Wolf Eyes – Human Animal

Michigan’s notorious noiseniks, Wolf Eyes, have returned with a slightly different line-up and a brilliant new record called Human Animal. Although, with the numerous fetishized CD-R, lathe-cut laserdiscs, and vinyl only releases in the wake of Burned Mind it’s like they never went away. This one’s got all of the burnt out jams, wasted atonal horn skronk, and digital vomit you could possibly want. With the departure of Aaron Dilloway (who still helped in mixing the album) and the addition of Hair Police’s Mike Connelly, these tireless directors of violent scrape and skree haven’t even come close to running out of steam.

I’m not sure how many Wolf Eyes releases have come out this year alone but recent ones include the Black Vomit collaboration with jazz musician Anthony Braxton, the one-sided Guillotine Keys LP, the double LP River Slaughter collecting the River of Haze and Human Slaughterhouse CD-Rs, the Six Arms and Sucks CD-R, and The Black Plague split with Grey Daturas. That’s a whole hell of a lot of records for a band still devoting studio time to its widely distributed Sub Pop releases. From what I’ve heard of those, the group seems to be mining gold from all of these collaborations and experiments and bringing it to its logical fruition on Human Animal.

Instead of the alternating sections of clang and throb of Burned Mind, Wolf Eyes go for the jugular in a slightly different manner this time around. Human Animal is frontloaded with the creepy post-apocalyptic sound of piercing horns and slow gurgling feedback from “A Million Years” and “Lake of Roaches” to “Rationed Riot.” By the time the title track rears its ugly head the band kicks things into high gear with pulsing bass tentacles, tearing static, and deranged vocal madness. “Rusted Mange” is a blathering mess of detuned low-end punches and shrieking electronic malevolence. Distorted screams pile up until it reaches the 1:38 mark, dropping out on a wall of screeching noise only to hit you below the belt for another thirty seconds. “Leper War” is all subharmonic rumble and metallic clatter, a veritable bridge to the end of the album. “The Driller,” being the single from Human Animal, follows in the footsteps of Burned Mind anthems like “Stabbed in the Face” and “Village Oblivia.” Wolf Eyes then gives us “Noise Not Music” as Human Animal’s departing gift, a cover of obscure New York d-beat hardcore band No Fucker. It might as well be a Wolf Eyes song for all anyone cares. I seriously doubt the original version sounds anything like this.

While Wolf Eyes has a tendency to release just about everything laid to tape, full-length documents such as Burned Mind, Dead Hills, Dread, and Slicer are more than just a testament to the group’s endurance. These records are markers, proof of the band’s growth from one period in its history to the next. Human Animal is not just some spectacle of moronic attitude flaunting by attention hungry debutantes. This is a punishing record that manages to be both incredibly dense and yet highly listenable.

Two Ton Boa – Parasiticide

In 1999 one hit wonders Marcy Playground covered Two Ton Boa’s “Comin’ Up From Behind” on the Cruel Intentions soundtrack. It’s somehow appropriate that seven years later TTB would create an album so perfect for that movie’s pre-teen audience. After releasing one EP, also in ’99, the band and their chanteuse Sherry Fraser have now released their first full length album, Parasiticide.

Sounding like Carla Bozulich backed by the Jesus Lizard, Two Ton Boa has an impressive, if not entirely unique, sound. Bass and drums pound together, forming an appropriate background for Fraser’s vocals. The mood it creates is similar to the feeling you get from the mid to late 80’s early industrial or noise rock scene; it’s a sound that would be comfortable on the Young God label. Parasiticide also features interesting arrangements and instrumentation. Reverb fills in spaces where guitar is sparse, and that also helps to invoke an eerie mood, especially when paired with the Medusa in a modern age cover art.

Unfortunately it’s the lyrics and their delivery that don’t hold the whole package together. The first half of the album is a mess, alternating between confusing and obnoxious. The opening track “Cash Machine” veers off into Evanescence territory with Fraser’s wailing sickeningly overproduced. “Gumshoe” starts with an old-time radio effect, sounding like a demented Betty Boop crooning through static and then proceeds into the type of bad wordplay teenage girls would pen when feeling misunderstood; disregarding the fact that their fishnets came from Nordstrom. It doesn’t become clear why anyone, detective or not, would want to follow this character around. But “like taffy”, they’re stuck all over her.

It’s always uncomfortable when someone professes to be different, but by singing “I’m a misfit little bird” as Fraser does on “Herarchy,” all credibility is lost. Just like in high school, you simply cease to care. This is exactly what seems to be the purpose; an album reaching out to the troubled souls that aren’t troubled at all. One look at the song titles such as “Favorite Bloody Patient,” “Cyanide,” and “Bad Seed,” calls to mind a teenage journal. In fact, with the feeling that is being attempted to create, it’s surprising “Bad Seed” isn’t a tribute to Nick Cave.

There are moments where the façade is dropped and good song writing manages to shine through. Despite the title, “Favorite Bloody Patient” is strong and begins to pick the album up to finish better than it began. There aren’t any cute moments of trying to be mysterious or sly. The songs are better realized and executed. For most of Parasiticide, it’s unclear whether Two Ton Boa is a band or a Sherry Fraser project but finally Fraser starts blending better with the band, seeming to realize that they work best when everyone is playing as one.

