THE ALBUM CLUB.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

I gave this so many chances. I'm really sorry but I can't tell you anything about it. There was piano, and some amount of drum, and it just never caught my ear for longer than a few seconds.

 

I remember an interview with John Maus, when he recounted his theory teacher telling him he was just a musical thrills junkie. I'm beginning to suspect I'm the same way.

[Chaos]

I enjoyed the first listen I had of it at work last week. I need to give it another spin to offer more in depth thoughts on it. It felt like an electronic take no Explosions in the Sky, or at least, the backing music that Jamie uses for The XX stuff. It washes over you and bleeds into whatever you're doing that day.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

#20

 

 

"Harmlessness" by The World Is A Beautiful Place And I Am No Longer Afraid To Die

[Chaos]

That's definitely a long band name. It also sounds like the title to an Explosions in the Sky song or album. Yes, I have made two posts unintentionally referencing thatband.

[Lawful Metal]

Not in the album club, but Harmlessness is simultaneously better and worse than whenever, if ever.

I really like the two "singles" in January 10th, 2014 and I can be afraid of anything, but the rest is kinda flat, kinda like the singer's voice.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

About half way through Harmlessness and like all I can think about is "if you like this, I'd recommend this and this and this" but I'm really not sure if that comes off as super condescending? Like, music is my favorite thing, and sharing music I've found is my second favorite thing, so I don't mean it as like "this isn't as good as all this shit i know about that you haven't heard of" which is how that usually gets interpreted. I genuinely want to help people find music because finding music is a magical thing, to me.

I will edit in my opinion on this record after I'm done. I'll say in advance I haven't heard anything else of theirs.

 

EDIT: With the understanding that my emo phase consisted of two-to-three albums (The Ugly Organ, Full Collapse, maybe Pinback if you want to count that as emo) I thought this was fine and pretty much what I knew the genre had become. I get the idea between the expressionistic sways of sudden structural shifts, but it doesn't keep the abruptness from feeling unelaborated on. Songs change because it's time for songs to change on this record. Not my favorite thing. (this theme of steady elaboration is a centerpiece to my pick this cycle, so I'll have a bunch to say about that then) I find letting the listener follow your idea instead of telling them there's a new idea is a smoother experience, although it does require really sharp perception of how your songs fit together. It's hard. I don't begrudge the choice.

 

Solid C+. I really liked Rage Against..., Mental Health and We Need More Skulls. There was nothing on here I was actively put off by, just choices I felt detracted from the pieces themselves.

[JRGoldman]

So full disclosure: I picked this album to nominate and subsequently talk about without having heard it at all. It came out about a week prior to my turn, and someone whose opinion is usually not offensive was complimentary of the album. I went in to this as blind as everyone else, I guess. I'm gonna share my sort of stream of conscious thoughts that I wrote down when I put this on for the first time.

 

The opening track has a very Angels of Light feel, almost, which I dig. I think it's a bit more intentionally precocious, which is fine I guess, but it sort of feels like by putting up that veil the band is shielding themselves from going to those dark places that M. Gira can find and live in. Sort of an odd choice for a band that deals in "emo", although a not too uncommon one, sadly.

 

It's funny what Broken Lamp wrote, because my first note was "I'd love this album if I didn't listen to so much music". I think if I heard this album in high school or whatever, it would be like what listening to radiohead must be like for people who have never heard Can, where you can't even fathom that there are influences.

 

I like the overt theatricality of January 10, 2014. I think they do it well enough where it doesn't come across as inane or precious. It reminded me of Fucked Up's David Comes to Life, which I think really set the bar for that sort of reaching in "punk" or whatever label you want to throw on that and this.

 

Speaking of punk, I think the record is overall stronger when they try and speed up a little bit and play more aggressively. I think the slower balladesque stuff is fine, and probably makes them memorable in a way they wouldn't be if they just wrote really competent pop punk songs, but those songs have a spine the others lack. I don't want to say they are more passionate because that would be silly of me, but I think I can say that there is a benefit in how much less thought out they are. Going back to the "I listen to too much music" thing, I think when the band tries to sound like Godspeed You! Black Emperor they inevitably compare unfavorably, but when they try to sound like the Riverboat Gamblers or someone they sound better because they have a better sense of musicality and dynamics.

 

Someone in this band really likes The Flaming Lips.

