Vashti Bunyan – Prospect Hummer EP

They are known for giddily meowing on record. She is known for recording tracks about lily ponds and glow worms.

It was only a matter of time before the Brooklyn-based Animal Collective and the recently rechristened godmother of freak-folk, Vashti Bunyan, joined creative forces. It seems only natural that one of the genre’s initial founders would collaborate with one the genre’s current innovators. After all, both are consistently noted for their unique and effortless sense of childlike whimsy, so its no surprise that Bunyan and the Animal Collective musical meddlings meld perfectly over Prospect Hummer’s four tracks.

Animal Collective’s new EP, featuring the wispy-as-cotton-candy vocal stylings of Bunyan (whose 1970 classic Just Another Diamond Day gained renewed interest with its first ever stateside release last year) is a delightful follow up project to 2004s critical indie-folk darling Sung Tongs. The Collective’s instrumentation is just as psychedelically rhythmic, but this time around the harmonies are even more hypnotic given Bunyan’s presence.

While clocking in at a mere 15 minutes, the EP’s four tracks evoke much of the carefree revelry that has come to characterize the group’s sound. The title track particularly demonstrates this, with its chorus of wailing “wah, wahs” and bouncy acoustic melody. The instrumental “Baleen Sample” indulges some of the group’s more percussively primal, almost tribal tendencies, as a cacophony of plucking strings and distant squawks envelops the listener. It sounds almost as if a group of elementary school students suddenly raided the band room closet and plaintively picked up the maracas, plucked the harp and rattled a rain-stick, and then abandoned it just suddenly.

“I Remember Learning How to Dive” is the freaky, folksy, pinnacle of the four-song EP, as a click track propels strummy acoustic guitar and joyous preschooler-esque squeals. Lighthearted “wheees” are uttered, as the line “And away we’ll fly / You just have to jump,” is sweetly harmonized by Bunyan and the Collective. Although the irony of the song’s innocent charm is made evident when they sing the phrase “I was high,” one still remains in awe over the band’s endearing allure.

This is music that is at once insouciant and insightful, abstract and accessible from two remarkably talented artists. Contemporary, neo, freak call-it-what-you-will folk, this is music that transcends the confines of any possible misnomer. Let the giddiness ensue.

Scarboro Aquarium Club – Poisoned

The debut album by Scarboro Aquarium Club plays like an experimental album put out by veterans. Poisoned is a very well-produced, eclectic mix of songs to either sit around alone and sulk to, or get up and dance to…either way, you’ll love every minute of this album. It sounds like a collaboration between Belle & Sebastian and Erasure. It is a CD of trance-filled, catchy, gloomy tunes that can accompany any mood. Cheesy synthesizers and a drum machine, accompanied by soft-voiced Corey Schmidt who is pretty much the whole show here, appear on an ambitious 16 tracks, none of which seem like useless filler. Every song, whether instrumental or not, serve a purpose to give this album an eerie flow from melancholy to jubilant.
It all opens with “Never Been to the Moon,” an understated introduction to Corey’s dream world. This moves right in to “FuturePop,” by far the album’s catchiest tune, with guest vocalist Melissa Boraski. She boldly sings “it’s self-indulgent when bands record just what they want to say.” This CD does just the opposite – it is a band that records an audio passport to a fantasy world you’ve never dreamt of. “FuturePop” is a poppy, snide take on musical snobbery, sounding like a joint effort between Papas Fritas and Sinead O’Connor.
The next few tracks sound like something out of the Pet Shop Boys demo pile, but they provide a great transition to “Little Nikka,” my personal favorite song on the album. This song sounds like someone got St. Etienne to produce a track by Donovan. The lyrics are beautiful and embody the spirit of longing and indifference. “You may never know how bright you are to me / and you may never know just what you mean to me / So Little Nikka, dance away” Corey sings, giving you the feeling that you are overhearing his inner thoughts. The stylistic shuffle continues through the rest of the album. Next up is “Sleeping Sound,” which is a light, poppy tune sung by Melanie McKay. This is a song of young love and innocence with a youthful, bouncy melody, featuring playfully suggestive lyrics.
While the entire album stands out as truly great, the tracks “Someone Else,” “The Hemlock Girls,” and “Flying Over Yelapa” are definitely standouts. “The Hemlock Girls” will haunt your mind for days after listening. “Flying Over Yelapa” makes you feel like you are witnessing your own funeral, with its evocative, airy, carefree tune, playing hand-in-hand with morbid organ chords and ending with an abrupt plug-pulling silence. Sheer beauty.
This whole album is ethereal and enchanting, and at the same time haunting and spooky. You could play this album at a happening Friday-night party, or throw it on during a Sunday morning rainstorm. You will be moved no matter when you give it a listen. It is background music for any occasion and foreground music for times of pensive thought or cheerless moping. This album plays like the soundtrack to a small art house film that leaves the audience both teary-eyed and wanting more. It’s an album I give two thumbs up and a perfect 10.