With the absence of Bikini Kill and Sleater Kinney, Kill Rock Stars is looking for a strong female voice to put out and Two Ton Boa is a good step in that direction. However, the amount of growth needed, both lyrically and in determining the band’s role, makes the step to that prestigious stage still quite far off.

Brightblack Morning Light – Brightblack Morning Light

Variety isn’t always it seems – at least in the early years of a musical career – the spice of life. Whilst diversity is the sustaining elixir for many a classic band’s longevity, sometimes sticking rigidly to one, almost static, sound for a short-term spell can make for a long-lasting positive impression. In essence, it can “be okay to be samey” (to use a ‘technical’ term). As any appreciative owner of Public Image Limited’s Metal Box, Spiritualized’s Lazed Guided Melodies, Lambchop’s Is A Woman, Interpol’s Turn On The Bright Lights and Iron & Wine’s Our Endless Numbered Days will happily profess, finding one special sonic template and gluing yourself to it, can provide the best in blissful indulgence. Such an outlook is clearly the driving-force behind this eponymous second outing from Brightblack Morning Light, the follow-up to 2004’s less-esoteric Ala.cali.tucky, released under the shorter ‘Brightblack’ trading name.

Instead of trying to impress anybody with fancy eclecticism, Brightblack Morning Light digs a groove so deep it remains virtually unbroken throughout ten strung-out tracks. Crucially, it’s a furrow so precision-ploughed that it really doesn’t matter if almost every song blurs into the one before and the one ahead. Although Brightblack Morning Light’s influences are firmly sewn on to a collective sleeve, ringleaders Nathan Shineywater and Rachael Hughes are more like sage cognisors than pilfering plagiarists. With narcotic keyboards and slow-funk guitar lines straight-out of the ‘70s Parliament/Funkadelic catalogue, jazzy cymbals washed-in from Miles Davis’ In A Silent Way, voodoo-drums stolen from Royal Trux, hazy indecipherable vocals from the school of My Bloody Valentine/Slowdive shoegaze and a booze-sodden brass section that’s possibly strayed-in from a Tom Waits recording session, this is an album that pools its wide-armoury of stimulants into one deadly-seductive unified trip. Memorising individual songs is rendered a pretty meaningless task as a by-product, but when they’re so cumbersomely-titled as “Black Feather Wishes Rise” and “We Share Our Blanket With The Owl”, this is probably a good thing.

The unashamedly wilful reductionism of Brightblack Morning Light will either engross or alienate listeners, depending wholly on instinctive preferences. But as with many memorable and rampant bouts of single-minded stubbornness in the artistic world, it is far better to be loved or hated, than merely tolerated.

Interview with Sufjan Stevens

In the world of indie rock, there are few more enigmatic artists than Sufjan Stevens. Having followed up his debut release (2000’s A Sun Came) of twisting pan-ethnic indie folk with an ambitious electronic concept album based on the Chinese Zodiac (2001’s Enjoy Your Rabbit), he has already covered more textural and conceptual ground than most artists will explore in a lifetime. Even better, when not working on his own masterworks he can be found manning the banjo in the avant-garde-absurdist-Christian-folk machine known as the Danielson Famile. In short, he gets around.

On top of all that, he’s a really nice guy, too, and not at all afraid to voice his opinions on the current state of modern music. Having spent most of his life immersed in music on some level, you’ll find few musicians who can express their musical and philosophical musings as articulately and as thoroughly. So, grab a dictionary and listen up as Sufjan Stevens gives DOA the truth on his musical past, his perspective on the role of faith in music, and insight into just what it’s like to be an honorary Famile member.

Delusions of Adequacy: First, could you give us a little background information? When and where did you start making music and what was your original goal for your art?

Sufjan Stevens: I entered a lip sync contest in middle school (I did Peter Cetera’s “Glory of Love”—from The Karate Kid Part II with choreography and make-up). I wore a red bow-tie and pants with zippers on the cuffs. I didn’t even get runner-up, it was so awful. I wasn’t interested in art or aesthetics. I wanted to be a celebrity, smothered with reputation, smoke machine and all.

I went to music school at Interlochen Arts Academy for a year when I was 14 to play oboe and study reed making. It was just awful: four-hour ensemble rehearsals, competitive juries, gossip groups posed as sectionals, practice rooms insulated with asbestos. We were all so maladjusted. I cried everyday. I hated my oboe. It was the only instrument for which I took lessons, and now it’s the only instrument I have no interest in playing (although I use it for overdubbing occasionally). About that time, I started learning the piano by ear, eavesdropping on my sister’s lessons, or listening to recordings of Rachmaninoff. The piano seemed so much more mysterious than the oboe: it had internal organs, a series of interlocking hammers and strings, a lid. I started making up songs, variations on “Chopsticks” or Bach minuets. When I went to college, I started learning guitar, bass guitar, drums, banjo. I bought a cheap kit (two toms, a snare, a kick) and practiced off-beats and 5/4 rhythms. I played recorders for a folk band, then borrowed my sister’s flute. If something was available — an accordion, a sitar, a harmonica — I’d spend enough time noodling to get something down on tape. I was promiscuous — each instrument was a new sordid affair. One thing led to another. I’m not sure where I’m going with all of this. Perhaps you’d like to read my memoirs: “The Promiscuous Pianist and Other Adventures in Making Music.”