 

I think I'm kinder than BL, so I would give this record a solid B. I think it's interesting as an album, and there is nothing actively bad on it. Everything is interesting at least. It's just weird in that this band is quite good, but they (on this album at least) manage to fall short of those they clearly admire. Like, when I was talking to my friend about this record, he said "It's like Sunny Day Real Estate playing with Explosions in the Sky". That sounds awesome, and that comparison is apt because I can hear where he's coming from very clearly. It's just the album and the sound isn't quite as good as what that sound should be. There's no shame in that! That's a lofty thing to live up to, I guess I just wish that the creative effort that was used to find places to explore that maybe aren't so well worn.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

#21

 

 

"Perpetual Motion People" by Ezra Furman

[caley]

#20

 

 

"Harmlessness" by The World Is A Beautiful Place And I Am No Longer Afraid To Die

I actually ended up really enjoying this when I first head it about a month back (And I'm glad you recommended it, because I'd meant to score myself a copy and hadn't remembered to do it).  I went through a big emo (Or emocore...nu-emo...whatever) phase in the early part of the last decade (Lots of Get Up Kids, Thursday, Reggie and the Full Effect...basically anything on Vagrant Records and I was gonna listen to it) but my fave, fave, favourite band out of that period, aside from Jimmy Eat World, was The Anniversary.  Actually I should qualify that.  My favourite album from that period, and the one I go back to the most is 'Designing A Nervous Breakdown' by The Anniversary (I didn't really care for anything else they did for the short period that they were a band) and this album kinda reminds me of that with all the keyboards and the like.  I mean, it's not going to change my life or anything, but it was a pleasant listen and if I was 22 again, I'd probably be playing this all day while driving around in my shitty car.

 

Also, the Explosions in the Sky comment is just perfect.

 

What I'd really like to see for the Album Club is for someone to nominate the Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz album because I think that thing is completely fascinating in an insane, rambling, defiant, frustrating and engrossing way.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

Sorry for inattentiveness. I've been fighting stomach flu all week in waves and I haven't been able to have a thought longer than "uuugghh" since. We're gonna extend this album until at least tuesday.

 

also you are, like, free to join the album club and put that in. It's open the whole time, you'll just be put in the back of the line. Though I will say, I promised my bandmate I wouldn't listen to it until the next time they were over here, so we can turn it on loud and be sonic test pilots. So I might not listen to it the week it's suggested.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

Around the time I was writing my first record, I was hanging out with other musicians that I knew pretty heavily, just plotting on the idea that I might try to make a band to play some of this stuff. One of the musicians in my circle played for the kind of pop rock band that was aspiring to be Warped Tour regulars. Picking his brain was fascinating, because his writing style was about efficient construction for this audience he didn't actually relate to. So I'd ask him why, because I was busy writing this album about all sorts of things that had been haunting me and I didn't understand how his perspective was possible. He said to me that there's no purpose in writing like that until you have an audience, because once you have people you know are willing to show up, once the expansion is over, then you can experiment and that's what you get to do for your day job. I insisted there must be some kind of middle ground, and he invited me to go see for myself. His band never made it that far. He's a receptionist now, with a lot of really embarrassing music videos. 

 

And now I'm listening to this Ezra Furman record, which seems to prove us both right. Wikipedia indicates this is album #6 of Ezra's various works, but there's a truth inside the music that's still designed to be appealing immediately, as though knowing they're still on the climb. Musically, rote. Very digestible and western pop standard construction. Nothing has happened structurally that has struck me as interesting. Plus it does the melody words thing and that just sticks in my craw. However, Ezra's perspective and stories are what tie everything together as a work. Representation of gender-fluidity in music tends to appear in mega pop stars, and not quite towards figures that are working class or impoverished. You'll get a lot of divas posing in masculine appearance and affect, but the way that homelessness worms its way around Ezra's lyricism shows a reality to that existence that gets neglected far too easily.

 

So I'm split. I didn't like it, but, I respect it tremendously and I recognize that to the right person, this album is a power object that will push them through about three years of bullshit.

 

I will also say this, re: Pot Holes. I might give up body parts if I knew, 100%, it would stop the modern cutesy 20-50s thing. I have another friend who's trying to live off that part of the music industry, and I am exposed to like fifteen different variants of people going for the postmodern jukebox thing and I am at fucking capacity.

[S.K.o.S.]

Catch up day!

 

The World Is A Beautiful Place And I Am No Longer Afraid To Die - Tough to say anything about it other than it was pleasant, didn't hate it, didn't love it.  I think back to pre-Napster days when I almost always bought albums without hearing them in advance, sometimes didn't love them on first listen, and it was like "Well, I'm stuck with this cd, I might as well keep listening to it" and eventually grew to appreciate it.  And sometimes I think I don't like music quite as much now because I'm not giving it a chance, because it's so easy to go get something else if you don't like what you've got.  But I've listened to this probably ten times now, and still feel the same way.  Found there were a few cringeworthy lyrical moments that pushed it into an overall negative impression.

 

It's funny, on the first few listens, I'd have it on while doing other things, and then look over and be like "Wait, we're on track 5?  Haven't there only been 4 songs?"  and that seemed to keep happening.  I eventually figured out that it was because blank #11 wasn't registering as a song at all, and then Rage Against flows so smoothly into Ra Patera that I didn't realize they were two separate songs.

