The Weepies – Be My Thrill

If you’ve even had cursory exposure to the husband and wife songwriting team known as The Weepies, then you know full well how effortless it can be to cozy up with their gently affecting ruminations on the joys and agonies of love.  Have you seen the video for “Can’t Go Back Now,” off of 2008’s Hideaway? A gorgeous acoustic-driven gem about facing the disappointments of adulthood head on and letting go of past mistakes, the disarmingly sincere message of the song is trumped only by the muppets (created in the image and likeness of head Weepies Steve Tannen and Deb Talan) who hold hands while standing in Times Square and kiss in front of a makeshift Hollywood sign that now reads “The Weepies”.

Those who take their coffee black (and without any sweetener, of course) would do well to allow The Weepies into their iTunes library; their homespun tunes about human loss and longing can be uncomfortably earnest at times, but the approach is often executed with such charming subtlety that the passion never becomes saccharine. You can hardly blame the duo for their positivity and aw-shucks sentimentality after all; when two disparate songwriters meet at a chance gig, form a band, get married, have a child, and release four well-received albums of intimate acoustic pop along the way, it’s clear there’s a singular sort of chemistry at work that’s worth celebrating.

The party – albeit a mellow one – continues on Be My Thrill, a briskly paced set of demure folk-pop that finds The Weepies bringing plenty of their trademark gravitas to the fore without ever becoming maudlin. Set in a lilting 12/8 groove and supported by the pitter-patter of snapping and tambourines, “Please Speak Well of Me” opens the album with pleas to an ex-lover and sage advice such as, “To never regret means you have to forget.” Talan’s lead vocals have just a touch of sweet smokiness to them that blend brilliantly with Tannen’s harmonizations and the airy instrumental arrangement. The record ebbs and flows from here with balanced musings on both the thrilling rush of love and the heartache of rejection. “When You Go Away” and “Red Red Rose” work in tandem with one another, as the former’s moderate rock tempo and pleading requests not to be left behind give way to the sullen realizations (“I’m not yours / you’re not mine / hope you find love in time”) and murky keyboard textures of the latter.

“I Was Made For Sunny Days” brings pop star Colbie Caillat onboard, her vocals seamlessly fusing with Talan’s for a shimmering little pop ditty about great weather, happy couples, and how each one is complimented by the presence of the other. The track is among the most buoyant and unabashedly elated songs to be found on the LP; it’s not a raucous affair by any means, but in Weepieland, the ecstasy remains palpable.

The album’s second half boasts the LP’s most varied material. “Add My Effort” is one the duo’s most affecting compositions, where falsetto vocals and a dash of reverb lend the tune a pastoral bent. A genuinely sweet pledge to stick it out with someone during the darkest of times, the song’s lyrics (“I’m gonna add my effort to you / try and love you”) should resonate with anyone who has ever been tested by the speed bumps of a romantic relationship. The title track arrives just in time to break up the storm clouds; its uptempo pulse matched by jangly guitar countermelodies and hastily delivered vocals (“Everybody needs someone to adore / I’m counting on you / baby say you will / baby be my thrill”).  Be My Thrill’s finest moment though, is “Hard to Please,” the only time The Weepies eclipse the four-minute mark. A mixture of handclaps, ethereal vocals and siren-like atmospherics, the song’s greater length allows for the type of exposition and development only hinted at on other tracks. The album ends on a note of unexpected political discourse with “Empty Your Hands,” which juxtaposes imagery of genocide with that of Talan and Tannen’s toddler learning how to run in a grassy field.

Be My Thrill is hardly renegade territory for The Weepies, but anyone looking for a folk act that balances deft musicianship with genuinely sweet candor is in for a treat; there is simply no finer choice in 2010.

Kopek- White Collar Lies

Sometime in the late eighties to early nineties, I thought everyone got together and decided arena rock and hair metal had run its unbearable course. Grunge helped put a stop to that, which would itself get laughable as the alt-grunge bands flooded the scene. Music like Kopek is why the underground exists. When a style takes over the radio, especially when it’s hair metal, there’s always going to be people interested in something else, and there will always be people making that something else. 2010 is different than 1982, where you hear a lot of electro-pop/hip-hop, like Lady Gaga or Katy Perry, but the rock scene has splintered into too many parts to be a part of one machine. Possibly in a revival or in homage to nostalgia, Kopek goes heavy on the arena rock sound, and it serves my memory well why they killed this genre over twenty years ago.

