Jóhann Jóhannsson – Dís

Dís, Jóhann Jóhannsson’s third album and first release on The Worker’s Institute, is a rare blend of contemporary, vivid instrumental pop and soothing melancholy that endears itself to listeners with the first note. Jóhannsson wrote the 15 tracks comprising Dís as the soundtrack to the recent Icelandic film of the same name and recruited various acclaimed Reykjavik musicians to play with him. This beautiful exercise in warm electronic music opens with “Bankok Norðursins,” a looping ambient creation with a progressively rising tempo. The track, referenced in the second half of the album as the climax of the briefer “Ljósrit,” has enough of a beat to fit comfortably in a trendy downtown lounge.

For the most part, Dís offers listeners mellow, meticulously structured instrumental pieces with echoes and dreamy nuances, such as “Sumavéi” and “Gúmmískór.” The latter barely exceeds a minute in length and clearly sounds like incidental music for a film scene. Choosing individual tracks to highlight on Dís is difficult, because there is not a weak moment on the album. Still, “Þynnkudagur” stands out for its poignant blend of piano, organ, and fuzzy beats in a wordless, more typically melodic manner.

As with “Bankok Norðursins,” there is a second appearance of the dominant theme of “Þynnkudagur” in a later track. Yet, “Hótel Borg” speeds forward, pounding the beats and increasing the chimes and high pitches that “Þynnkudagur” subdues. The faster tracks on Dís are few and far between, but, like the rest of the album, they are consistently excellent. “10 Rokkstig” is the sexiest piece on Dís, with crunching guitars and keyboards that hint at The Cure’s “Play for Today.” Even those who don’t have the patience for Jóhannsson’s meditative works will be hard-pressed to deny the pulsating “10 Rokkstig.”

Also on the more energetic end of the spectrum, “Efripídes Og Neðripídel” starts out with the bells and knob-flicking that reflect Jóhannsson’s experimental tendencies, but his musical representation of young discovery soon turns into a more mature rock instrumental. Imagine Four Tet fusing with a Steve Miller Band refrain in a wholly original Icelandic style. Expanding the album’s sound to other parts of Europe, “Jarðaför” combines jazz with light French flourishes.

Aside from his significant writing, programming, and keyboard-playing skills, Jóhannsson’s greatest strength is his ability to determine how much to offer and when to move on. Each track on Dís leaves the listener with a taste for more but never shortchanges anyone, performer or audience. Perhaps this unique respect for those willing to give him an attentive ear is best represented by Jóhannsson’s decision to include just one lyrical work on Dís. The gentle keyboard theme of the album’s title track repeats with variation as Ragnheidur Grondal sings in an innocent, yearning manner. Her passionate vocals perfectly complement Jóhannsson’s most traditionally pop composition.

Listening to Dís, one senses that Jóhannsson prefers to take risks but not do something unless he is going to pursue it with his heart completely into the endeavor. Dís is an exceptional collection of evocative, engaging music from a multitalented force. Now that I’ve heard the music, I’m keen to watch the film.

Suzukiton – Service Repair Handbook

Suzukiton is a Richmond, VA-based band that includes current and former members of stoner-rock favorites Alabama Thunder Pussy. As a departure from ATP’s normal fare, Suzukiton’s music is completely instrumental and is much more technical with heavy nods toward progressive metal and math-rock. The band’s music is heavy as hell, with plenty of fine-tuned arrangements and enough tempo changes to keep the listener interested. The lack of vocals leaves plenty of room for your mind to wander the path of its choosing while experiencing Suzukiton.

Service Repair Handbook, the group’s long-anticipated full-length, was recorded in 2002 and finally released by Crucial Blast in 2005. The album contains 13 blistering tracks that are sure to please almost any metal fan – particularly those fond of the more technical side of things. The disc begins with the superbly crafted math-rock of “Arithmatits,” a song that expertly infuses soaring dual-guitar riffs with a masterful rhythm section. “Rogue Mechanica” has a sludgy feel that reminds you that the four musicians in Suzukiton also have a love for stoner rock, while other tracks like “VIII” and “New Blood” are straight-up metal. The group’s romp through all things progressive rounds out with the aptly titled “Slow Song,” which is much softer and less intense then the other offerings here but equally as good.