Function – The Zillionaire-Retarded Speeds of Ordinary, Measured Light

And from nowhere, it shall come. First line, first track, first words, “Break my heart I yearn to bleed and grow / Train my art I’m novice and mad and slow.” There’s a muted trumpet doing its best to sonically replicate the feelings behind those words, and Matt Nicholson, creator of Function, picking his guitar to pieces and singing, urging, seducing us, calling “paradigm shift now” whilst Pete Nicholson tells us the price, “to infinite sorrow’s breast.” And we’re not yet three minutes into the seven-minute opener called “Paduka Heart-Nectar.” It’s too gentle for sadness, too swelling for lethargy. There’s even melody in the madness. Whatever – at 2:53 on a Wednesday morning it makes sense. People have sold their soul for less.
Second track “Softest Light Sunday” is exactly that, a delay guitar loop over waves that dawdle in and out, no vocals, just sampled backgrounds, the tiniest chirps, a piano threatening to slip away. And then we hit the western-themed (I’m serious) “Good Man, Dead Man (Hard Lessons in Non-Separateness),” a tale of a town that kills its prophets after worshipping at their feet. The seraphic-sounding Ruth Schoenheimer makes her first vocal appearance, offering high tones to Matt’s narrative, and suddenly as a banjo begins to sound the loneliest tune possible, it all makes sense. The full five of Function do well and truly function, taking the best of last year’s Glaswegian Desert Hearts and mixing their sound up with Morricone, building up a spaghetti western soundtrack symphony. How can “their hero must be shot and hanged, and so he was” sound so beautiful?
If you hadn’t noticed by now, this is magical music, hot shit, serious, suffocating, and sparse, and aesthetically exquisite. Over 17 tracks, many of them instrumental, Melburnians Nicholson and co. have shaped a studio album that showcases all the agony and grandeur and artistic bamboozlement that goes into songs like “Situational Cellophane,” “Schoen (Shown),” and the knee-shaking “Air Kiss Air” with the glorious refrain, “no proof needed, air kisses air and space fucks itself”. The packaging is something more, 40 pages of black and white photographs and lyrics, offering up almost as much as the music does, yet providing as much confusion (references to a Ruchira Avatar Adi Da Samraj abound) as wry earthy compensation (“she draws me to her breast and smells of mindless treats ah yes”).
So like Billy Corgan’s dreaming without the histrionics, Function have delivered an album of complexities and joys, of intersecting melodic dirt paths that offer new variations with each listen. Amidst the braying cacophony of trend upon trend, Function have crafted an album that already sounds without time, or beyond it, looking back with subtle drones and feedbacked wry grins of the knowledge that comes with loss. And from nothing it will come, The Zillionaire-Retarded Speeds of Ordinary, Measured Light is the finest album to emerge from Australia this year. You have been warned.