Everything about Kopek is big and flashy, from the massive riffs to the throaty, anthemic singing. The lyrics are broad, fuck-off/kill the establishment, which also went out some time ago. The sound is just one big cheeseball, full of cheap rock bravado. These guys may really look in the mirror and tell themselves they’re what true rock n’ roll is all about, with their guitars and fuck you and fuck this, but the songs just aren’t good and it sounds so dated and image conscious. “Cocaine Chest Pains” lays on the cheesy arena theme, and lead single “Love is Dead” is an unlistenable recount of pretty much ‘everything is dead’ (which it isn’t). Being a cocksure band, firing people up, and berating them with huge distorted electric guitars doesn’t work anymore. You need real songs, that have real texture, and real lyrics – at least ones that weren’t taken from a creed that has long been buried.

Lehto & Wright – Children’s Songs

European folk is arguably the oldest style around today. Bands of the 1960s and 70s like Jethro Tull, Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention modernized the art, but their material was influenced by lore and poetry dating back centuries in the annals of UK history. Although you might expect such a band to have many members, in the case of Lehto & Wright, the band is simply a trio. Even so, they’ve crafted some fantastic pieces with their newest LP, Children’s Songs.

The Minneapolis, MN based duo of Steven Lehto and John Wright have a wide array of influences, ranging anywhere from the aforementioned progressive folk pioneers to King Crimson, Miles Davis, and Richard Thompson. Collectively, their backgrounds include jazz, blues, fusion, pop, Latin and rock. Joining them is Matt Jacobs on drums and percussion, and his background is similar. The trio has only put four songs on Children’s Songs, but its hour long runtime is quite enjoyable.

The album opens with the shortest track, “Wasn’t That A Time,” and it’s deceptively basic. First time listeners will hear a straightforward rocker with an emphasis on melody, harmony and acoustic guitars, but close listening reveals some complicated rhythmic shifts in the vocals. It’s easily the simplest track on Children’s Songs though, and a good one to start with.

“The Broomfield Hill” begins with some sorrowful chords and jazzy bass. Wright unfolds a tale with rapid pace, which shows that Lehto & Wright are just as focused on epic storytelling as their folk rock brethren. Soon the progressive rock influence takes effect as the sound becomes heavier and more complex overall, incorporating electric guitar solos over key changes and hyper bass. It’s very captivating.

As a preface to the actual discussion of the song, it’s worth mentioning that the title track is over a half an hour long, and although it’s basically just an instrumental guitar composition, it’s intriguing throughout. The piece consists of nearly twenty sections which include references and samples of Chick Corea (hence the title), Bèla Brook, John Coltrane, Robert Schumann, and Led Zeppelin. The full credits are listed section by section in the CD booklet. Needless to say, it carries a lot of momentum.

“Children’s Songs” begins with a silly portion of Charlie Wills singing his sea shanty “The Rigs of London Town”. Lehto & Wright then introduce varying sections of guitar work, including electric guitar harmonies, acoustic arpeggios and some fancy stuff that would fit well at a small town “ho down.” After some hearing some footsteps walking away, some more acoustic guitar melodies are played. Soon the drums and bass receive more attention as the guitar paints over them, and eventually they rock out a bit, changing time signatures frequently and including unconventional instruments for accompaniment. This middle section is quite energetic and technical, and it’d be stunning to see it played live. The closing third portion is mellower and strict (it even has a marching drum) at first, but it reprises the fusion aesthetic before it closes solemnly with an excerpt from Led Zeppelin’s “The Rain Song.” The track is astonishing; it’s a wonder how they even put together such a piece structurally (let alone play it). However, it’s also easy to see how listeners who aren’t too keen on guitars might get bored.

