Small Wonders #7

Herbert Stanley Littlejohn - 17th and 18th Century Works of Funerary Violin CD-R

The Guild of Funerary Violinists (www.guildoffuneraryviolinists.org.uk)

Sometimes you get lucky. I stumbled upon this release on the Aquarius Records website and I feel it is my absolute duty to inform you that it is one of the most gorgeous things I’ve ever heard. The back story to it is just as striking as the music itself. The Guild of Funerary Violinists was founded in 1586 according to their website and is dedicated to the promotion and execution of of the art of the Funerary Violin. This art is exactly what one might infer from its name, music composed specifically for funerals to be played on the violin. These recordings were made in 1956 by Herbert Stanley Littlejohn after he found a dusty old book full of the sheet music in a church in 1954 dating back the 1600′s. While in the process of recording these compositions he uncannily died when he tripped over an old cat and fell down a flight of stairs, subsequently shattering his skull. Mere words cannot begin to describe the stark beauty of these recordings. The crackle of the old vinyl masters on the transfer only adds to the effect. Highest possible recommendation.

 

Torche - In Return 10″

Robotic Empire (www.roboticempire.com)

We’re going two for two in this latest installment of Small Wonders. I’d heard of Torche before but never really listened to them, but after seeing this record I couldn’t say no. First of all the artwork was done by Baroness’ John Baizley so that means it looks incredible. He is also responsible for the artwork to Pig Destroyer’s Phantom Limb, Darkest Hour’s Deliver Us, and his own band’s latest record, The Red Album. Second of all it comes on high quality, heavy gauge colored vinyl in several different hues, each a limited pressing. Finally, it comes with an actual CD copy of the record incorporated into the actual artwork in the inside of the gatefold. It isn’t just a CD-R either, but a real 3″ CD with a clear plastic outer ring to make it appear to be a normal 5″ CD. As for the music, this thing does not disappoint. Torche play a heavy rock/metal hybrid not unlike a High On Fire/Queens of the Stone Age cross-pollination. The guitars are fucking thick sounding and the vocals are burly but still melodic. Better grab one before they go out of print. I’ll be making it a point to check out their previous work and so should you.

 

Animal Collective - Peacebone 10″

Domino (www.dominorecordco.com)

I must be one of the few that isn’t completely enamored with Animal Collective’s Strawberry Jam. It has its moments to be sure, like the awesome songs “Fireworks” and “Derek,” but if I were to point to the source of my agitation with the new record it would be typified in “Peacebone.” Take one part stream of consciousness lyrics from Avey Tare, one part Panda Bear singing off key and put them on top of a track built around squelching circus noises and you get “Peacebone,” the first single from Animal Collective’s otherwise decent new album. Why someone like Panda Bear, who has proven he has the vocal chops to deliver carefully constructed vocal architecture, would sing off key as the foil to Avey Tare’s awkward verses is beyond my comprehension. This is the kind of song that should have been relegated to single status in a similar fashion to “People” and left off the actual album. The b-side, “Safer,” is a throwaway track that is very similar to “Cuckoo” but with a slightly different piano part. I love Animal Collective but this 10″ isn’t worth your time.

 

Liars - Plaster Casts of Everything 7″

Mute (www.mute.com)

In stark contrast to Animal Collective’s misstep, Liars have rightly chosen “Plaster Casts of Everything” as the first single from their self-titled album. The song takes a page from Wire’s early work with a minimal riff and “rides this wave” on a raft of Nirvana style, anthemic distortion. I believe “awesome” is the correct adjective here. The b-side, “Volcano Police” is a strange pseudo-metal track harboring a purposefully generic sounding riff smothered with liberal amounts of synthesizer. Angus Andrews warns us that Liars “come from hell.” On a hilarious sidenote, I was playing the new Liars album at the record store where I work recently and a customer that was in the store at the time sent us a nasty letter proclaiming we should put that music that sounds like it “came from the pits of hell” where it belongs, in the trash. Uncanny.