It’s hard to have a lot to say about an album like Service Repair Handbook – not because anything is lacking, but because music like this is so cerebral. Suzukiton laid a solid framework here, and it’s really up to each listener to mentally run with it. In the vein of other instrumental rockers like Stinking Lizaveta, no matter how good the recorded material is, the live show is where it’s at. Although I haven’t had a chance to see Suzukiton play live, I hope the musicians will have the chance to hit the road together again soon. Service Repair Handbook has quickly become one of my favorite instrumental albums, and as much as I enjoy Alabama Thunder Pussy, I hope these guys continue to pursue this side project. This is a must-have album for any fan of progressive metal, math-rock, or stoner rock.

New Estate – Considering…

Considering…, the debut album from Australian indie-rock outfit New Estate, sounds like it was played through blown-out amplifiers whose distortion dials were turned to 10, then recorded onto an old tape deck in a dank basement or messy garage. But beneath all the fuzz are melodic, mid-tempo pop songs. “Dream Planner,” for example, opens like John Mayer’s “No Such Thing” recorded through a giant filter, then culminates in some gloriously muffled boy-girl harmonies straight out of the early 90s. As a whole, Considering… comes off like suitably amateurish tribute to Pavement’s seminal Slanted & Enchanted and the murky, lo-fi sound and spoken-word style of singing it helped popularize among members of the American rock underground in the 1990s.

Having a canonized classic as a reference point is a double-edged sword. Even deigning to compare Considering… with Slanted & Enchanted lends the former undeserved credibility. On the other hand, doing so also holds Considering… up to a nearly impossible standard. On balance, though, the comparison does more to probe than prejudice, and it certainly makes quick work of putting the album in perspective. Considering… is similar to Slanted & Enchanted in many ways. Most obviously, the two albums marry purposely amateurish production qualities with melodic college-rock. The big balls of noise that roll through both records are similarly kept in check by wry, laconic vocals. On the album’s opener, “Don’t Like the Way,” for example, a subtly addictive lead guitar line rises above a thicket of rhythm guitar to complement a simple but effective melody.

Yet the differences between the two albums are not just beneath the surface: the exterior of Considering… is actually quite a bit fuzzier than that of Slanted & Enchanted. Though the records share a similar aesthetic, the drum, bass, and vocal tracks are all much crisper on Slanted & Enchanted. In fact, for its unabated allegiance to white-noise, Considering… is often closer to the steady drone of Sonic Youth or the Jesus and Mary Chain than the jagged rock of Pavement. And New Estate lacks the sonic punch of all three of those groups. Slanted & Enchanted was carefully crafted in a home studio to sound like it was recorded on a cassette tape, but Considering… may have actually been recorded using piss-poor technology. Even if this terrible audio quality gives Considering… the authenticity advantage (which is doubtful), it ultimately relegates the record to the status of rough demo at best. Whereas the honed, if not refined, fuzz of Slanted & Enchanted made uncovering its melodies all the more rewarding, the sonic haze surrounding Considering… is equal parts endearing and frustrating.

But poor production is hardly the album’s only weakness. For every warm, inviting melody on Considering…, there is an equally off-putting complement. “Learning Zone” is a thing of glacial beauty that combines My Blood Valentine’s guitar swirls with the terse, spoken-word vocals of Stephen Malkmus or even Lou Reed. On the other hand, the hard-rocking “Open” suffers from grating vocals that belabor off-pitch notes. There’s a strong undercurrent of jangle pop in the endearingly understated “Collage,” which almost evokes the Sundays. By contrast, the ironically titled “Please Leave” quickly wears out its welcome but fails to heed its own advice. Despite sounding painfully sluggish and featuring dreadfully out of tune vocals, “Please Leave” sticks around nearly six and a half minutes!

In almost every way, Considering… is half of a great album. Roughly half the songs have addictive melodies, while the others fall flat, tangled in the drone of distorted guitars. The fuzzy sound of Considering… is itself an equally mixed bag. Its lo-fi aesthetic is at times a refreshing counterpart to the slick overproductions of contemporary rock, but muddled mixing hurts the record by obscuring the vocals and dulling the guitars parts’ hard edges. The vocals themselves are a gift and a curse: occasionally (as on “Learning Zone”), they are delightfully fractured and tough, but too often they waver over and under desired pitches. Considering… shows tremendous promise but also fails terribly.