Natalie Flanagan – Let

Her songs are straightforward and at times perhaps even a little cold, but the less-flowery approach lends the folk-drenched singer/songwriter a little bit of individuality in a genre where it is so very hard to find. Her lyrics are a bit lackluster, or maybe just plain, but she refuses to fall back on the high and dainty, lady songbird image that so many female artists fall prey to.
Not that she’s without influences mind you. Taking a heavy hint from lazy troubadours like Lou Reed, Flanagan’s voice is breathy and unshakably calm (at times some might even say bored), with a somewhat self-conscious way of almost speaking the lyrics even as she sings them. At times it’s also impossible to avoid flashing on the vocal attack that Bob Dylan made infamous in the mid-70s, with his reaching up and barely hitting the note before sliding it way down the scale to make it more manageable (see the amazing vocals of “Idiot Wind” on Blood on the Tracks.) On Let, Flanagan caricaturizes that same approach throughout, but most specifically on “Grace Under Pressure” and “Come in Tokyo,” both of which might be two of her strongest songwriting efforts on the collection. Yet though Dylan pulls it off without so much as batting an eye, one would be hard pressed to find another human being able to do so, and unfortunately Natalie Flanagan is no exception. Instead it comes across as a bit of a put-on, or at the very least, an unappealing affectation.
Still, elsewhere on the record her sultry, ambivalent singing is not entirely unfitting to the music behind it. Backed by piano, organ, loads of tasteful percussion, acoustic and electric guitars – which slip in some seriously classic rock infected blues fills – her voice completes the picture nicely. But the “picture” and feeling she creates is not one we haven’t all experienced before, and worse it’s one that other performers do decidedly better; meaning more evocatively and with a greater command of both songwriting and performance. In short, Natalie Flanagan does what she does well, but as she hasn’t set the bar too high for herself she’s wound up with an album of decent songs with good players, but nothing so pertinent that it demands to stay with the listener after the album winds to a close.

Lucinda Williams – World Without Tears

Ever since 1998’s Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, it’s become difficult to find a review of a new Lucinda Williams album that doesn’t start with a sentence like, “Ever since 1998’s Car Wheels on a Gravel Road…” Of course, if anything this is a testimonial to that album’s quality and its importance, along with Emmylou Harris’s Wrecking Ball, in forming the Blonde on Blonde and Sgt. Pepper’s, respectively, of their particular sub-genre.
What Car Wheels did was leave Williams with a familiar, difficult choice: to repeat herself for a guaranteed audience, or to branch off in another creative direction. Fortunately, she chose the latter (while still holding onto that audience) with her subsequent release, Essence, sparing us all the several-year wait it might have taken for her to re-create the nuanced, slickly polished production that Steve Earle gave to Car Wheels. Essence was a raw album with a live-in-the-studio feel, hearkening back to earlier releases like Sweet Old World and Lucinda Williams (which, by the way, might remain her masterpiece, with the added bonus that far fewer people know about it than know about Car Wheels).
World Without Tears, like Essence, retains that raw emotional charge while dispensing with the naive desire of a song like Williams’s “Just Wanted to See You So Bad,” in favor of a fully grown-up, sometimes embittered emotional gravity. The best of these songs deal with loss and regret in true country style, spinning them into gorgeous refrains, as on “Those Three Days” (which could be the album’s hit single if it weren’t for a couple of choice f-bombs) and “Ventura,” in which Williams channels Jimmie Dale Gilmour with her lilting vocals on lines like, “I wanna watch the ocean bend / The edges of the sun then / I wanna get swallowed up…” The band is tight and versatile, made up of Lucinda and three guys from her excellent touring group, and Williams co-produces with Mark Howard, giving herself tons of room to let her voice rise and fall, from the highs of the Rolling Stones-style, echoing-guitar rock of “Real Live Bleeding Fingers,” down to the whispers of the set closer, “Words Fell.”
In other songs, Williams follows the formula set by the last album, though without the results always standing up to comparison. In many ways, the sexually charged blues of “Righteously” and the brimstone of “Atonement” on World don’t quite match the sexually charged blues of “Essence” and the brimstone of “Get Right with God” on Essence. Also, Williams takes some departures here that might leave a few fans scratching their heads, as in the talkin’ blues (or are they rap?) experiments of “American Dream” and “Sweet Side.” Here her social conscious finds a voice in her songwriting, though powerful as it is, it doesn’t attain the pitch-perfect precision and artistry that her lyrics have on her heartbreak songs and on the bayou travelogue of Car Wheels. Some lines, like “You get defensive at every turn / You’re overly sensitive and overly concerned,” about a friend dealing with being abused as a child, are clunky to the point of being cringe-able.
For die-hard fans who eagerly await new releases from their favorite acts, hearing the new record often means seeing if the experiments that work balance out those that don’t (just ask a Radiohead fan). In this case I’m pleased to say they do, from the lonely, Midwestern sadness of “Minneapolis,” to the impressionistic “Fruits of My Labor,” with its quiet, tremolo-laced, old-school country strains of guitar and its lyrics that in many ways could be a reflection of the arc Williams’s life and career have taken since the ten-years-in-the-making overnight success of Car Wheels. Here she sings, “Come to my world and witness / all the things that have changed… / Baby, sweet baby if it’s all the same / Take the glory any day over the fame.” Lucinda has indeed always taken glory (and respect) over fame, and the results have been glorious, as she continues to make the kind of real country-blues Nashville shamelessly gave up on decades ago.