Music is too dynamic to be reduced to a single format forever. Tiny independent labels produce a wealth of 7”, CD-R, and tape releases each year. Because of the massive quantity of these things floating around out there, it is impossible for a site such as ours to devote album review space to these releases. The focus of this column is to dig through the crates and dish the dirt on some of these small wonders. If your band or label would like to submit a 7”, tape, or CD-R for consideration in this column please contact me: joed@adequacy.net

Akron/Family – Love Is Simple

If there is one thing Akron/Family are not, it is simple. They are a deceptively talented quartet; expert folk songwriters, but also comfortable in styles ranging from classic rock to 60′s pop, from metal to bluegrass. Their work in the Angels of Light has rightly born them out to be a band of superior musicianship: on Love Is Simple they sound confident and well-practiced in even their most ragged moments. There is an intuitive quality to their music that one rarely hears in bands today; they are able to collectively shift both music and mood with remarkable precision. That they can demonstrate such instinct within the context of the scattershot, wildly unfocused Love Is Simple, is an accomplishment in and of itself. The real trouble is that a band of this talent could be so much better, if only for a little discipline.

Following the effortless sing-along of “Love, Love, Love” that opens the album, is a track called “Ed Is A Portal” — a seven-and-a-half minute mini-suite that switches between electric country stomp, breezy folk, and spare trip-hop without even bothering with transitions. “Pony O.G.” falls apart suddenly, turning into a backward, looping experiment a la the Beatles’ “Revolution 9.” And “Lake Song/New Ceremonial Music For Mothers” begins as a Books-like ride beneath the moon, before devolving into three minutes of primal moans and screams.

Not that I have anything against primal screams. But what, seriously, is the point? Why does a great, crooked, country-rock jam like “There’s So Many Colors” have to begin with a minute-and-a-half of the same foolish chant (“There’s so many colors / without the dirty windows”)? That this song is followed by the superb “Crickets” — a cool, front-porch ballad — only deepens the sense that this band is not always putting its best foot forward. And thus, the biggest problem is not that this album is such a mess of styles and voices, but that one gets the feeling that Akron/Family have a beautiful, timeless (read: simple) folk record in them, and that Love Is Simple isn’t it. It’s not that so many of these disparate sections sound bad — on the contrary, they’re generally quite listenable and often feel like excellent mini-songs — but that they seem to willfully distract from a far more worthwhile mantle that Akron/Family are more than capable of taking up.

You will hear few better songs this year than “Don’t Be Afraid, You’re Already Dead”: the fragile organ line, easy harmonies, and casually beautiful refrain — “Love is simple” (of course) — are clearly the mark of a great band. That the first track, “Love, Love, Love,” is reprised at the album’s conclusion is testament that the band knows the power of its most clear-eyed work. We will have to wait a little longer, it seems, until moments such as these are no longer the exception, but the rule.

Nine Inch Nails – Year Zero

After the heavy-handed, unmelodic With Teeth, Trent Reznor returns to form on Year Zero, his concept album about the coming end of the world. Now older, wiser, and weary of raging against the machine, Trent plays the omniscient spectator and also takes on various points of view, peering at our cycle of self-destruction through the lens of history, political and religious institutions, and the corruption of power.

This album is more accessible than Trent’s previous efforts, sounding smoother and less raw with its recurring motifs of guitar loops and electronic blips and beats. Most of the songs here share a similar structure (verse, chorus, verse) and instrumentation (grinding rock guitar loops and electronics), creating a cohesive feel to the album, but also lending itself to repetition.

The songs consist of a background of electronic noise (propelling drum beats, assorted tech blips, and static), as well as cycles of distorted guitar lines, with touches of sonic and vocal beauty amid the rough aural tumult. The electronics get harsh-sounding at times, but never to the point of totally unlistenable annihilation.