The album concludes with “Betsy Bell and Mary Gray,” which begins a cappella with overdubbed harmony about the two characters. The chords and arpeggios of the next segment effectively set the stage for a tale of Old English despair, which Lehto & Wright deliver once they start singing around five minutes in. The music is very affective and lush (though not orchestrated), and their vocals sound beautiful together. A few minutes later, the music builds beyond mere acoustic string instruments as drums, bass and odd effects are utilized. Halfway through, the band is at full force with more enchanting rhythms and progressive coating, all the while staying firmly planted in their folk world. The duo infuses dozens of chord progressions, arpeggios and riffs into their pieces, and it’s mesmerizing. Things take a very dark turn during the last few minutes with an angry guitar solo and a tribal drum beat. Finally, they reprise the poem they sang at the beginning. Overall, it’s probably the most focused track on the album.

As a bonus, Children’s Songs comes with a DVD that includes an interview and a live set (each about twenty five minutes long). The interview, as expected, provides a lot of insight into their influences and writing process, acknowledging how they incorporated other artists’ pieces into their own. In between the conversation are bits of performances, which helps maintain the appeal. It’s shot at one of their houses as a roundtable discussion, so it feels intimate and friendly. As for the live set, it’s shot in the living room of the same house, and each song is separated by a brief introduction. Of course it doesn’t sound as lush as the record, but it’s still pretty impressive to watch the guys play. They remain focused throughout and never let the camera distract them.

Lehto & Wright’s Children’s Songs is an incredible record. The duo are masters of their stringed instruments and they combine countless guitar chords and riffs with fantastic percussion to create masterpieces. That said, it is a shame that there are barely any vocals on here. Their voices fit the songs well and the few melodies they sing are absorbing. Plus, it would’ve broken up the monotony of the relentless instrumental music a bit (as enjoyable as it is, it can also get exhausting after awhile). Nevertheless, Children’s Songs is a very fine work indeed.

Built By Animals – Corporate Syndrome EP

It’s very easy to call Built By Animals a ‘nice’ band – they play nice, glittering, youthful rock’n’roll – that falls fairly heavily on the yuppie, indie movie trailer side of things. Matt Graff’s throaty vocals recall both the unplanned, cool-calm-collect shrugs of Julian Casablancas and the wishy-washy heart-sickened croak of Jeff Tweedy – he sings about parties, girls, escapism through weed as the guitars march up and down through strong, (but never offensively loud) crescendos and the drums are far too enthusiastic to settle for long on a steadfast rhythm.

This probably sounds pretty familiar to you, and it is if you’re the type of person who reads Delusions of Adequacy. Built by Animals are built by an era – you could say the band’s EP Corporate Syndrome more or less sums up what traditionalist indie rock has come to mean in the latter part of the decade. They exist amongst the Peter Bjorn & Johns and Death Cab for Cuties of the world – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Unlike plenty of lesser bands, Built By Animals actually manage to distinguish their songs from each other. The four (five if you count the interlude) tracks on Corporate Syndrome work as individual capsules of songwriting, they don’t reuse parts nearly as much as a band like Tokyo Police Club does. Sure these swings in style might be simple impressions of other, more popular bands, but they still end up getting a lot more out of the ‘indie rock sound’ than I was expecting them to, especially for a band so incredibly unsigned.

http://www.myspace.com/builtbyanimals

Interview with Seinking Ships

Hello Christopher, Eric, and Miki!  I’m dead chuffed to be doing this interview with the three of you in support of your new Seinking Ships album Museum Quality Capture that set sail in June.

Christopher, you’re based in the Cleveland, Ohio area, and Eric you are located in Oregon.  How did you two cross paths and at what point did you decide to collaborate as Seinking Ships?

Christopher: I reached out to Eric back in ’06 via his website to produce some songs I was working on.  I was a fan of his work and knew Eric had done some producing on the side with other bands, so I asked. It started off with a few horns, bass, and beats but it got to the point where Eric had left such a mark on the songs that we decided to set sail as a “band”.

Seinking Ships seems more like a musical project than a band, in the sense that I don’t think you’ve played live under this name and don’t live right around the corner from one another.  During the whole creative process, was there any proximal interaction, like where you were both in the studio at the same time, or did this all come together via long-distance?