To be honest, I have a hard time talking about my music as art because I don’t believe it. Music is something much more primitive: accelerated sound, oscillating waves and reverberations (sine, cosine, etc.). We are only participating in the laws of physics, applying terms like rock ballad, cantata, Catholic mass. My only goal is to extend myself — instrumentally, thematically, theoretically — until I come across something exciting (something otherworldly), making the most joyful noise possible.

DOA: Obviously, you are conversant in a variety of musical languages. How do you decide what sounds you are going for and how do you know when you’ve found them?

SS: Musical languages makes it sound so linguistic, so foreign. I almost failed Latin. But the piano came to me in a matter of weeks. I have a certain inclination to make music, in the same way, probably, that a gymnast has an inclination to balance or jump. Even still, making a good song is always a process of trial and error. I never know what I really want: I start with a note, a minor triad, a major sixth, and go from there. A casual strum on the banjo becomes something else: a funeral march or accompaniment to a Persian dance song, I don’t know, I’m making this up. The less I am prepared (or practiced), the better I sound. Forethought (or even its purpose) is misleading. Practice makes perfect for as long as you think perfection is even possible: then you realize it really isn’t (that you are actually mediocre) and you throw in the towel and start having fun (or you start having a fit). The more I am prepared on an instrument, the less I am surprised (or simply moved) by my performance. For instance, when I first learned to play guitar in college, I used numerous alternate tunings, used forks and hammers on the strings, borrowed effects pedals and whammy bars and vintage amplifiers with tremolo. It was so fun. What I lacked in skill, I made up for in invention. Now, my dexterity on the instrument (albeit modest) is such that I feel less inclined to take risks, to manipulate sound, to trash it. This is an indication that it’s time to take up something else: the flugelhorn, or the clarinet, which I might learn left-handed, or play using the mouthpiece from a tuba. Now really, if only I took such risks.

DOA: With such a dynamic variety of approaches, I would assume you have a rather eclectic musical background. Who are your strongest musical influences?

SS: I listened to standard popular radio — Casey Casem and American Top 40, circa 1987: Prince, Peter Cetera, Cyndi Lauper, Tiffanny. At music school, I started listening to Dvorak and Stravinksy and Shoenberg. I have more Baroque records than anything else. I have a few incredible recordings of Glen Gould, who was notorious for humming while he played. I have a delightful recording of Teleman Suites performed by the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, in period instruments. I’ve leaned, more recently, to appear informed and cultivated: I display records by John Fahey (whom I find tedious and uninspired) and Autechre (which bores me to death). I make mix tapes of Tom Verlaine or Nels Cline to impress friends on road trips. But when I am alone in my room — with a bag of pistachios or a bottle of 7-Up — I pull off my socks and put in the old favorites: Purple Rain, Pat Benetar, anything by The Bangles. I’m sorry, but that’s what it comes down to.

DOA: Enjoy Your Rabbit seems to have a very strong thematic, almost visual, component to the textures. What exactly was the concept behind the album?

SS: Many people say the same thing: that they inevitably end up visualizing a place or a picture when listening (carefully) to the album. Maybe this is the purpose of instrumental music in the first place. There are no lyrics (or narrative) to encourage the listener. Therefore you are free to imagine what you like. Originally, I wanted to create an aural environment for each animal: a movie soundtrack (without the movie). It required tremendous patience and self-abnegation: I could only use my voice as an instrument, without words or text. I could only use original material, live recording, or manual drum sequencing (no sampling or MIDI). I wanted to use organic wind instruments to make mechanical sounds. I made oboes to sound like fog horns, or xylophones to sound like microwaves. I tweaked and manipulated live tracks, wrote whole songs (with contrapuntal riffs, seven part harmonies, trumpet flourishes and tom-toms) that later became samples for a subsequent song. I amassed hours (months, years) of raw material, rending it in all directions, amending, mixing, extracting, abridging — until I was left with the most minute sample of something (a bravado hum, a digital hiss, a nuance of vibrato) which might somehow, in some abstract way, resemble an ox, or a rooster, or a horse. It was all very hit or miss. In the process, I began to develop an affinity, an affectionate bearing, a deep love for the songs, to empower them with symbolism, extrapolating meaning and purpose and bullshit art theory in the same way a museum curator directs the viewer with condescending exposition (plagiarized from a graduate thesis) printed on the walls. I put together argumentative essays, stanzas of free verse poetry, persuasive dissertations and assertions (using algorithms and geometric proofs and anthropomorphic relationships between animals) to prove the existence of God based on the 12-year lunar calendar! It all seemed so possible! So heroic! So divinely-inspired! Of course, when it comes down to it, the music reviewer wants to know: does it have a beat?

DOA: Do you generally construct songs as individual entities or as companion pieces to other songs on the album?