While each song has a full sound with a lot going on, the compact structure of the short-phrase verses and catchy choruses limit the possibility of sonic lift-off and blossoming, which only occurs on parts of a few tracks.

Trent’s manipulated vocals and smoother delivery seem more daring and wide-ranging than on previous work – it’s not all one-note, nasal whining and shouting – and while his vehemence reminds intact, the animalistic snarl has been replaced by a more thoughtful, pointed outlook.

With focused intent, Trent takes on the big issues, holding a mirror up to our messed up world, from the past to modern day, showing how we are perpetuating history, following the same paths of destruction through the omnipotent institutions of politics and religion, bringing up themes like the corrupt, powerful few versus the supposedly powerless masses, blind belief, hatred, and violence, widespread apathy, and the irreversible (or maybe not) cycle of destruction.

While Trent’s intentions are admirable (to shed light on our plight – hey, that might be one of his lyrics), the musical and lyrical execution of the aforementioned themes is not particularly exceptional or enlightening (well, at least to those who haven’t had blinders on for all their lives). His views are expressed in simple, repetitive phrases that state the obvious, and he should have been more ruthless and cut the song count down to make the album more spare and effective.

The instrumental intro “Hyperpower” has a steady beat and slightly distorted guitars that build in intensity, along with a repeated loop of a shouting crowd. Near the end of the song, the guitars and electronics wig out and the volume increases, reaching an apex of loud, distressed, tape-ravaging noises and a long screech (possibly powerful military forces crushing down the masses? Just a guess.).

That instrumental immediately segues into “The Beginning Of The End”, a song title which basically says it all, as far as the album theme is concerned. It’s also a short song at two and a half minutes, with the same steady drum beat, a full, distorted guitar sound, and Trent clearly sing-talking at the start. Half a minute into the song amid a break out of screeching electronic knob-twiddling, Trent makes his lyric point (refer to song title) and doesn’t drag this one out, quickly moving on to –

“Survivalism”, a fast-tempo, industrial dance track full of scurrying electronic blips and fuzzed-out guitar riffs and that recalls the song “Wish” with its punchy, stomping, “swing-yer-partner-‘round” chorus. Trent whips it up on the chorus bits, along with a multitude of other weighty voices in the background ““I got my propaganda, I got revisionism, I got my violence…I got my fist, I got my plan, I got survivalism”. Violently catchy.

Trent treads close to familiar territory with “The Good Soldier”, which musically sounds exactly like “Closer” with its steam-whistle whooshing noise and laid-back beat. The song also continues with the loops of guitar as he intones “How can this be real? I can barely feel…anymore.” The chorus is low-key, with backing bell-like notes and Trent barely raising his voice as he says “I am trying to see, I am trying to believe. This is not where I should be.” There is a short guitar solo near the end of the song, with the guitar sounding cool, hollowed-out, and melancholy. It’s this type of touch that raises a song up from its well-trodden path.

The electronics take over on “Vessel”, with its wheezy screeches, short static blurps, and tech loops. Trent gets shouty on the verses “I have finally found my place in everything. I have finally found my home”, while on the chorus, there is a multitude of his vocal lines exclaiming, where he sounds like he’s going up in an elevator really fast. Louder guitar riffs cycle in and at three and half minutes there is a split-second old Battlestar Galactica TV series-sounding cylon blip (you know, the tin can warriors with red, side-sliding electronic “eyes”). The electronic noise ramps up with zip, bleeps, and squiggles and other, harsher, spacey noises, until everything sounds like a demented pin-ball machine game.

Next number “Me, I’m Not” opens and continues like “High Plains Drifter” by the Beastie Boys, with an empty, echoed sound and Trent speaks in a hushed tone, but gets excitable on the ends of phrases, turning up words like “I can’t stop” and “I’m losing control” against slower, drawn out electronic bleeps and R2-D2-like squirks. His delivery is mutedly regretful as he says “…if I take it all back, some way, somehow. If I knew back then what I know right now…” as the song ends with a long instrumental that sounds suspiciously like the end of the previous song.