Eric:  Yes, more of a project than a band.  Then again, my last “band” never played live or toured either and I think most people regard Cardinal as a band.    And yeah, here in the 21st century there is lots of music made by people who have never been in the same room.  The changing music biz economy (shrinking budgets) and technology has made this a common way of working.

Christopher and Eric, it’s quite a coup for you to have Miki Berenyi of the U.K., 1990s, dream-pop (for lack of a better description) band Lush as guest vocalist.  Who is the more avid Lush fan between the two of you and what made you think of approaching Miki for your album?

Eric:  I think Christopher is more familiar with that catalog.  I was more of a casual fan but certain of their songs really caught my ear and I always loved Miki’s voice.  I was buying nearly everything on 4AD when I was in high school but in the early 90′s I sort of started doing my own thing and stopped keeping up like I had.

Christopher:  Yeah, I would agree I am more the avid Lush fan.  They weren’t an influence in my playing necessarily, but they just had an original amazing sound. I am thrilled having Miki involved in the album.  It’s really incredible.

I find it interesting that you have Miki singing on three of the album’s tracks on an otherwise all-instrumental album.  Did either (or both) of you consider taking on some vocal duties?  What is the lure of creating an instrumental versus a vocalist-centric song?

Eric:  Well, I sing on one of the songs, a backing thing, wordless but no lyrics.  I don’t think Christopher sings and I went out of my way to not be a lead vocalist on this record.  If people want to hear me sing there are my solo records and Cardinal, etc…   This was going to be a straight instrumental album and then I got the idea of making it more appealing by having a familiar, hopefully known, female vocalist.

Who wrote the lyrics that Miki sings?  Since Miki resides in England, how did you involve her in the creative process?  Were you sending audio file drafts through email or via snail mail?  The result is wonderful, but I’m wondering how you got to the final product.

Eric:  I wrote all the lyrics and the melodies she sang, in her range, for her.   We secured her interest in the project and I then wrote her parts specifically for her.  I made demos here, with our tracks and me singing all the parts for Miki to learn.   And again, totally remote.   Miki knew an engineer (look for name on the CD) in London and we booked her in there and she just sang the stuff after rehearsing at home for about a month.  Actually, we bought Miki an iPod and I loaded it with the demos and a karaoke version of the songs so she could listen on “The Tube”.

What types of instruments did you employ on Museum Quality Capture?  Did you play any instruments or use any effects that you’ve never tried before?

Eric:  Christopher plays most of the electric guitars and the fat synths. I sort of did the rest – guitars, bass, drums, brass, strings, piano, electric piano, melodica, etc…   I don’t think I tried anything new on this album but I certainly used instruments in ways I had not before.  This music is very spacious and open to much experimentation, so I got to stretch out.

Christopher:  I stuck with what I do best. The keys and the guitars. The keys (Korg Trinity) have so many sounds and effects, that you can do something new every time it’s fired up. It’s a beast of a machine.

I’ve always wondered how bands, including Seinking Ships, get that sustained, ‘new-day dawning’, spacey sound.  I’m assuming it’s from your Korg Trinity, Christopher, but how do you actually achieve this sound?

Christopher:  Lots of reverb, delay, and tweaking of knobs. Mostly it comes from Trinity. I have around 20-30 sounds that are my bread and butter.

Christopher and Eric, Seinking Ships is not the first musical endeavor for either of you.  Eric, as you mentioned earlier, you were one half of Cardinal in the 1990s and you’ve also released solo material on the venerable Sub Pop Records, including your debut It’s Heavy In Here.  From what I’ve read online, I think you have another album up your sleeve titled Too Much World.  What’s the latest about it?

Eric:  Yeah, there was Cardinal and then the 5 solo records so far.  Too Much World will be my 6th and it should be out by the end of the year.   The album does have sort of a theme and the song with the name of the title is about my personally have consumed too much of this modern world and its ways.  It’s something I have been touching on in my songs in recent years – most notably a song called “We Were Human” from my last record The Imagination Stage.

Christopher, you’ve been a fixture of the Cleveland and Akron, Ohio music scene, playing in the bands Rivethead, Liquid Garden, and Quasispace.  What instruments did you play and what were your experiences like being in those bands?