SS: I was asked this question for an interview with Sound Collector, so I’m going to give you the same answer. As an exercise, some painters work in a series to develop their skill. Cézanne’s still lifes or Cindy Sherman’s movie stills are examples in which an artist generates multiple pieces within a certain criteria (a theme, a setting, a particular color) to produce a series. Musicians do this as well: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons or Danielson’s A Prayer For Every Hour. I normally don’t write a song in consideration for its greater context. My first album is a hodge-podge of songs that have very little to do with each other. Naturally, each song I write is an independent event. I suppose it’s our arty postures (and clever ideas) that impose context. The decision to record songs for astrological symbols was arbitrary. I’ve done this before: a series of songs for the apostles, songs for the planets, songs for different places I’ve been — Eugene, Ore.; Holland, Mich.; New York City. More and more I find it helpful (even liberating) to impose such limitations (songs in the key of D, songs for women in the Bible, songs in 5/4) because these limitations allow me to exercise, to practice, to hone my skill (if I can use a hackneyed phrase). Like any art exhibit or piano sonata, you would hope that an album suggests the slightest semblance of organization, of cohesiveness, even if its organization is meant to be disorganized. This is a good thing.

DOA: How did it come about that you became affiliated with the Asthmatic Kitty and Sounds Familyre labels?

SS: My stepfather and I started Asthmatic Kitty as a resource for musicians in Holland, Mich., where I went to undergraduate school. I assembled a series of 4-track songs and it became our first release. We printed 1,000 copies and walked them around local stores, asking: “Will you carry our merchandise?” When I moved to New York City (for graduate school), I began to meet other folks: Dan Smith (of Danielson Famile), Mike Kaufmann (of therefore) and Glen Galloway (of Soul Junk). A few years later, we got to know John Ringhofer (Half-handed Cloud), and I heard some of his music and thought, this is the most interesting stuff I’ve heard in a long time. Isn’t that how it all starts? I sent some mixes to my stepfather, who had relocated to Santa Fe, N.M., and we knew right away that we had something good. We decided to start acting like a real label. We hired promoters, conglomerated e-mails, distributed flyers, begged writers and reviewers to consider us, please, just this once! We “discovered” another act: Liz Janes, a haggard blues singer from San Diego — Nina Simone meets Sonic Youth — and we went to work immediately on recording her material. I produced, arranged, and mastered her album in a matter of months; we assembled a promotional CD (To Spirit Back the Mews), organized an Asthmatic Kitty family reunion, invited international acts, baked cakes and cookies, wore head bands with cat ears, invited the press. We do everything ourselves, from design to pre-press to recording to mastering. It’s such a lot of work, but isn’t it worth it? Of course, all of this is done in honor of my stepfather’s two cats, Tabby and Sara, who suffer various breathing disorders: asthma, allergies, etc. We love and respect them very much.

I have a little less involvement with Soundsfamilyre, but we are closely connected (Soundsfamilyre co-released Half-handed Cloud’s debut, and Dan will be releasing an album of my banjo and guitar songs this year). I guess my involvement with Soundsfamilyre has as much to do with my involvement with the Danielson Famil e —I’m an occasional helper, an itinerant foster sibling. They have been unbelievably gracious. It has been such an inspiring and rewarding experience to work with them. I’m from a large family as well, so perhaps I feel comfortable in a familial environment. I suppose one difference between the two labels is that Soundsfamilyre is probably more invested in music by people of faith; I can’t speak for Dan, but I think he has a remarkable conviction to support and cultivate a community of skilled believers (in making them accountable to their craft and to their Creator). Asthmatic Kitty has no faith-associations (or stipulations) whatsoever. We produce agnostics and Anglicans alike.

DOA: Similarly, what were the circumstances by which you became an honorary member of the Danielson Famile?

SS: I’m not sure how this all started. I helped organize a festival a few years ago that included Danielson Famile. It was my first time seeing them live. It was unbelievable. After that we just kept in touch. It turns out that my proclivity to doodle on any number of instruments is finally paying off. Dan asked me to fill in for brother Chris on organ last year for a short tour, and then I contributed some banjo parts when he returned. It was really a fun time. It sounds like children’s music, but the parts are tough. Later, I had to learn Andrew’s parts on percussion for the Famile’s European tour. Then Dan asked me to open up for him on a short Brother Danielson tour, which was unbelievable. I guess I just try to help out whenever I can. I’m not a member, by any means. I’m a servant helper. It’s not everyday you get to wear a doctor’s uniform and clap your hands on stage.

DOA: How much does your faith influence your art?

SS: Well, faith is art: the art of taking a big risk, I suppose — the art of making a big mistake and suffering the consequences. But logistically I suppose my process of making art is driven less by abstractions of faith or politics and more by practical theory: composition and balance and color. On an aesthetic level, faith and art are a dangerous match. Today, they can quickly lead to devotional artifice or didactic crap. This would summarize the Christian publishing world or the Christian music industry. If you are an artist of faith (a Methodist or a Jew), then you have the responsibility to manage the principles of your faith wisely lest they be reduced to stereotype, which is patronizing to the church and to the world, and, perhaps, to God. Consider what John Zorn has done for Jewish music. It’s not so much that faith influences us as it lives in us. In every circumstance (giving a speech or tying my shoes), I am living and moving and being. This absolves me from ever making the embarrassing effort to gratify God (and the church) by imposing religious content on anything I do. I mean, I’ve written songs about stalkers. Is that any less religious than a song about an ordained pastor? No way.