So if this review seems half devoted to an unfair, hastily aborted contest between Considering… and Slanted & Enchanted, and half born out of reasoned analysis–well, let’s just say it’s meant to be 50-50.

Chad Van Gaalen – Infiniheart

Musician, animator, and illustrator Chad Van Gaalen, from Calgary Canada, writes, performs, and records his eccentric brand of pastiche pop in his bedroom; apparently on lonely nights while contemplating life, death, destruction, and beyond. These 16 tracks were culled from Van Gaalen’s recordings over the three-year period of 2001 to 2003, which makes for an inconsistent, yet interestingly introspective outing on his Sub Pop debut.

If you can stomach the depressing subject matter and his subdued, Neil Young-like voice, you may find solace in the music as Van Gaalen expands upon his lo-fi, acoustic singer/songwriter formula with irregular forays into unknown territory, occasionally building textural tapestries with soft touches of electronic percussion and keyboard washes accented with bells and chimes. Unfortunately, mixed in with these fine morsels are too many of the formulaic lo-fi acoustic singer/songwriter dross that seems to be saturating the indie scene of late. Although Van Gaalen sings from the heart and spins twisted stories of blood, dying in his sleep, and deadly car crashes, he does so with a pestering voice, especially when singing falsetto. Thankfully the vocals are overshadowed by the music and are frequently obscured with reverb and echo, making it bearable.

Among the 16 cuts are standout tracks like “Clinically Dead,” “Kill Me in My Sleep,” and “J.C.’s Head on the Cross” that shimmer and satisfy as Van Gaalen adorns his naive melodies with blotches of beats and snappy electric guitar bursts before they are transformed into ambient soundscapes, complete with chirping birds and muttering children. “Echo Train” and “Red Blood” approach indie-rock status with angular tempos and brisk beats providing the perfect irony of spry, head noddin’ rhythms coupled with desolate contemplations. Sadly, too many songs are sparse, acoustic affairs that fail to unfurl into anything substantive, yet remain reflective due to Van Gaalen’s unusual point of view.

Although annoyingly inconsistent, Infiniheart contains enough interesting tunes with odd arrangements and instrumentation to convince us that Chad Van Gaalen is a talented songwriter and multi-instrumentalist and is capable of producing engaging, lo-fi, ambient pop.

El Alto – The Center of Accident One

Domenic Maltempi and Michael Quoma together form the band El Alto, and, with the help of three times as many other people, they have created the album The Center of Accident One. The first thing that strikes you with this CD is the elaborate, cool packaging. The outermost cardboard cover has been die-cut into the pattern of one of those old 5-1/4″ floppy disks. Inside that, you get a couple of more artistic-feeling pieces, one that is the “cover art” and one that has printed on it the track listing and credits. The band clearly appreciates good presentation.

Overall, the presentation in the music, however, somehow doesn’t quite match the packaging. It’s not a problem with the recording, as the songs all sound professional. I think my reservations about the album stem partly from the random minimalism most of the songs employ. That is, much of it sounds like random synth or guitar parts laid on top of fairly conventional beats (some digital, some analog), overlaid by storybook lyrics that often come off as absurd or just incoherent.

Of course, I could be missing something here. I’m not a poet, and I don’t know how to appreciate modern poetry. For all I know, this could be a lyrical goldmine to those less Philistine than I. But because the spare music seems to be there only as a backdrop for the vocals, and because the vocals become the centerpoint of so many of the songs, I imagine that appreciating the lyrics is the better part of appreciating the band’s intentions.

The electronic flourishes that accent these tracks share common ground with Lali Puna’s excursions. But this album feels more like bedroom music than does Lali Puna’s or Mouse on Mars’ output. It sounds to me like someone’s 4-track, late-night ideas brought to a studio for some fleshing-out. I found myself enjoying the songs that felt finished, the ones that felt more thought-out. For instance, “Epsi in Nepal” has an effective bassline, real drums, and a true structure to it. Likewise, “Oceans to Fry” feels full and composed, with its strings and acoustic strumming (not to mention its accordion-sounding background). It’s an instrumental.