Christopher:  I played guitars/keys. Everyone I played with were great friends so we had a blast playing gigs and recording in the studio. We never landed any record contracts but we sure tried. It was a great experience.

Christopher, before you approached Eric to work with you as producer, and now member of Seinking Ships, was your intent to record a solo album?  Would it have been in the same musical style as Museum Quality Capture?

Christopher:  Yes and no. The plan was to record a solo record with help from friends and pros like Eric.  I never had the desire to do an album on my own entirely.

Christopher and Eric, you released a self-titled EP in 2008 that contained four songs.  Were you testing the waters before diving in and recording a whole album or did you know all along that you would be releasing a full-length?  How did it compare recording the EP versus the album?

Eric:  It was pretty much the same process.  At first, this project was going to be a Chris Seink thing and I was just a hired performer and producer.  After the EP went out, we decided to make it a band and do a full-length.

You both have professed a love of film soundtracks and 80s New Wave tunes.  How do these interests figure into Museum Quality Capture?

Eric:  For me it was about looking back to the moods of certain films and television shows and trying to help create a music that would have fit into that time and those projects.  We have a song on this record called “Savalis Street”.  I was watching lots of Kojak at the time and I was writing that thing like a score to a chase scene.  I love Kojak!

Christopher:  I was probably more inspired by 80s New Wave tunes than film soundtracks. I think the tone of my music fits the cinematic theme. The type of keys and guitar sounds I produce have that retro feel and the fact that it is instrumental in nature seems to mesh well with film and TV soundtracks past and present.

Who are your most fave New Wave artists?  I’m partial to a-ha (so much more than a ‘one-hit-wonder’ band!), Wham!, and Pet Shop Boys, and although I wasn’t into Spandau Ballet at the time, I’m lovin’ the song “Gold”.

Eric:  A-ha is one of my most important bands too.  They are totally serious and heavy.  For me, New Order, The Cure, The Church, The Smiths, Cocteau Twins, Kissing The Pink, Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, etc… There was so much good stuff then.

Christopher:  I listened to New Order, The Cure, Cocteau Twins, Depeche Mode, Echo and the Bunnymen to name a short list.

What about your most fave movie soundtracks or film scores?  I like the Run, Lola, Run and A Single Man soundtracks, and Ryuichi Sakamoto’s work on Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights.

Eric:  I am partial to the works of Bernard Herrmann, Jerry Goldsmith, and John Williams.  Those are 3 of the dozens of guys I could discuss.  But mostly, it’s the 40′s through 60′s for me.

Christopher:  I love the Lalo Schifrin’s Dirty Harry soundtracks. Queen’s Flash Gordon soundtrack first piqued my interest in soundtracks.

Who is at the helm of the ‘Ship’, so to speak?  Did you both have an equal say in the final recording or did you have to play ‘rock, paper, scissors’?  LOL

Eric:  Well, I am the listed producer but I run everything I do by Christopher for his approval.  I think I generally blow his mind but there were things here and there that he had me do again, or try differently.  But no, it’s not a dictatorship.  Christopher starts all the songs so I always feel like he gets a good say throughout the rest of the process.  He is most helpful at the mixing stage – a good second set of ears.

Eric, what travails did that entail, being the producer of Museum Quality Capture?

Eric:  None really.  I have been producing records for 17 years and Christopher is easy to work with.  Overseeing the coordination of the London sessions was a little stressful, working with a remote producer and engineer from that studio – sorting out the file types between my studio and his.  And then Paypal was giving us a hassle when trying to pay him…  but no, it was good.

How did you hook up with S-Curve Records?  The label has quite an eclectic and interesting artist roster, going from Tinted Windows to Tom Jones.

Eric:  My long-time friend and some-time manager Jason Reynolds (an old-days Sub Pop staffer) knows the guys who run S-Curve.  A few months ago word got out that they needed to sign a couple bands and get out quickly new albums in order to fulfill some missing quota regards to their contract with EMI.  Well, Jason asked me if I had any records “laying around” that were finished.  He knows I have a few projects and produce other good unsigned acts.  Well, MQC seemed like a good pitch and hey, it worked.  The guys at S-Curve love the record and they had known my work for a long time.  I work with Andy Chase a lot, and with Adam Schlesinger from Tinted Windows when I worked with Ivy.  Steve from S-Curve was instrumental in that first Ivy record.  And James Iha – I worked with him on a couple of those Brookville records so I was a pretty natural fit to work with that label – lots of joining connections.