DOA: Daniel Smith doesn’t like the Danielson Famile to be labeled as a Christian rock band because he says that they make music intended for everyone, not just Christians. Yet, obviously their faith plays a central role in their creative process. Can you really separate your art from your faith?

SS: It’s a question of modifiers. How is the phrase “Christian rock band” different from “a band of Christians” or “a band of rockers,” or (yikes!) “A band of Christian rockers”? There’s a huge difference. If I’m a vegetarian, would I aspire to cultivate vegetarian fans? I don’t care what they eat, as long as they are eating regularly. As for your question of faith (which I think has nothing to do with Dan’s statement): on a certain level you cannot separate art from faith, because it is our persuasions which drive us to create. An agnostic painter might use the expression ideologies instead of religion, but it’s the same thing. Whether you are religious about politics or fashion (or saving the whales), you are still motivated by your convictions to participate in art. But I don’t think that means faith should necessarily prescribe art. In fact, this is a dangerous assumption, which often leads to music that is pedagogical, or a novel that is moralistic. As for our intentions, well, that’s all bunk. We may intend our music for one person or another, but who’s to say? I can’t decide who reads my novel or buys my record. Look what that did for Jonathon Franzen, who snubbed Oprah for liking his book. It’s an arrogant, imperialist motive to try to determine who will receive you and who won’t.

DOA: With artists like the Danielson Famile, Soul-Junk, Half-Handed Cloud, the Singing Mechanic, and yourself all making adventurous and artistically viable faith-themed music, do you think we’re seeing a new era for Christian music?

SS: No. Not at all. There have always been extraordinary movements of faith, and extraordinary movements of music, but they are not always necessarily correlated. I don’t make faith-themed music. I’m working under very modest auspices. Bach’s Mass in B-Minor is faith-themed music. I’m no expert on the idea of eras: that’s for historians to decide in retrospect. I hardly think that a bunch of us kids are motivating some revolutionary era of faith-music. In fact, I stumbled across The Danielson Famile very late in the game. They’d already been in Spin, Index, Rolling Stone, all that. I missed the whole show. I came to New York with the intention of unearthing this wild scene. What I found was as discombobulated as the free-jazz movement, or indie rock, or the club scene. I mean, Christian music doesn’t really exist except in terms of a convenient yet unavailing identification tag for newspapers and magazines. I like to think we are all participating in the work of a Kingdom that has survived Gregorian chants, Amy Grant, and Stryper. In fact, I don’t think your question is in regard to history, but to commerce. I just read an article in Q Magazine about the popularity of Christian mega-bands in America: Creed or POD or whatever they’re called. I don’t suppose its so unusual that members of these bands are believers (Britney Spears, U2, and most R&B stars prescribe to some form of Christianity). But it suddenly seems strange to people (to the press, or to the consumer, I’m not sure which) that their faith should not prescribe their art or their merchandising. Christian music (as a genre) exists exclusively within the few insulated floors (cubicles and computers included) of some corporate construction in Nashville, Tenn. Otherwise, there’s no such thing as Christian music.

DOA: What direction is your new music heading and when can we expect to hear your next album?

SS: Oh that’s a surprise. But I will let on that I spent a month sabbatical in January at my sister’s cabin in the snowy hills near Pickerel Lake, Mich., with a grand piano and a coffee maker and my 8-track recorder.

DOA: What artists or albums have caught your attention lately?

SS: I’ve lost track of what’s new and hot. A sign of middle age. But everyone’s still talking this and that about Stereolab because they seamlessly suffuse so many familiar genres, and do it intelligently, and with discretion. Who else can make 7/8 sound so groovy? Neil Young’s latest Silver and Gold is just wonderful. Also, the one electronic album I keep returning to is Niggung Nuing (how do you spell that? how do you pronounce that), by Mouse on Mars (but honestly a lot of that stuff is really boring, isn’t it?). I can tell you what I absolutely hate: Jim O’Rourke (fancy engineering gets you nowhere if you’re writing easy-listening Air Supply rip-offs and can’t sing); Wilco (any-kind-of-hyphenated-country-music-is-just-not-country-music-if-you-ask-me); Sea and Cake; Silver Jews; or any other racial slur.

DOA: Finally, if somehow Stryper was to reform and wanted you to play banjo on their reunion tour, what would your reaction be?

SS: If they’d buy me a banjo with stripes, I’d do it. If they’d buy me underwear briefs with stripes, I’d do it. If they paid me well, I’d do it. I’d do anything for money.

Sébastien Schuller – Happiness

Sébastien Schuller: a Francophone by name if ever there was one. If doubts persist, read this bit of prolixity from the press sheet: “Sébastien thrives on enhancing sounds of acoustic and natural resonance with touches of electronica.” It’s true: this statement, for all its talk of “acoustic and natural resonance,” would be a nearly perfect epithet for Air and even, to some extent, Tahiti 80.