The Impossible Shapes – Bless the Headless

On their newest release Bless the Headless, the Impossible Shapes have eschewed their former lo-fi basement sound for the crispness and clarity of a music studio. The sound is still warm, though, and it evokes the feel of a tightly-knit band of musicians crammed together in a small room cranking out textured, experimental pop ditties.
The core of the Impossible Shapes is singer and songwriter Chris Barth, who brings a strange, almost fairy-tale like lyricism to the music. “Sometimes it feels so good to cry / it feels so good to die / in the woods at night,” he sings on the jangly “Lie.” The slower, spookier “I Live on the Roof” is a strange yet likable little ramble written from the perspective of – it seems – someone lurking on the roof of their target of affection.
Musically, the sound is fairly consistent across all 10 tracks on the album. For the most part, subtle guitars and keyboard lines are dressed up with the occasional addition of other instruments such as accordions, synthesized flutes, and even dissonant noise (witness the chaotic implosion that concludes “Kids Need Creeks.”) The most noticeable musical trait is probably the staccato, unconventional drumming style mixed loud and upfront on many tracks. Tempos often speed up and slow down abruptly in mid-song, which can be unsettling if you’re used to relaxing to a steady groove.
Despite its seemingly whimsical sound, Bless the Headless can be something of a difficult listen. It’s unusual to hear happy, pop-oriented music strung out in such a psychedelic way. The lyrics are interesting and poetic, yet the inability to make immediate sense of them makes them hard to identify with. That said, the Impossible Shapes have come up with something different, and fun, and the disc will reward you if you give the music time to sink in.