I’m curious about the meaning of the album title.  It’s all a bit mysterious, seeming to be hefty in meaning, but light on the tongue and calls to mind capturing wildlife to display in a museum.  Am I totally off the mark with that interpretation?

Eric:  Yes, off the mark a tad.  It’s about each of these musical works being like a snapshot or painting of various times and places, or representing a live artifact that has been captured (recorded) in just such a way that they depict very accurately a scene suitable for display in an art gallery.

The album artwork is a stunner – very cinematic, very dramatic – with the close-up of a young woman’s face with her mascara starting to streak down her cheeks.  From where did this image surface?  Who is the model?

Eric:  Thanks.  The model is a young woman named Victoria Noll.  She is a talented artist (music, drawing, painting, photography, etc).   I know her from Facebook and for a time we were talking about me producing her record but instead we are just casual friends.  I really like her photography and when this record came up, and we needed a finished art package done quickly I got the concept of just having her hand over some photos I liked.  With Christopher and his friend Michael Galbincea my little fast concept turned out really well.

Hello Miki!  First off, I just want to say that I’ve been a fan of yours since the early days of Lush and even interviewed you by letter in 1994 (my best music-related moment so far!).

Miki:  Thanks!

After Lush disbanded in 1996 you had sporadic forays in the music field, with supporting vocals on a track by The Rentals and beguiling guest vocals on the song “Smile” by Flat7.  What made you agree to work with Chris and Eric as Seinking Ships?

Miki:  Eric just got in touch with me (I think he got my email off Simon Raymonde from Bella Union – ex-Cocteau Twins – or am I just imagining that?!) and asked me if I would sing some vocals. And I said pretty much yes so long as he wasn’t in any great rush or had any huge expectations because family and work take up about 90% of my time and singing has largely been replaced with cigarettes. Oh, he also lured me with the promise of cash.

What did you make of the long-distance collaborative process?  Was it something that you could fit easily into your 9-to-5 schedule or did you have to make time to lay down your vocals?

Miki:  Nothing at all fits easily into my 9-5 schedule, least of all trekking up to Walthamstow to a dank studio and spending 12 hours  trying to reach notes I struggled to scale 20 years ago. I think I had a cold, too, so I was probably on the Benylin.

What did Christopher and Eric send you to go on for creating your vocals?  Did they send you the lyrics and completed song compositions or was it more piecemeal?  Did you come up with any of the lyrics or melodies yourself?

Miki:  Short of turning up at the studio and manually squeezing my voicebox, they pretty much did everything they could to shield me from any effort, so song, lyrics, melody everything was on tape for me to listen to and learn. They also went into overdrive tackling my natural self-loathing and complete lack of faith in anything I do. Which was nice of them.

Do you plan on getting involved in other music projects in the future?  If a musician/band were to contact you now to contribute to their album, would you consider it?

Miki:  No plans. Maybe if I was asked but it depends who and how drunk I am at the time.

I just have to ask, what is the latest info on Lush album reissues?  Is there something definite in the works?  Would it be through 4AD?

Miki:  God alone knows. They took us to dinner about 2 years ago to discuss it but I’ve not heard anything since. Emma’s probably the one to ask… She’s a lot more organized about that stuff than me.

Have you seen the photos of Rihanna’s new hair color?  It looks vaguely familiar…LOL  Do you still dye your hair pillar box red or have you gotten away from that?  I’ve never had the nerve to go all-out and dye my hair like that.

Miki:  I grew it out sometime around when my son was born. The concept of my face looking older than my hair suddenly became an issue. For some reason, I kept thinking of that dwarf at the end of Don’t Look Now.

Lastly, what is the best way to purchase your album and find out more info about Seinking Ships?

Christopher: Visit our website http://seinkingships.com/Live2/ and http://www.myspace.com/seinkingships to find out more info.