Trent gets positively poppy on the lyrics-heavy “Capital G”, seemingly an indictment of President Bush and his administration and also of the apathy of the average US citizen (who voted Prez G into office). The song is done in fun style with a catchy, sing-song chorus and Trent putting on a blasé, uppity tone. Guitar loops again fill out the sound as he says “I pushed a button and elected him to office – and he pushed a button – and dropped a bomb.”.

Trent alternates between the viewpoints of someone in power and the person who elected him and put him in charge. Here is a telling verse: “Don’t try to tell me how…power can corrupt a person, you haven’t had enough to know what it’s like. You’re only angry ‘cause you wish you were in my position.” Then there’s the even more telling chorus: “Well, I used to stand for something…trading in my god for this one, and he signs his name…with a capital G”.

“My Violent Heart” is an electronic number with soft verses versus loud chorus bits that isn’t as melodic as the previous songs. It starts with a low-key vibe as Trent’s talking vocals are doubled on verses, and then explodes into a shouting chorus of “on hands and knees we crawl”.

This is the beginning of several less memorable songs on the album, continuing with the too low-key and repetitive “The Warning”, filled with familiar guitar loops and electronic blips and sounds like “Closer” and “The Good Soldier” and is vocally similar to “Me, I’m Not”, with Trent’s vocals going up at ends of phrases.

Another sonic drag is “God Given” that utilizes the same beat as the previous song and consists of too simplistic lyrics and short-rhyming phrases. Trent tosses off the verses a little, like he’s not interested in them, although there is a funky chorus of higher tone and lower-tone Trents and other people to liven it up a bit. Check out the lyrics: “…and it gives such sight…and we see the light and it burns so bright, now we know we’re right…we’re the chosen ones”. And it sounds so trite…

Trent gets it together for “Meet Your Father” (i.e., “it’s time to meet your master”), a verse-chorus-verse song with short-phrase, emphatically delivered lyrics, electronic squiggles, familiar steam-whistle sound and guitar loops. There’s a break midway in the song with echoed vocals and a guitar line, drum beat, and electronic noise that builds up as Trent shouts “come on down” against the grinding guitars.

The quasi-instrumental “The Greater Good” has a continuous bass-heavy rumble, low-key beat, and far-off electronic noise. Runs of xylophone-like notes, a dawning-morning sound, and sighing, wordless chorus make the listener feel as if trapped in a dream, with runs of harp notes and a barely-heard Trent whispering “breathe us in slowly”.

The listless spell is broken by “The Great Destroyer”, a short three minute lift of electronics and guitar riffs with Trent sing-talking in a clear, tuneful way, going up again to a very high vocal register on the ends of phrases. The lyrics, however, are ominous: “…the end is near. I hope they cannot see, the limitless potential building inside of me, to murder everything, I hope they cannot see, I am the great destroyer” – and at this point, with this lyric phrase, the vocals and instruments briefly take off with an aurally exalted sound that crashes just as quickly into a bass-heavy, electronic bloops, and static end.

The tone becomes more quiet and contemplative on the short instrumental interlude of “Another Version Of The Truth”, with its measured, plunked antique piano notes and sustained static background, leading into the standout track, “In This Twilight”, a song of melancholy beauty with Trent singing more softly, sweetly, and yearningly than anywhere else in his career. There’s almost of feeling of hope in the face of destruction, as the final sunset approaches before the end of the world. On the chorus Trent sings wistfully and in a high register, delicately reaching out with “The sky is full of light, can you see it? All the black is really white, if you believe it” and ending with “we can find a better place…we must try”.

But it’s not quite the end yet and the final goodbye “Zero Sum” extends the more introspective mood with a bass-heavy beat, electronics, piano, breathy, almost whispered talking by Trent (which is too low in the mix to hear the lyrics exactly) “and soon it will be said and done and we’ll all be back together as one and we will continue”. The chorus suddenly rouses the song from its torpor with Trent singing “Shame on us, we knew from the start. May god have mercy on our dirty little hearts…Shame on us for all we have done and all we ever were – just zeros and ones” as a child’s cry fades away with piano notes and hovering-sky sound.