Lagwagon – Blaze

After reading heaps of praise for Lagwagon’s latest effort – their first studio album in five long years – I was eager to hear it for myself. 1995’s Hoss, the album that first brought Lagwagon into the spotlight, re-vamped the West-coast punk sound that NOFX popularized, giving speedy riffs a softer, more sensitive side, and – on a more personal note – expanded my narrowminded Oi! tastes into the lighter side of punk. Though more bland than Hoss, Let’s Talk About Feelings, released in 1998, confirmed Lagwagon’s ability to churn out addicting, double-time hooks that can make even the crustiest of punk fans unashamedly tap his toes. Since a five year hiatus seems capable of only two things – making a band stronger or tearing them apart – I was particularly excited to hear how Lagwagon maintained their unique sound. If Blaze continued the Lagwagon tradition, I was fully prepared to align myself with the frenzied fans and begin shoveling on the praise.
Much to my pleasure, Blaze lives up to all my expectations and then some. Perhaps because of the long hiatus, this album is musically tighter and more polished than Lagwagon’s previous releases. Whereas the band’s trademark hyper-drumming usually washes out Joey Cape’s weak voice, the vocals soar strongly over the instrumentals on Blaze, and the lyrical content – while still light and fun – shows more depth than girl-obsessed pop banter. (Of course, this is still a Fat Wreck release, so don’t expect too much.) Song’s such as “Falling Apart,” a typical tongue-in-cheek tune about growing old in a youth-driven profession, display Lagwagon’s unparalleled ability to snap out a sweet, inoffensive hook, as do “E Dagger” and “Never Stops.” Sounding freakishly similar to work from Bad Astronaut, Cape’s side project, a few songs open with slow acoustic guitars before cutting into the trademark speedy punk, but rather than creating interest, the slow/fast contrast is generally disarming and skipworthy. Luckily these slow spots are few and far between, and tracks such as “Billionaire” prove that Lagwagon has preserved their sound.
However, I’m not quite ready to align myself with the frenzied fans. Lagwagon has the uncanny ability to lean toward mediocrity, spitting out songs that are cheery in a thin, unemotional, unaffected way. There’s no grandiose displays of emotion here; like most pop punk, Blaze is best served up as background music for driving to work or browsing the web. This is not necessarily a bad criticism – I need good albums for driving, too – but outside of the optimistic Fat Wreck-style family of punk, it seems comparably insignificant. My boyfriend summed it up best in one of his rare nuggets of wisdom: “I want to like Lagwagon so bad, but something’s missing, something memorable. They’re good, but not great.” And Blaze is far from album of the year.
If you like NOFX but can’t stand Good Charlotte, Lagwagon is for you. Just be prepared for straight pop punk without delusions of politics or philosophy, and don’t expect Blaze to completely live up to its praise from starved fans. A five year wait will make anyone a little crazy.

Sixty Stories – Anthem Red

I know what it’s like to do crack. Or, at least, now I can feasibly imagine what it’s like. The transcendent calm of that first hit, the overwhelming pleasure, and the relief. I know the sweats, the withdrawal, and the constant dominance it has on your consciousness.
I know all this because that’s the effect Anthem Red has on me. It’s an album so addictive you keep coming back for more. I’ve tried to kick it, said it wasn’t healthy to indulge in one album so much, but once I had put it back on the shelf, it sat there and taunted me. I’ve put it under the floorboards to escape it, but still it beckoned like a Tell Tale Heart. I knew I’d grab it soon enough and once again sing along with every single word.
Needless to say I’ve realized resistance is an exercise in futility. I’ve decided to fully embrace my love of the tight pop rhythms, female vocals, and sing-along choruses. I’m a much saner individual for it.
This Canadian trio is well aware that the quickest way to a person’s heart is melody and a catchy song. They’ve made an album with an abundance of both. But what’s most remarkable is, for how infectious it is, it refuses to grow old and tiresome on the listener’s ears. The music is power-pop akin to Weezer and That Dog, with a certain punk influence and accented by keyboard blips (courtesy of a computer). The opener, “Countdown,” begins with a short lullaby keyboard intro, relieved by guitar and Jo Snyder’s husky delivery, then Paul Frugale and Sarah Sangster come in and maintain a steady bounce that will keep your head bobbing in time. That’s about all the time it takes to be sucked in, 15 whole seconds.
The harder and more urgent tracks are some of the strongest, with the standout being “Second Hand Table and Chairs.” The chorus features the most notable and pleasing vocal harmony on the album (of which there are many). But even naming a standout track is subjective and risky, as all of it is consistently excellent and cohesive. It would trouble even the most discriminatory listener to pick a favorite.
Anthem Red is a gem given to us from the depths of Canada. It’s ironic that a band from the Great White North has released the perfect summer album, one that should be played with the car windows rolled down. An anthem indeed, one so damn addicting you won’t want to come down.