 

Standout tracks are definitely We Need More Skulls, and I guess Wendover, more because the vocal melody makes it stand out than because I actually like it.

[S.K.o.S.]

Perpetual Motion People - I liked it quite a bit.  Catchy songs, lots of energy and showmanship in the vocals, and good lyrics.  All the doo-wop stuff was fine with me too, not something I've ever run into in modern music as best I can recall, although I'd hope this was a one-album thing rather than something he does on absolutely all his work.

 

I took the theme of the album to be mental illness, though Body Was Made threw me for a bit of a loop as it certainly sounds like it's about homosexuality or something like that and doesn't really fit in with everything else.  Wish he'd done a little more with Can I Sleep In Your Brain.  Like there's just the concept, which is totally contained in the title, and the song doesn't go any deeper than that at all.

 

Favorite songs were Haunted Head (the oboe!) and Body Was Made.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

#22

 

 

"I Love You, Honeybear" by Father John Misty

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

The first time I heard Father John Misty, it was their performance of "Only Son of the Ladies' Man" on Letterman. The first reaction I had was some amount of laughter, and once that was over I thought "you know who seems like someone who'd really hate this? Robin Pecknold, of the Fleet Foxes." And seeing how Tillman left Fleet Foxes to start FJM, it seemed harder to understand until Fear Fun actually came out. I enjoyed that album a lot, despite thinking I would never be able to comfortably talk to or hang out with anyone in that band. Probably for the best. The self-conscious nature of his post-modern intellectual barbs made them effective when they were serious and laughable when they weren't. Fear Fun had a character, above all else.

 

So I listened to this album when it first came out, and went "Yup!" Yesterday was the first time I've listened to it since and I completely didn't remember how it went. In the wake of it, it feels like this is an album of diminishing returns. This is not at all to discount Tillman's skills as a songwriter (as you would expect from someone who was in Fleet Foxes, his sense of harmony is outstanding), or the incredible job that was done on the production of this album. It sounds amazing, start to finish. I just didn't pull anything memorable from the songs themselves. There's a lot of thought put into the chord progression, which I definitely appreciate, but the hooks just don't sink in like they did on Fear Fun.

 

A noteworthy exception: The Ideal Husband. A huge roaring subwoofer destroyer, and an embrace of rock music that Tillman seems entirely against for the remainder of both records and, seemingly, his whole career. This is the first song he has that feels like an open highway, and that is My Shit . It's sequencing in the record is also greatly curious and well done- bridging the blurry and unnerving "Strange Encounter" and the momentarily-touched-by-brilliance thesis statement "Bored In The USA" (using a laugh track for a transition is so incredible that it justifies the rest of the record by itself, that it's building to that moment). Tillman is a real talent, and even though I'm not a fan of this record it seems like an album that he had to make, and I absolutely respect that. I'll be curious about what he does next, but I don't think I could do another album too much like this.

 

and stop ending albums with ballads

[Chaos]

I think that was one of the reasons why I chose this record. I thought "Fear Fun" was one of that year's best records and tonally a shock to people who went into that album expecting something similar to Fleet Foxes. However, this album does very little, if anything, to stand out as a remarkable record. You can see the intelligence and the craft that goes into making this album, but it lacks a lasting impact; whereas, "Fear Fun" had the amazing back to back punch of "Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings" and "I'm Writing a Novel."

 

I will obviously do a more in depth write up probably in the next day or two on this.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

#23

 

 

"Xe" by Zs

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

a brief primer on Zs, because all articles about them are the most annoying thing

Zs has been many different bands. One version of that band made one of my favorite records that I've heard, "New Slaves." It was described politely on this board as something like "tinnitus as an aesthetic."

This is a VERY different Zs from that band. Only one member has carried over from those days. They are somewhere between jazz and noise rock, enlisting a whole host of pedals as manipulating factors for locking rhythms and growing melodic phrases. This record, it's also worth noting, was largely done in a single take with no overdubs (I believe The Future of Royalty was done separately). The three of them sat down and busted this record out, and then went on their way.

 

I also wanted to choose an album that felt eerie (tis the season) without being harsh noise. I had plenty of those kinds of options, but I get the sense if I started linking that stuff I would vacate the album club pretty quickly.

 

So! Enjoy weird structure jams!

 

EDIT: Oh, also, there's a version of the album out there with a reprise of The Future of Royalty after Xe, and I tried to figure out how I have that version but I cannot. Most versions just end with Xe.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

haha ok

 

#24

 

 

"Every Open Eye" by Chvrches

[Randy]

I was listening to the Zs CD today at work. For me, it was good for background music, so it worked in that environment. But it's not something I can envision myself putting on to listen to. It just wasn't for me.