And isn’t Daft Punk from France too? A trend has emerged in French exports: “touches of electronica” are a perfectly natural mode of self-expression and even capturing emotion among these artists—in the States, at least up to recent years, it’s just not cool. Do the French, then, use electronic embellishment more effectively than les americains? That’s too general for argument. Do artists like Air and, in his own way, M. Schuller, convey meaning as effectively as artists like U2 and the Killers? Absolutely so.

Don’t be misled; Sébastien Schuller is not an electronic musician. You will find few vestiges of house music here—most of the electronica aspects come in atmosphere and synth tones. Still, the undercurrents are there, and it’s clear that the man has pretty well absorbed Talkie Walkie. Belying its title, though, the songs on Happiness (an admittedly lame heading) are largely somber and even grave. Most proceed with an aristocratic stateliness—they show happiness in the same way an ancien regime noble would react to news of lowered taxes. The emphasis here is clearly on instrumentation: Schuller probably only sings for about a third of the album’s length and his lyrics, when present, are made nearly indecipherable by reverb. His array of instruments and tones, however, more than makes up for semantic dearth; each track is a polychromatic theme appearing, over four or five minutes, under multiple guises.

“1978” and “Wolf,” the album’s two best purely instrumental tracks, explore “Mike Mills” territory, while “Weeping Willow” and “Tears Coming Home” are excellent ballads of the “Cherry Blossom Girl” sort—at this point, Air references are becoming increasingly difficult to avoid. Xylophone, acoustic guitar, piano, organ, synth, distorted bass; Schuller excels at pairing—or tripling, or quadrupling—complimentary tones. Oh, and his voice is top-notch. I have only two grievances: despite the fact that he was “first classically trained as a percussionist,” Schuller’s rhythms are painfully straightforward, though it is indeed possible that this lack of complexity hails from similarly simplistic melodies, which could themselves benefit from a bit of complication.

Enough of my high school French remains to navigate Schuller’s site, where I found that he is scoring a film, A Day of Summer (Un jour d’été). Based on Happiness, I’m going to predict that this is a good match—let’s just hope the movie has an urban setting.

Hot Young Priest – Fiendish Freaky Love

A lot of modern country music can be split into two broad categories. There’s the alternative-rock based country that cramps the commercial airwaves with shallow patriotism, questionable singing abilities, and often terrible covers of pop superhits that were already pretty terrible to begin with. We don’t care about that crap, and it is not to be confused with alt-country, which probably takes more queues from the next type, punk-based country. In its extreme forms, the punkier country is represented with rockabilly and psychobilly, but also to a more subtle extent with a wide range of underground and indie rock, all the way from greats like the Meat Puppets to weirdoes like Slim Cessna’s Auto Club.

This brings us to Hot Young Priest, who have a certain giddy-up about them, but like to pretend they’re more post-punk than cow-punk. Still, on Fiendish Freaky Love, they can’t hide their slide guitars and horse-trot rhythm section. Even vocalist/guitarist Mary Byrne, while often channeling PJ Harvey, finds herself belting out in a Southern drawl more than a few times. But while Fiendish Freaky Love may present itself like some ass-kicking cowboy, he’s of the bullet-riddled sort, as the band is often quite sparse in sound, seemingly missing something, even when it’s blasting away with all the energy it can muster.

And let me tell you, Hot Young Priest is a band that prides itself on its energy. Yet somehow, it is precisely that energy that seems to be the band’s repeated stumbling block. The more lively songs on Fiendish Freaky Love tend to be driving in only a primitive way, many utilizing nearly identical drum beats and simple chord progressions. The band’s secret weapon is bassist Daniel Winn, and rightfully so, they give him plenty of up-front time and the chance to continually rescue the tracks that are less engaging in their other aspects. While not all of the upbeat songs seem half thought-out, it’s a little unfortunate that the impression some songs give is that of a dog chasing its tail around in circles, trying to find some mindless activity until a reasonable song’s worth of time has elapsed. No where is this more apparent than just-about-halfway point “Sickness.” If all of the shorter, more rockin’ tracks took a few lessons from the positively pummeling “Be Your Superstar,” the rock might have been delivered at such an unbearable level that folks may have suddenly found themselves compelled to play Russian Roulette, or slapping their neighbors in the face with their gardening gloves before counting out paces. That would be pretty awesome.

It is when the band steps outside of the standard rock mentality that it truly begins to shine. “Soft Focus” has a sinister groove undulating just below the surface, and almost single-handedly blows the entire dance-punk revival out of the water. The slower moments on Fiendish Freaky Love are its most memorable, though, and tunes such as opening track “These Days,” “Navy Blue,” and the Rhodes-kissed “Wintergreen” make for great listening.

Fiendish Freaky Love is a pretty entertaining album, and while the quality of the tracks greatly varies, none stray past the mediocre midpoint, and most are in the “pretty damn good” range. This time around, the trio have managed to stay on the back of the bucking bronco, but not without some close-calls. My advice? Don’t challenge them to a duel; I’d say you’re highly liable to gain some unwanted orifices, tough guy.

Park – Building a Better _______

I’m behind on the Park bandwagon seeing as Building a Better _______ marks their third release. While this can easily be deemed an emotional rock album, it’s in a different league than what you might expect. The music exhibits more pros than typical throwaway emo with its sugary clean vocals, honest and relatable lyrics, involved hooks, and a tight execution. Park is a band that’s overshadowed by giants like Armor for Sleep, but it’s in your best interest to find out what you’re missing.