PJ Harvey – White Chalk

In theory, you certainly can’t fault Polly Jean Harvey’s ambitious intention to regenerate/reinvent her artistic persona for almost every album in her 15 or so year career. However, this insistent urge for chameleon-like changes has had its drawbacks. Thus, the diverse charms of her 1992 debut Dry were trampled-on by 1993’s brutally difficult Rid of Me, her majestic vaudevillian take on the twisted-blues of Nick Cave, Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits for 1995’s terrific To Bring You My Love was flatly followed by the introspective indulgence of 1998’s somewhat stillborn Is This Desire?, and 2000’s bright melodic Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea had to make-do with the slightly mannered scuzz-rock of 2004’s underwhelming Uh Huh Her for its sequel. But if this ‘one good/one indifferent’ album pattern is set as rigidly as Polly’s artistic principles, then by this writer’s reckoning, 2007’s White Chalk should be another killer collection, whatever stylistic clothing has been pulled from her wardrobe.

It’s deeply apparent from the outset that Harvey has made a concerted attempt to shed yet another skin as well as push for compositional excellence. In the process she has forged something that is both challenging and often breathtaking. So, out go lead guitars, in come pianos, out go snarling vocals, in come ghostly falsettos, back comes To Bring You My Love-era collaborators John Parish and Eric Drew Feldman for multi-instrumentalist duties, and ushered-out are ‘straight’ drums to make room for obtuse percussive-bedding from the Dirty Three’s Jim White. Together, these ‘rock-free’ elements coalesce around some of Harvey’s most dark and chilling songs.

The opening opaqueness of “The Devil” pretty much maps out the dominant direction of White Chalk; with atmospheric studio textures, plaintive keyboards, distressed and distant multi-tracked vocals all blended into ethereal baroque ballads, that conceal shadowy tales of violent death, desolate rural geography, crippling obsessions and the chronic pain of longing. This means that amidst repeated acts of musical elegance up floats disturbing lines like “Hit her with a hammer/Teeth smashed-in” (“The Piano”) and “Something metal/Tearing my stomach out” (“Broken Harp”), to make you pray that these songs are purely fictional.

For most of the time, the desolate gothic ambience of the album is akin to walking through a haunted Victorian mansion whilst hearing the disembodied thoughts of haunted lost souls, trapped into a purgatory-like limbo. It’s far from being an easy-listening affair then, and there are definitely no quick inroads for anyone expecting to find stand-alone hook-heavy songs like “Down By The Water” or “Good Fortune”. But those who have developed the patience needed for the likes of Vashti Bunyan’s Just Another Diamond Day, Dead Can Dance’s Serpent’s Egg or Joanne Newsom’s Ys, should find themselves in awe of the evocative and brittle beauty of White Chalk. Let’s just hope that Harvey’s next LP breaks her cycle of boom-then-slump creativity, because this poignant and powerful collection deserves an equally profound successor.

Young Marble Giants – Colossal Youth and Collected Works

Surely I can’t be the only one that repeatedly gets the Young Marble Giants confused with the Young Fresh Fellows. Both are 3 words long, starting with “young” of course, and both are routinely name checked as influences in the college rock scene of the late 80’s and early 90’s. Then my mind tends to wander and somehow the Feelies and db’s creep in there, too and I think of them all as one big mess of bands. But the truth is these bands are far removed from the Giants and share nothing in common aside from “influential status” and “out of print.” So it’s forgivable that a rock addled mind like this can get them confused, right?