The beginning of the album sounded like somebody was playing a video game and the speakers were busted on the TV.

[S.K.o.S.]

Catching up again.  Feels like I'm very out of my depth with these two albums, but anyway.

 

Father John Misty:

 

I have no prior experience with this band or with Fleet Foxes.  For me, the lyrics were the best part of this album, and sort of the worst too.  They're so soul-crushing and cynical.  (I don't take them as one single narrative btw.)  First track is like "I love you, la la la I'm not paying attention to all the horrible things in my life," fourth track is "Wow, I really hate this girl", eighth track is "I'm pretending to like you enough to marry you because I'm a terrible person, everyone hates me, and I'm out of other options," ninth track is "Everyone's life is awful".

 

Musically, I was getting a kind of... 1960s pop vibe from this?  Like, The Turtles or The Righteous Brothers or something.  Definitely on the first track, and it kept cropping up often enough throughout that it stuck with me.

 

I keep checking if these albums charted and seeing a lot of them peaked really high (this one apparently got to #17) and thinking "This is what mainstream is now? Really?"  Of course I know the Billboard charts are not exactly the cultural touchstone that they used to be, because people don't buy albums any more.

[S.K.o.S.]

Zs:

 

Knowing that this was done through improvisation means that you have to use a whole new set of standards.  It's like with movies where the dialogue is improvised, anything that comes off at all witty means that much more.  It just makes me want to know more about the details of how this was made, though.  (Now going back and reading other posts, BL kinda covered it with the mention of Future of Royalty being done separately.  I was hearing the fade-in on that and figuring it couldn't have been performed exactly that way.)

 

My big problem with this, and I know this is going to sound ignorant and potentially dismissive of an entire genre, but improvisation on brass instruments is just a losing proposition for me.  It's so shrill and discordant.  The couple of instances where the brass instruments started playing along with the strings were a real relief.

 

Favorite song is definitely Corps, as whatever is being plucked there at the beginning is a solid backbone for them to build on.  It switches up enough (not the notes being played, but the elements of the sound) that it doesn't get boring quickly, and they can pretty much do whatever on top of it without bothering me much.  Interesting how the first time that part drops out for a bit, somewhere around the 7 minute mark, it does seem like a real relief not to have to listen to it any more, and then when it comes back in I'm thinking "Oh good, I was getting a little lost there."

 

Also wanted to mention that there are a couple of relatively brief moments on the title track, where, to me, it sounded like all the players were kind of looking at each other going "Someone needs to break this groove, who's going to be the one to do it?"

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

I'm gonna listen to Chvrches on monday, but I guess I have like two things I want to say about that Zs record

 

First, favorite track by a fucking mile is Weakling. That is my shit- enormous chords moving through air like awesome, imposing zeppelins. When I'm playing for fun that's the kind of mess I get up to*. Corps is second place for me, because that saxophone phrase has been stuck in my head just about all year. It's an ingenious use of a pitch shifter, to use the expression pedal as the melody while you provide your own harmony. Zs is a band for music dorks, pretty much. Also if you didn't dig on this record, you have Double No Reason to go back to the rest of their catalog and see if it's up your alley. This is their most melodic, non-dissonant, accessible record.

 

The other thing I wanted to share is that maybe it might help enhance things to see them recreating this stuff, so, here's them playing very abridged versions of Corps and Xe on an internet improv show:

 

 

 

*that is one microphone and a very specific pedal board and patience
 

 

EDIT: Oh, I guess I should also clear up what I meant with the "one take" thing. I mean they composed it, practiced it, played shows with this stuff over and over, then went in and put most of the record down in a single go, not that this is them full jazz improvising. That is another part of the Zs high-wire act: a lot of this stuff is so precise it feels like looking at engine schematics. That New Slaves record has a track called Acres of Skin that... well, I'll leave it at "I think about it a lot."

 

fun fact: the guitarist with the clear guitar in that Acres of Skin video? He went on to join The Men- he's their producer on all records past Leave Home, and has played with the band since Open Your Heart, on bass for that one and New Moon, and now he's the lead guitarist.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

re: chvrches

 

thumper's rule

 

ballad ending

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

Alright! So that's the end of another go-round. We're gonna take a week off and then- because the next stretch expands into December and I made a promise- from now until sometime in february, there's no modern music request on your picks.

 

Got a Duke Ellington record you want to put up? Cool!

Know the only record of a 70s all female punk band people overlooked? Awesome!

Have the energy to try to sell people on Kool G Rap? Go for it!

Find the one good nu metal band? Give it a shot!

 

Albums are about to stop coming out in 2015 so it's all on the table. I mean, you can still put stuff from 2015 up if you want to (I'm toying with one just to get discussion out of it) but, again, all on the table.