Part of the reason I dig this is the melancholic approach that makes this perfect rainy day music. There are sure traces of that “darker” emo sound that Armor for Sleep has a love affair with. The comparison between the two bands can be acknowledged, but it’s not overbearing. Park strays away from repeated energetic choruses in every song and aims for streamlined pieces instead.

There’s an intelligent blend of catchy rock songs, like upbeat opener “The Trophy Wife,” to mellowed out ones like the held back distortion of “Intro.” I prefer the straight ahead rockers to the slower cuts, mainly because Park’s bouts of trigger happy guitar maneuvers. These start-stop parts, like in “Who is Aliandra,” are easily one the band’s better aspects. They have that Moneen quality to them, being mathy but still really melodic too.

Park can attract anyone from a devout Dashboard Confessional fan to those with more obscure tastes. Building a Better _______ represents respectable emo rock in a time when that’s almost an oxymoron. If they can incorporate more invention next time around, they just might blow up.

Under the Influence of Giants – Under the Influence of Giants

Unfortunately extramarital aspects arise when listening to the kind of music as good, danceable and fun as the stuff presented on Standing on The Influence of Giant’s self-titled debut.

First we have the self-conscious band name, two smirks away from They Might be Giants but modest enough for a Guided By Voices fan. Then there’s the bands enviable presence on the Myspace top eight. If Myspace is a place for music and partying then this blend of dance rock fits Myspace like a glove. This band is fit for some iTune wattage, Island records (home of the Killers) even signed them. But dig the band’s Myspace page: “NEW UTIOG CONTEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All you have to do is be one of the first 500 people to add “Mamas Room” to your profile and UTIOG to your Top 8 friends on myspace and youll receive a limited edition Heaven Is Full EP from Under The Influence Of Giants.

Oh, the improper grammar, the excessive exclamation points, and the acronyms dense enough to numb one’s mind. These Myspace goons are telling you to put this California dreamin band before some of your best, long-time friends just so you can be eligible for a free gift.
These are all pieces of the new marketing juggernaut of the information super highway that listener’s have to plow through before even getting a chance to simply enjoy the music. If I’m thinking about all of these things, I don’t even touch this record. Everything has already been laid out for me. And I don’t like to dance.

But I’m here and pleased as punch to plow through the loud nonsense and find a brash, assured though very Daft Punk-y first outing from a group of Americans who know better than to emulate French nighttime perfection band but still don’t care. Under the Influence of Giants, a Los Angeles four-piece is a promising band that braves a variety of moods that keep the listen sessions afloat.

The record provides a beguiling a listen that grows with multiple spins. “Meet me in the Clouds” carries a pulse and back beat you’ve heard in most of these recent white boy dance records, be it the Rapture or VHS or Beta (remember them Kentuckyians who looked better than they sounded?). What sticks here are those moments when singer Aaron Bruno and his crew meticulously craft the midnight moods as seen only from the twinkles of the dance floor on Bee Gees theme nights or from the vocal distortions of Discovery era Daft Punk. “Heaven is Full” could easily taper off before three minute mark but the free drums and guitar improv show that the band isn’t primarily concerned with crafting jerky post-punk for those who can’t dance and they are concerned with a little sonic exploration.

Then at track 7 the real surprise comes. The song that even mom would like, “I Love You.” In fact it is completely reasonable that if Top 40 radio feels comfortable blasting Gnarls Barkley all summer then “I Love You” could find a distinguishable FM audience. But such wishful thinking aside, “I Love You” not only boasts the fit for an oldie, innocuous lyrics, “I Wanted to Say that I love you/I Wanted to Say that I do ooo ooo/I Wanted to Say that I love you,” but the guitar is lazy enough to agree with this lollipop stuff. Not until “I Love You” does the clarity and versatility of Bruno’s voice come into its natural form. With all of the channels that the vocals are run through amidst this densely produced record, “I Love You” is an essential diversion track that lets unfettered vocals croon over simple melodies. “I Love You” holds the listener’s hand to take a breather from the claustrophobic, bass thumping, heat of the technicolor dance floor. It’s a pop song that can stand pound for pound with any of the dance tracks on the record, and it sounds different from the match lit “Ah Ha”.

Elsewhere, horns mimic the vocals on “Against All Odds” while the sampled harmonies curl around each other nicely. “Faces” works its hall of mirrors magic through touches of Air backing ambience and a disorienting simultaneous use of falsetto and dance bot distortion (once again a Daft Punk vocal motif that is inescapable here).On a more pensive note, Bruno laments the beautiful and lost moments of George Michael majesty in the album closer “Meaningless Love.” “I wanted to hide but I had nothing to do with the meaningless love,” Bruno repeats. A single piano note arrives late while the drums pull a 180 to more programmable beats leaving behind a distinctly 21st century mood swing that can’t really be explained.

After five good listens, even if a reluctance to dance remains, one can’t help but appreciate the latent potential this band has to, in the future, put out a straight rock record, or a lap top record. The dance influences are there, the apparent appreciation for popular French art is evident with the cover, and the over hype at this point is undeniable. But there are enough giants (or influences doing the influencing) mashed into this one, and enough talent in which to mash them up with that the memories UTIOG conjure are as welcome as the wide-open, approaching night on the town.