Well surely I can’t be the only one that finds it hard to believe that Colossal Youthis just now getting around to the reissue treatment and this is how they all get fouled up in my head. It’s a reissue long overdue if only because of what I refer to as the “Pixies Syndrome.” Too many bands are breaking through today, heavily influenced by an artist that never got their rightful due when they existed. In the case of Colossal Youth, it was close to becoming that album everyone had heard of but actually never heard. Leave it to Domino to swing into action and oversee the reissue by adding everything conceivable the band had done in a tasteful manner and one that doesn’t detract from the original album’s importance.

Scraping the vaults and tacking on countless bonus tracks are ruining the importance of reissues but it doesn’t have to be this way. Catering to the obsessive only pleases the hipsters who already owned the original albums, probably on first press vinyl. For anyone coming late to the game or to the kids who want to see who it is that serves as the influence to someone like an Interpol or a Radiohead, including a basement demo or half finished practice jam only deters from understanding why an album is important in the first place. There is a certain sense of mystery absent by doing this.

But unlike the recent Sonic Youth or Pavement deluxe releases, Domino has collected everything the band has officially released and spread it across 3 discs, not tacking anything on to the original album. The first disc is the only full length album the Cardiff trio recorded as they originally released it. If you’re interested in hearing the Peel Sessions the band did, skip on over to disc 3. Want to hear the EP’s or compilation albums YMG contributed to? They’re all neatly compiled on disc 2. Gratefully absent are things such as 4 different versions of “Wurlitzer Jukebox” or studio chatter. In the day and age of speedy internet connections and file sharing sites anyone interested enough can seek out any outtakes on their own.

With that said, the second of the 3 discs includes the Testcard EP, the “Final Day” single, and 2 other compilations & singles. What stands out is that only half a dozen songs are repeated across the packages’ 46 tracks and that each additional song is just as vital and impressive as anything on the debut.

By now any self respecting music fan is familiar with the Young Marble Giants name. At least if only by hearing it as a touchstone to the 2nd generation post punk bands of today. This influence is best summed up in the booklet that accompanies the album, written by Simon Reynolds. Reynolds has done an amazing job documenting this era in music through his book Rip It Up And Start Again and it flows over in documenting this album. In fact, he sort made it near impossible for anyone to do a proper review of it. In the liner notes he names 3 of the most important albums of the era: PiL’s, Metal Box, Talking Heads’ Fear Of Music, and Gang Of Four’s Entertainment and damn if Colossal Youth doesn’t fit right alongside each of them. What I can add to Reynolds’ take on the album is that what separates Colossal Youth from something like PiL or Gang of Four is warmth and human touch.

The power and intrigue comes from open spaces between the bass, guitar, and vocals, and in most cases that’s all there is to the music. The occasional drum machine pops up on a track here and there but few bands have done more with less. Alison Stratton has an unexpectedly enchanting voice and the lyrics are more direct than the abstract nihilistic manner prominently sneered in this era. The Young Marble Giants were more than just sinew-y bass lines and curvy guitars. There was a real honesty to them despite the musical landscape they were in.

That’s really the only introduction necessary since Domino & Reynolds have taken care of it further. If you’ve been interested in the band this far chances are you already know the most of the history. The only thing left to do is finally delve in and listen to the masterpiece the album is.

How To Loot Brazil – Autto Fister

Tagged as being built on “subversive disco strategies,” How To Loot Brazil’s 9-song CD makes for some interesting listening. This isn’t disco and it isn’t dance music – it’s too hyper for that. But it’s not exactly punk or spazzcore, either, though it does touch on those styles. It’s at once familiar and unusual.

The songs throw together tropes from many of the major movements we’ve seen come and go over the past few decades. Punk? Check. New wave? Check. Electronica, dance music? Check. Autto Fister doesn’t flit from genre to genre, though. It put them all into each song.