Air Conditioning School album out now

Air Conditioning School Prep New Album, Video
“Wake Me Up” Video Link: http://www.so-tm.com/acsvideo/WAKEmeUP_ACS.m4v
“Up On”:  www.bantermm.com/tracks/ACS-UpOn.mp3

Minneapolis’ Air Conditioning School is the latest project from So TM records, the home of Total Babe and UltraChorus.  Air Conditioning School is a solo project of Chris Heidman (Sukpatch), whose releases on Sub Pop,  Grand Royal and Moshi Moshi garnered much critical praise.  He now brings you his full length debut titled General Mountain Time out August 3rd.

Air Conditioning School gives us the first view of Heidman’s song writing without the compromise of collaboration.  The result is full of serenely relaxed melodies, acoustic guitars and keyboards, mixed with hints of Heidman’s past as an indie-electro pioneer, showing his influences from everything to early Sebadoh to stereolab to VU.  The song-writing is simple, sincere storytelling that falls somewhere between Yo La Tengo,  Beck’s “Sea Change”,  Silver Jews,  and old Palace Brothers.  General Mountain Time is a production masterpiece, one not seen in Heidman’s previous repitoire.

Air Conditioning School on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/airconditioningschool

Balkans releases 3-song 7″

Balkans deliver raw energy on the 3-song Georganne 7“
Click to download “Georganne” (free mp3)

Hailing from the suburbs of Atlanta Georgia, the Balkans are lifelong friends with roots starting in elementary school. When the boys came of age and discovered the city, the four fresh-faced teens won the hearts of Atlanta performing with a combination of youthful-frantic energy and musical precision in clubs that they otherwise would have been too young for. Quickly becoming a sensation, they released several 7″ singles through local labels. The singles showed off a palette of influences. The first features an instrumental punk jam with a B-side that swan dives into a dreary, atmospheric round of shoe-gazer fog. The next release showed the group drifting toward a fiery, precise rock terrain with developing elements of surf rock charging into obtuse, art-driven angles that transcend the kerrrang of ’60s surf. These releases won a variety of critical acclaim one of which was rated the Top Atlanta Release of 2009 alongside a critic vote of Best New Music act for the same year.

As the Balkans matured, their own distinctive sound developed; fast precise guitar with a tight reserved rhythm and immediate vocals that cut through the noise. A pop/punk grind that waivers between bouts of sincerity and catharsis. Now a year out of high school the Balkans have begun to tour nationally and have begun on their long awaited debut LP.

Balkans Myspace

Burnt Ones – Black Teeth And Golden Tongues

Exactly what images and imagined or remembered sounds do the words ‘Dream Pop’ conjure up? Ear blistering fuzztone guitar riffs, echoing doo-wop inspired three part harmony choruses, crashing and swaying drum rhythms, flashing stage lights, big shiny guitars and stage sets, and walking out of a gig half deaf and/or blinded. That’s what pop music was all about in the mist shrouded and distant world Burnt Ones choose to celebrate, the pre-punk Glam Rock of the early 70s, specifically its Brit manifestations, names which are today perhaps known only to musicologists and cultural historians – Slade, The Sweet, Chicory Tip, Wizzard, the Bay City Rollers and top of Burnt One’s list, T-Rex.

Let’s put something quite firmly into its context. Burnt Ones make no attempt to disguise their admiration for the glitzy chart sounds of the first half of the British 1970s, and their reconstruction of the stomping beats and kaleidoscopic imagery of a world where the distortion pedal was the ultimate expression of guitar technology is combined with a style that hasn’t ever quite lost its edge. After all, you’d need to be approaching 50 to remember Burnt One’s influences first time round, and it’s doubtful that any of the trio’s members are over half that age, so the San Franciscan trio can just about reclaim the glam world for themselves entirely.