More frequently, though, the music seems a little directionless or, if directed, then directed only at keeping time for the dada vocals. Which is fine. I did like the occasional ambient-sounding keyboards, and I preferred the slightly darker-sounding numbers to the more upbeat-sounding ones. Sometimes, as on “Georgia Knockout,” the music sounds upbeat while the lyrics sound ominous (“Put your head in the oven”). This can be an effective approach, but for some reason hearing El Alto do it just confuses me. Hearing what sounds like four or five disparate and unrelated sonic elements going on at the same time, such as on “Back for the Mangos,” makes my head hurt. And then El Alto hits you with a track like “Hey Ratso,” which works really, really well, sounding like some of Resplendent’s paranoid work.

So, in the end, I’m not sure what to make of El Alto’s work, but I feel like I’m not getting as much out of it as others might. I feel like, at some level, I just don’t quite “get it” at all.

Dixie Witch – Smoke & Mirrors

Dixie Witch’s first two releases, 2001’s Into the Sun and 2003’s One Bird Two Stones, are both wonderful albums, but neither was a great overall representation of this Texas band. The discs failed to capture the group’s live show intensity, and therefore they simply served as a tide-over between tours. However, Dixie Witch’s third effort, Smoke & Mirrors, not only captures the essence of the band, it also tightens the reins a bit as far as style and production.

As a longtime fan of this band, the first time I listened to Smoke & Mirrors I was blown away. While maintaining a decidedly “Southern” feel to the music, this trio has evolved away from the bluesy, stoner-rock of the first albums and landed solidly in hard-rock/metal territory. And this is the sound of the band’s live shows – tight performances by all three members, tons of energy, and great vocals split between drummer Trinidad Leal (who takes on the majority share) and bass player Curt Christenson. More than five years of near constant touring has surely helped perfect the band’s sound.

Much of the album focuses on the thick and heavy hard-rock Dixie Witch has become known for, including stellar tracks like “Set the Speed,” “S.O.L.,” and “Shoot the Moon” that showcase not only Christenson and Leal’s talents, but guitarist Clayton Mills’ lightening-fast riffs as well. The guys still infuse plenty of sludgy, Southern rock into the album such as “Out in the Cold” and “What You Want,” but the great production here gives them much more solid footing. Dixie Witch even rounds out the 11-track album with a slow, bluesy instrumental aptly titled “Last Call.”

Like the band’s live show, Smoke & Mirrors is a constant assault from start to finish with no filler material. While Dixie Witch’s other albums felt like second best to a live show, this one feels like having your own private gig. Although the sound has evolved over time, fans of a variety of types of music will likely dig this – particularly stoner-rock, blues-rock, and Southern rock. I still highly recommend seeing a Dixie Witch show, but Smoke & Mirrors more than does the trick.

The Mars Volta – Scabdates

The Mars Volta is known for its strangeness and grandiose studio albums with large chunks of fatty noise between bursts of brilliant and melodic songwriting. Try and imagine what live experimentation on recorded noise experimentation sounds. If you’re confused or annoyed by what I just said, it’s intentional.

Scabdates begins with an ear-wrenching and horrid attack of crowd and ambient noise split with crying babies and non-musical assaults on guitars. It doesn’t bode well for what’s to come.

When the opening “track” finally ends, the next roars in, accompanied by a sense of relief, as it resembles intentional guitar playing. Don’t get excited though, because just as it seems something recognizable is occurring, waves of distortion, reverb, and dissonance prevent any music from showing through. Oh yeah, and sometimes there’s singing, too. And yelling, and screeching…

Wading through the next 70-plus minutes of wandering noise and blank hissing for the gems was painful, to put it mildly, because when I got to them, they were played off-key and incredibly quickly, as if the band wanted to get it over with and get back to banging on the guitars and making nonsensical noise.

What makes it ever more disappointing is the incredible production quality and live skill of The Mars Volta. The vocals and the technical ability is amazing for a live recording, and it’s nauseating to think of what could have been made of this recording.