We Are Childhood Equals – This is What You Asked For

It is one thing to catch a brand new band on a brand new label and see what is taking place before everyone else hears about it, good or bad. It is even better to catch a brand new band on a brand new label that you think has the potential to do really interesting things. There are just so many bands and so many labels out there now that it is reassuring to hear one that feels as though it could last beyond a single record or a single tour. It gives you that special feeling that perhaps you have discovered something fresh, something that not everyone is talking about yet. I apologize for getting all touchy-feely and philosophical, but this is the sort of feeling I imagine many people will get when they first hear We Are Childhood Equals’ debut effort, This is What You Asked For.
Like an overflowing handful of comparable indie-pop-rock acts, We Are Childhood Equals gives head-jerking nods to elder statesmen like the Pixies and Sonic Youth. They blend adorable melodies with a bit of abrasive noise, but they do it better than many of their peers. Another thing the band has on its side is the length of the album, which runs for only five tracks, and serves as an excellent tease for any future material. The opening “City Mimicry” sounds like Hum on a sugar-induced pop bender. The rhythm section is quite understated, doing its job without standing out too much, and the guitars switch back and forth from gentle and slightly atmospheric melodies to fuzzy distortion. Two layers of vocals play a seductive little game of cat and mouse, whether one is echoing the other or feeding from and building upon it. “Veranda” sounds like a young garage band with an almost unhealthy crush on Sonic Youth, but also with a week spot for sugary sweet pop. The drum work and added percussion is a major driving force here, while the cute/fuzzy guitars and the lulling vocals keep going in the fashion they proved themselves worthy of carrying out in the first song.
“Sunday She Said I Was Sick” comes next, starting out with a throbbing bassline and guitar squeals and sticking with that formula for the bulk of the tune. It charges and retreats, but with little variation, though some of the guitar noise is almost haunting. “N Judah” is an eerie number, perfect for all you pop junkies with a dark side. The vocals do the haunting this time around, sounding as though they could narrate a walk through the cemetery as the guitars squeal and the rhythm section gets a little playful behind it. Closing things out, the title track is an easily digestible pop-rock nugget that wraps up any loose ends and leaves you with a pleasant taste in your mouth. All of this is coated in a rather minimal production coating, which is not shoddy enough to take anything away from the songs, but is something that can easily be improved upon with the next batch of songs.
All of this may not sound like a terribly new or exciting formula, but We Are Childhood Equals is able to create something more than just moderately interesting, and the guys just barely got out of the gate. This is What You Asked For could prove to be an appropriate title for this one.

Heroes of the Alamo – 98 to 1

Named after a 1937 B-movie starring Earle Hodgins, Bruce Warren, and Lane Chandler, Heroes of the Alamo hail not from Texas, but rather from New York. There is a distinct Elvis Costello influence throughout, especially on elements such as the jangly rhythm guitar parts, and there is also a wealth of distortion slathered all over most of the guitar work, leaving it to sound like a thousand other bands not yet ready for life outside of the garage. There are almost always two distinct layers of male vocals, and at least one is usually a bit abrasive. The rhythm section provides enough support, but it can’t save this from sounding like little more than something you might not mind hearing in some rustic dive bar.
The opening “Not My Fault” is a harmless chunk of moderately dark and angst-tinged rock, but from that point on, it’s pretty sugary sweet. “She’s Still” is a poppy number about lost love, and the same goes for many of the songs that follow. “Jean” also falls into this category, but is saved by some lovely female supporting vocals from Nan Turner. “Cleaning Woman,” “Jenny G,” and “That Kind of Girl” are sheer pop gooiness, while “One Step Closer” and “Gavin’s Perambulator” have a hint of an angsty edge to them. “Navigator” is one of the rare moments in which you can’t deny the catchiness, while “Elements” and “Acquiescing” are more lulling and melancholy numbers, but there is still little that stands out as extremely interesting here.
Despite all the problems listed above, 98 to 1 is not completely without promise. You can almost always (I say “almost always” because “Survival Waltz,” “Old Bikes and Car Parts,” and others should perhaps be abandoned altogether) hear bits and pieces of what could have been quality songs, buried underneath a sort of musical immaturity. The production, much of which was done by the band itself, is partially to blame here, and it all leaves you hoping the boys have a little better luck next time around.

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