led by a slow, depressed piano and the ethereal voice of Anneke van Glersberger.
The title track, which at 16+ minutes rivals the total length of many punk albums, starts with the piano lethargically plotting out notes and chords. Then, in come the soft cymbals after two minutes of keyboards. Cold, female, spoken vocals follow shortly thereafter. The music then turns heavier with an overly distorted keyboard and an electric guitar over the now aggressive drums. It culminates for a few minutes; then you hear the piano softly playing a melody under the chugging instruments as they diligently work towards a climax. The electric guitar fizzles out and the keyboard continues playing softly to the light cymbals. In comes the tired vocals, “The narrow street / Never ending narrow / Clogs my throat” and the keyboard reverts back to its original lethargic tune before the music finally fades out.
“Debris” is the track that reminds me a lot of Poe. This song is obviously influenced more by their heavy metal days than the other two on this mini-CD. With a heavier sound throughout and no trace of the pretty piano from the first track, The Gathering produces a well-pieced together track that sounds something like a late 90s alternative hit. The final song, “Broken Glass,” returns back to their slowed-down, piano-oriented style, which I personally prefer. The keyboards are alone with the vocals on this track playing chords mezzo forte over the floating vocals. This track creates a very slow and melancholy atmosphere: I fell asleep to it twice.
On top of almost 30 minutes of music, The Gathering tosses in four movie files and other media for your computer. Just imagining how much content will be on their full-length release in 2003 is mind-boggling. This release is certainly worth purchasing, and I’m sure they are selling like crazy in the Netherlands.

Burd Early – Magnet Mountain

In the wake of September 11th, some media pundits suggested that irony may well have died in the United States for the immediate future. While that pronouncement proved a bit premature, as within weeks we were back cracking jokes about how dumb George Bush is and how weird Michael Jackson looks, the music released in the year since the World Trade Center disaster has taken on a decidedly serious tone. Springsteen, Beck, Steve Earle, et al, have all turned out some of their most careful and serious work to date, and few albums have crackled with the carefree sense of irony that colored the work of famously snide indie songwriters like Smog and D.C. Berman. And even as James Angelos seems to want to align himself with such indie rock stalwarts (especially Berman) with his solo project, Burd Early, he proves that leaving out the wit and understated humor of such projects renders them a bit ineffective in the long run.
With his first full-length, Angelos has mastered the aesthetic of mixing slightly rhetorical poetry with a coolly disinterested deadpan delivery and a quieting musical backdrop to create a very suggestive climate. The only problem is, all the set-up usually goes to suggest that a statement of unique creativity and vision is about to be made, as the clearing away of textural fluff erects a stage where the artist’s personality is free to assume the spotlight. As such, a musical undertaking of this variety is clearly dangerous, as those without the strong personality of a D.C. Berman or a Vic Chesnutt might not be able to pull it off. At this point, Angelos has a much better grasp of setting up the proper musical dynamic, as the mix of acoustic guitar, brushed drums, and stark pianos makes for musically compelling listening that manages to carry the weight placed on the arrangements if only just barely.
The twinkling electric lead and wistfully inconspicuous melody of the opening “Driftwood” creates a suitable climate for its escapist themes, just as the classy piano strikes of “Tire” excellently accent Angelos voice cracks as he strains to hit the high notes. And while the album has no musical sore thumbs sticking out of the set, by the time the last half of its tracks wind down, they begin to melt into a pleasantly samey mélange of quieting moroseness and electric slide guitar, separated only by slight variations in texture and tempo. Loose and always slightly sour, the musical aesthetic is paired with a vague sense of displacement and disillusionment that runs through all too much of the work of modern indie rock singer/songwriters. No doubt, he’s always on the verge of doing something interesting, he just never quite makes it.
In the end, Magnet Mountain has enough musical bright spots to balance out the more nondescript moments, and even if it doesn’t exactly grab you by the intellect and throw you to the ground with its cleverness, the album is consistent enough in mood and sound to rank it as a modest success. If anything, the album goes to show just how difficult it is to consistently come up with original and entertaining ideas in the nearly exhausted realm of rock song lyricism. The musical end of the equation is set up nearly faultlessly. All Burd Early needs to do to rise to the ranks of the greats in the genre is find a little more personality and make a statement fitting of the carefully constructed stage that is already waiting.

Loscil – Submers

Warning: You are going to get lost in this album. Like Yo La Tengo’s Sounds of the Sounds of Science, you might put it in, expecting something else, but like South Pacific’s Constance, you’re going to get an album’s worth of wordless inspiration. And you’re going to fucking love it.
This album is loosely based around submarines; each song is named after one, and the last track is a tribute to Kursk, the Russian submarine that sank with crewmembers still inside. I’m no expert on loscil’s body of work or on the bands claimed in the past as influence (Gas, Oval), but the ebb and flow of this album is perfectly suited for this theme. You can’t help but imagine the steel hulks, lurking, thousands of feet below the surface. The tie is organic and intrinsic. Percussive snips chitter below a translucent cloud of generated tone. Motion is slow and deliberate. Tracks like “Nautilus” propel themselves quietly past; others, like “Argonaut I,” simply drift back and forth, rooted to the ground. This album has weight and form.
You might be disappointed if you were hoping the tribute to Kursk was going to be an acoustic pop-punk ballad (“So here’s to all those Russians underneath the sea / Say hello to Triton and Ariel for me”), but anyone willing to let a beautiful, stately record move over them will likely be fascinated by Submers. Despite not knowing loscil’s influences, predecessors, or contemporaries, I find myself entranced and mesmerized by this album. I can’t think of a higher recommendation than that.

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