And starting with album opener “Bury Me In Smoke” it’s apparent that here is a noise that will capture your attentions regardless of whether you actually like how it sounds. It’s a very big crunching guitar noise intermingled with a vast array of rock n roll clichés, hammering out of the speakers with all the blank eyed arrogance of the JAMC in their prime, let alone Marc Bolan and Bowie. Not since Black Lips have I heard a band attack its material with such barely controlled venom as Burnt Ones bring to their (approaching 50 minutes long) debut album, and it would be possible to summarise Black Teeth and Golden Tongues as Black Lips’ 200 Million Thousand with a better haircut, but that wouldn’t quite go far enough. Where the Atlanta quartet are introspective and subversive, Burnt Ones are a full-blown pop group, indebted to the doo-wop obscurities of the early 60s and the platform soled starchildren of the early 70s.

Every track on Black Teeth and Golden Tongues is a monstrous evocation of a musical past none of the band are actually able to remember : ‘Soft City’ is a relentless scream of neurosis : ‘Burnt To Lose’ is a warped space ballad: “Kaliedoscope Eyes” is the Ramones falling down a lift shaft : and probable album highlight “Gonna Listen To T REX All Night Long” is an evocative hymn dedicated to the Glampop worlds most notable 70s casualty, and takes the ‘Metal Guru’ riff to heights Bolan himself definitely dreamt of, if never actually achieved in his lifetime.

You might not actually like this album. But a bit like T Rex themselves, this is music you will almost certainly remember, perhaps in spite of yourself.

Roaring Colonel

Danny and The Parkins Sisters – s/t

It’s usually a good sign when someone goes into the vault and re-releases lost recordings from an artist. It’s usually a sign of the artist’s importance, or maybe a measure of the impact that the artist had on the individual responsible for the re-pressing. In the case of Danny and The Parkins Sisters, the artist is a no-wave, near-unknown, early-80s San Francisco act. More than 25 years on, it’s hard to fully understand the context in which this music was made, but you can hear the confrontation embodied in the lyrics and the absurd music.

Let’s get one thing straight: there’s really no melody to be found here. It’s no-wave, so that’s expected, but this is no-wave on 11. It’s almost performance art, or spoken-word social commentary with some banging and scraping. This must have been out of place even for its time, and that’s probably why (1) the band was doomed to remain unknown and (2) why the folks who liked it must’ve REALLY liked it. The band’s name may have been a shibboleth for the initiated, a way to be part of a scene that clearly took its art seriously by making it radical. Put simply: it’s kinda hard to listen to it, and that’s the point.

Whether you can relate to this snapshot of what it was like to be politically subversive and culturally marginalized in 1982 might depend on how you like your art and politics today. The protest songs “War (Is On Your Doorstep)” and “Real Good Bomb” crystallize the type of Reagan-era Cold War paranoia that informed so many other left-leaning musicians of that time. In the hands of Danny and The Parkins Sisters, you get a musically minimal, rudimentary expression of the sentiment whose gravity is carried in the vocal delivery nearly entirely.

A few of the other songs, like “Pay For Love,” “This World Is Bleak,” “Meat Market,” and “We’re So Popular,” hit on other areas of social comment, some of which is still germane. Taken as a whole, this collection of the band’s output makes for some difficult listening, and that’s probably why it’s relevant as a cultural product. As an artifact, at least, it has value, even if it’s art-damaged art-for-art’s-sake music. Just don’t expect to actually enjoy it.

For Today – “Devastator”

For Today are among many in the long line of Christian metal/hardcore bands on Facedown Records. Some have believed hardcore finds its place on the outskirts of Christianity, but that no longer remains true. For Today originates from Sioux City, Iowa. “Devastator” comes from their third album Breaker out on August 31st. Vocalist Mattie Montgomery’s delivery is just as intense as you’d expect. Nothing holds back this five piece in conveying their message, or their technical abilities as musicians. “We will storm the gates of Hell and tear it to the ground” the latter is sung in classic 80′s hardcore sing-along fashion and whether we believe or not it’ll force you to sit up and pay your respects. No direct influence is relevant in For Today’s sound: usually one can distinguish such a thing (i.e. Pathology is directly influenced by Deeds Of Flesh). This one thing sets them apart from your everyday, run of the mill hardcore/metal band. Signature breakdowns that are a staple in For Today’s music are plentiful in “Devastator”. If this track in any way represents the overall fury and devastation of Breaker, it will surely place this group at the the top of the genre.

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