By the end of the record, I had realized three things. The first: I’m a bigger Mars Volta fan than I thought, because it made me upset to hear what the musicians did to their songs. The second: if I want to hear “Concertina,” I’ll play the EP. The third thing I realized is that it really, really hurts to bang your head against the wall for 72 minutes and 54 seconds, but I recommend it instead of putting yourself through this mangling of great music.

Aroah – En El Patio Interior EP

If you ever listen to the long-running sex-advice talk show Love Line, you’re bound to notice a common abnormality among many of the distressed callers – “the little girl voice”. Within 30 seconds of hearing said voice, Dr. Drew – in all his infinite wisdom – poses the immediate question “who abused you as a child?” While by no means am I an expert in the field of psychology, I have read some of Carl Jung’s writings (mainly inspired by his frequent reference in No On Gets Out of Here Alive), and I must admit that within the first moments upon hearing Aroah’s (aka Irene Tremblay) sad, child-like voice, I became stricken with the same question. It also didn’t help that the Spanish singer-songwriter opens her EP En El Patio Interior with Lou Reed’s character study of spousal abuse “Caroline Says II.”

The child-like vocals add a nice touch and, along with some chilling violins, elevate the Lou Reed-solo track (which is more interesting for its lyrics than the actual music, anyway) to a higher and more revelatory plain. Without question, it’s the highlight of the six-song, 17-minute EP. Unfortunately, the remainder of the recording feels rather slight and inconsequential compared to the one cover. There are really no bad songs on En El Patio Interior, and there a couple of good ones like the eerie, baroque piano ballad “Blue Room” and the 70s singer/songwriter folk of “Key.” However, there’s a thrown-together feeling throughout the remainder of the recording. Nice touches like the spacey keyboards of “Good Intentions” (which sound quite similar to early Pink Floyd) and the Torch-like Spanish vocals on the title track are either killed by strange, meaningless lyrics (“a child can break your heart just over ice cream), or break down in the middle (title track), or go absolutely nowhere (the finale “A Dream”).

What exactly Irene Tremblay and her bandmates were to to accomplish with the very brief En El Patio Interior is unclear. There certainly are some promising moments mixed in with many of the more half-baked ideas. Let’s just pray that if Irene decides to open her next record with a spine-tingling version of Suzanne Vega’s “Luka,” she follows it up with stronger material than the last five tracks on En El Patio Interior.

AIDS Wolf – The Lovvers LP

Okay, so the band has trendy written all over it. Hailing from Canada with lupine-related band name, AIDS Wolf has been one of the most hyped groups in recent memory. The Lovvers LP was even produced by Arlen Thompson of prestigous 2005 year-end list-toppers Wolf Parade, who also hail from Canada. Are you starting to see the connection? AIDS Wolf’s members even have neat little names for themselves such as Special Deluxe, Hiroshima Thunder, Barbarian Destroyer, and Him the Maji. The band’s music is some kind of divisive noise, either alienating the casual listener or drawing in those with a curious ear for all things noisy and highly abrasive. I plant myself squarely in the camp of the latter. After months of speculation by numerous critics, I can firmly say that The Lovvers LP does not disappoint. Although some might argue that the brevity of the pieces included here prohibit them from attaining the kind of momentum that one might expect, I find that by limiting the scope of the songs through time constraints it allows the group to be that much more highly focused and efficient.

AIDS Wolf comes off like some bastard hybrid of early-80s New York no-wave ala DNA and Sonic Youth meets the more abrasive modern skree of Melt Banana and Ex-Models. “We Multiply” even incorporates sections of blast-beats. “Spit Tastes Like Metal” offers up a clattering junk-heap of scrappy guitars and loose, clanging percussion. Special Deluxe’s vocals are wisely buried in the mix at just the right volume. Instead of coming off like some kind of overblown Karen O or Lydia Lunch, her voice is the perfect foil to the jagged noise. “We Multiply” and “Panty Mind” tear it up like some kind of out-of-this-world noise crack that make you want to just hit the repeat button over and over. What with the entire thing clocking in at just over 25 minutes, AIDS Wolf didn’t make it too hard to listen to the whole full-length multiple times. In fact, the only track on here that might try listeners’ patience is “Some Sexual Drawings,” an 11-plus-minute track of screechy hiss, tumbling percussion, and rambling vocals.