Jai Agnish – Mechanical Sunshine

If there is one weakness I have as a reviewer, it is my penchant for steel drums. Whether it’s real steel drums or just a convincing synth effect, like Jai Agnish uses on Mechanical Sunshine, makes no difference. I love those things; they’re like the musical manifestation of a breezy summer afternoon. Agnish uses the steel drums, and other electronic toys, to great effect on Mechanical Sunshine, building up both playful, cheery melodies and mournful indie-pop.

Much like the Mobius Band, Jai Agnish experiments with drum machines and looping layered underneath lonely lyrics of love and loss. Occasionally, like on “Spaceship” and “Can You Fly”, Agnish is accompanied vocally by Julie Bryant, and the result is achingly pretty. On the hip-hop influenced “All I Ever Dreamed Of”, Agnish teams up with JS Rockit, who lets loose some suprisingly decent rhymes that fit nicely over Agnish’s delicate moans and hypnotic guitar and drum sample. It’s a shame Agnish couldn’t cajole his old buddy and former band mate Sufjan Stevens (whom some of you may have heard of, possibly) to back him, but I’m sure Sufjan didn’t have the time. After all, he’s got forty-eight more states to tackle.

For those who don’t particularly care for electronic and toy music, Agnish manages to vary his instrumentation enough so as to avoid becoming a bore. For all of its computer bleeps and blops, Mechanical Sunshine holds a special place in its heart for melancholy song writing and acoustic folk guitar. Agnish croons with such heart- every lyric drips with beauty and sorrow. Mechanical Sunshine’s layers work on the same level that Postal Service’s Give Up works, but much more naked and raw. When stripped of all the electronic dressing, Mechanical Sunshine stands tall as an exemplary work of real artistic expression.

Various Artists – Graciously, A Gulf Relief Compilation

Reviewing benefit albums feels like a slightly duplicitous endeavour. On the one hand you could just say “buy it purely for altruistic reasons, artistic quality comes second” to make your conscience feel clearer and non-obstructive to the charitable cause in question. There of course, you could corrupt your trade by hyping-up a half-baked confection, so you might feel better saying “this is rubbish; give your dough directly to the charity”. With these twin impulses impinging on this writer’s already over-thought critiquing process, approaching this compilation (sold in aide of the Hurricane Katrina victims of New Orleans) held a certain quotient of trepidation. Thankfully, it’s a relief to report that the bulk of Graciously is generously laden with goodwill and gusto. Importantly, the dependable suspects deliver exclusive tracks that don’t have “B-Side” or “scraping the barrel” written all over them. Moreover, the less reliable – as well as lesser-known characters – contribute meritable material.

Collecting tracks from the recorded overspill of Tucson, Arizona’s well-respected Wavelab Studios, certainly helps the 12 tracks of Graciously to gel together, aesthetically-speaking. Wavelab’s raw, warm and spacious studio treatments overcome problems of diverging production values – the usual obstacle to cohesion on multi-artist collections. But the medium is, of course, less vital than the content; therefore it’s also a good thing that so many of the contributing artists pull some special stuff out of their collective bag of unreleased goodies.

Thus a stripped-down trio track from Calexico – “Griptape Heart” – is as joyously soaring and earthy as any of the group’s best album cuts. Regular Wavelab engineer and serial collaborator, Nick Luca, delivers a crunching and apt alt-rock stomper – featuring the pertinent cry of “Politics means nothing when you’re lying in the grave” – that’s better than anything on his new album, Sick of Love. Richmond Fontaine’s Buffalo Tom-meets-Son Volt country-rocker, “The Gits”, is surprisingly stirring, at least in comparison to the band’s usually turgid fare. Robyn Hitchcock’s “I Wish I Was Doing This” is endearingly eccentric, with its unconscious Syd Barrett-like streak of English pop-psychedelia. Meanwhile, Steve Wynn’s string-soaked “Riverside” echoes Nick Cave at his most ragingly epic. In-between the “big-hitters”, the relatively-unknown Amelia White offers the folk-rock shimmer of “Skeleton Key” with a gutsy twang and the equally unfamiliar Tony Furtado tips in a wistful soulful ballad (almost) worthy of Mark Mulcahy.

Amidst the slew of new/unreleased songs, comes a fine triumvirate of imaginative cover versions. Erstwhile X-man John Doe deposits a delightfully doleful bluesy reading of Lennon & McCartney’s “Baby’s In Black”. “Moon River” gets an alluring pedal steel and marimba-driven instrumental re-interpretation from the early-90s archives of the Friends of Dean Martinez. Top of the class though, is the manic medley of “I Want Candy/I Know What Boys Want/Who Do You Love/Not Fade Away” from Howe Gelb and Scout Niblett, complete with monster-sized drums, cocktail-jazz piano, gnarly guitars and a boisterous school-kids choir.

So there you go; a must-investigate compilation, that’s high in moral fibre and drenched in exuberant playfulness. “Journalistic integrity-protection” comes as an unexpected bonus…

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