If you were to read the song titles, you’d think that the band had some anger-management problems. What other conclusion would you draw from “Backwater Prick,” “Fukk Religion,” “Drone,” and “Idiot”? I’m not sure what exactly the title track “Autto Fister” means, but we could probably put that on the list as well. But “Backwater Prick” has a Faint-like synth line on top of its beatbox rhythm and choppy guitar work. And the chorus is downright catchy: “One thing is for sure / I will never be like you” might have been a fist-pumping call to arms but here it’s sung as a Death Cab refrain. And “Fukk Religion” isn’t the screed you’re expecting. It asks us to picture a more perfect world by asking us to “Imagine we were all / Undenominational.” The music is pretty much Buzzcock guitar, bass, and drums, at least until the chorus adds in some electronica.

“Autto Fister” honestly sounds like Microdisney with a shot of adrenaline. Tinged with sadness during the verses, injected with a dance beat and synth line in the bridges, moving to a punk chorus (musically) with restrained but emotive singing, this one reads like it’s all over the map. But to hear it is to witness how the band continually puts its disparate influences together into a coherent whole.

Elsewhere, “Varnoff 1951″ is pretty much straight new wave and “Mothra Eclectic” comes off like a tamer Mindless Self Indulgence. “Drone” throws in some cool gated drums during a few-second-long breakdown but other than that it’s a C86-sounding cut. Autto Fister can satisfy many of your stylistic yens without any jarring transitions as it goes from one musical mechanism to the next. This German band may be on to something.

The Cape May – Glass Mountain Roads

Since the release of their debut LP, Central City May Rise Again, in 2004, The Cape May have traveled in good company: playing shows with Grizzly Bear, Songs: Ohia, and the Constantines, and eventually touring the U.S. and Europe as Nina Nastasia’s backing band. In many ways, those artists are apt reference points to the stirring, sidelong sound of their new Glass Mountain Roads — a record of surprising strength and vivid, secret music.

It is to The Cape May’s great credit that they rarely, if ever, take the easy way through a song: the guitars often hum low and distant, slow tempos trod resolved and weary paths, and singer Clinton St. John’s almost hoarse, windy voice picks dangerous, unexpected melodies without fear of where they will end up. As such, Glass Mountain Roads is a record you will have to take your time with: the odd rhythms, multifaceted instrumentals, and St. John’s surreal, penetrating lyrics reveal a deep, impressive world with each new listen. The wheezing accordion on “Catch Your Words” lets the song drift like an abandoned ship; the low drone of “Mari” belies the ballad in its lyric; the haunted strings and pained vocal of “Still Island” beckon to you like a witch’s finger.

And much like their past touring mates, The Cape May expertly manage the quiet spaces on each of these twelve compositions: the songs breathe and let you in, until the music becomes the aural track of a much larger world. As a trio, they never overplay their songs; all three are very talented musicians and they make gracious, deliberate choices as to the ghostly instruments and melodies that tie Glass Mountain Roads together.

Within this framework, St. John’s lyrics are often stunning, and he wields his voice with threatening abandon like a difficult, expertly played instrument. “Old & Early Numbers” is a particularly thrilling moment, as the stuttering, unsettled beginning of the song gives way to a lucid, fleeting dream and a distant, almost Interpol-esque guitar line. “And there will be gold!” St. John shouts at the song’s shimmering conclusion: one gets the feeling he has seen something for which he has no real words to describe. “Still Island” is another lyrical high point: when St. John sings, “Cryin’ out / it’s hell on the breeze / these broken hearts / in rusted trees”, he hides a beautiful, ominous world with his careful, unexpected phrasing and almost soulful, mesmerizing delivery.

Glass Mountain Roads deserves your patience and unhindered attention: its mirrored paths and frightened, vital voices trace a land worth revisiting many times over. And this may be the record’s greatest accomplishment — that its songs could be as signposts in a dream, directing you back to whatever secrets you might find there.

Harrisons – No Fighting In The War Room

Normally, I hate cutesy references to pop culture in music, or any artistic medium, really. Most of the time, they smack of a lack of creativity, and are a desperate grab at nostalgic thirtysomethings who wish they were still cool and dweeby twentysomethings who wear vintage tour shirts for bands that broke up before they were born. But Harrisons have managed to take their distinct brand of delightfully British rock and pepper it with a schmorgasboard of influences.