To top it all off, Chloe Lum (Special Deluxe) and Yannick Desranleau (???) of AIDS Wolf also make up the screen-print/rock poster design team Seripop. It would seem that everything about AIDS Wolf is some highly pre-planned construct to come off as super cool. As of the writing of this review, every single critical examination of this record has come off as some smug shithead response to put the band in its place for trying to have some fun. I dare you to peruse some of the other online zines and just look at the rhetoric spouted over the scant minutes found on AIDS Wolf’s The Lovvers LP, then I dare you to listen to the record itself and not enjoy it. I would venture a guess that these same people would have also scowled at records by groups like The Locust, Daughters, and Wolf Eyes, when those groups began their careers, for having the sense to incorporate a little schtick into their performance. Oh no, it’s apparently okay for novices like Animal Collective to bang on their instruments and be hailed as “brilliant” and “childlike” but if some noise group applies the same technique, we call it boring and predictable. Forget the hype and bullshit surrounding this band, The Lovvers LP offers up some catchy shards of broken no-wave and pummels you into submission.

Variable Unit – Mayhemistics Outbreaks

Hip-hop and jazz have always been associated in the consciousness of musical historians, but rarely have they been unified in practice. It would seem logical; aside from the obvious racial relationship between the two – both were pioneered by cutting-edge black artists – the two genres share an experimental instinct, bending the rules and redefining the boundaries of what had previously been accepted as music. Both encapsulate and harness a playful spirit, a creative force that blows minds and expand horizons.

So a band like Variable Unit has a lot to live up to. Can these musicians reconcile these creative forces? Are they capable chemists – that is, can they brew the right blend of the two without blowing up the lab? After all, although a jazz/hip-hop hybrid has tremendous potential, it’s an easy thing to screw up.

Unfortunately, Mayhemistics Outbreaks fails to capitalize on the exceptional potential of the combination. Album opener “Something is Happening” teases at this potential, coming exceptionally close to entwining jazz and hip-hop (or, perhaps more aptly, spoken-word poetry) in a compelling way and hinting at an album of explosive quality. A nimble drumbeat bumps and clicks under slithering synths, as MC Azeem whispers inspired words over the mix. “Now I know you probably wonder / about the whispers in the halls / and the lives of secrets symbols / and the mysteries involved / … / dangerous and hidden / oh yes, there is something going on.” His lyrics certainly are enticing; they hint at and suggest profound truths, powerful symbols, and gripping images – all of which would be delightfully effective if only the rest of the album delivered on their promise.

But “Camouflage Prison” squanders the intensity of “Something is Happening,” trading tense melodies for a bouncy drumbeat and cheeseball synth lines. “Love, Truth, Peace, Freedom and Justice” fares better, fueled by another tactful rhythm supplied by Thomas McGree on drums and Matt Montgomery. “Love, Truth, Freedom and Justice” is followed by an aimless instrumental track that blends jazz and industrial music unconvincingly.

Unfortunately, things get worse from here. “Black Gold” doesn’t even try; a ruinous synthesized bass line and an incessant repetition of the words “black gold” are introduced into the beat, with catastrophic results. “Second Seal” is even more aimless than the prior instrumental track. “Spring Break” is even worse.

The only interesting moments on Mayhemistics Outbreaks are when Azeem contributes vocals. On “Contradiction,” Azeem raps, “Every time you fuck with nature / something goes wrong / and every time you push the gauges / we put it into songs.” On “Liberation 2,” he says, “I’ll take a comet from heaven / and just throw it in a lyric!”

Regrettably, he only appears rarely. The album closes with a long and mildly interesting instrumental track that would probably be better if it didn’t repeat the same percussive tricks that characterize all the album’s best songs. If nothing else, Variable Unit can be credited with undertaking an ambitious project. If one is to fail, why not fail in the face of incredible odds? But in the end, the difficulty of Variable Unit’s goal matters little. What we’re left with is a shattered husk of a strong will and a driving ambition, and when it comes down to it, that’s really not that interesting.

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