Little nods and winks to England’s rock idols are everywhere – the spacey, Floyd-y vocals, the guitar licks that skim across the back beat, and sizzle of 80′s Brit punk. The opener, “Dear Constable”, is Clash-esque with syncopated guitars and hot drums. “Simmer Away” has this great Beatles vibe to it, and there’s a little Smiths in the structure of “Listen” that surprised the hell out of me and put a huge smile on my face. No Fighting In The War Room has great sonic variety, and while not all of it is stellar, none of it is bad.

I have a feeling that Harrisons will get compared to the Arctic Monkeys, due to slight similarities in tone, but they are leagues ahead of those kids. No Fighting In The War Room is a sonically varied album that pays tribute to its forefathers without being kitschy about it, and still manages to carve its own niche.

Library Tapes – Höstluft

Tagging an album with the genre “ambient” can sometimes be a death knell. Even though there are a number of artists that have achieved excellent results through careful construction of sound worlds and minimal instrumentation, there are far more that make music dull enough to induce sleep. Thankfully Library Tapes’ David Wenngren is able to deftly navigate these waters, producing beautiful and often understated melancholia. His pieces drown lonely piano figures in static and found sounds. Those that enjoy the collaborative works of Brian Eno and Harold Budd or Christian Fennesz and Ryuichi Sakamoto will find much to love here.

Höstluft begins with some crackling sounds that might have been lifted from the worn out grooves of a vinyl record. Shortly following this, Wenngren introduces the first plaintive piano notes onto this canvas of static. This seems to be the modus operandi of the album. Each piece begins with some field recordings with the piano entering shortly afterwards. It might get old if not for Wenngren’s concise melodic gifts that are so lovely you wish they would go on forever. These are capable of conveying feelings of loneliness, isolation, and surprisingly even warmth. The only weak point about the album is that some of the pieces may have benefited from being extended a few minutes more.

This is the third Library Tapes album and the first with Wenngren as the sole member. Instead of narrowing the focus of Höstluft, Wenngren was able to craft a more capable album with fewer weak spots than previous Library Tapes records. With any music like this there is always a tendency to lapse into irrelevance as soon as its audience perceives a reduction in quality. If David Wenngren can continue to make ambient music this engaging he shouldn’t have a problem.

Fior Fiero – The Satellite EP

I can’t stress enough how refreshing it is when a band is willing to embrace a genre and make it into something all their own and making an exciting listen. Sure the four tracks on Fior Fiero’s The Satellite EP have a combination of elements from electronic pop and jazzy rock, but here it’s used to a subtle yet profound effect, elevating their credibility as a talented indie band. If this EP is any indication, it was somewhat of a blessing that a band like Dark Side of the Cop bred such fine talent as guitarist Marco Panella and keyboardist Roger Thomasson.

First, there’s “Satellite”, the charming little nod to the sounds of the most experimental of 80’s songs, cleverly disguised as a typical indie tune from the pluck of the first note. It ends is a plethora of organized chaos, still underscored by numb yet refined vocal delivery. What follows is the jazzy “Shadowboxer”. The key to this song is the atmosphere and overall bleak arrangement of seemingly random notes. This would fit perfectly on the soundtrack of a David Lynch film, or even a dark neo-noir.

“Butterscotch” is the most upbeat of the songs. It’s still drowned in bleakness, yet lifted just enough by the upbeat tempos to produce a stellar rock song. I knew I was going to love “So Close” from the opening synth sounds. This song is defined by its subtle time changes and simple instrumental flourishes throughout. Though instrumental, it is never boring thanks to its constant movement and sense of urgency.

Let’s face it; as dark as these songs appear to be, this four song EP is a fun listen. The only problem I found with this sample of greatness is that it ends after 4 songs. Needless to say, I’ll be looking forward to a full length album from these guys when it comes.

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