Pull of You

Have you ever heard music that completely stumps you? Music that for some unknown reason is just not structured like other music; it does not fit the mold even though it uses the same palette of sounds that everyone else uses. Records like Philip Glass' "Einstein on the Beach", Aphex Twin's "On (D-Scape Mix)", Kit Clayton's "Repetition and Nonsense" all made profound advances for their respective genres. I believe this record will have the same effect.

Ricardo Villalobos, who has been well-known for his work within the minimal techno and microhouse genres for years, offers to the world, "Fizheuer Zieheuer," an album that goes completely over the top with a dub infused Latin house micro percussion synthesizer soundtrack that hints at minimal techno, but reaches well beyond that. There is not a catchy bassline, vocal, or any distinct sound that carries the track. It is literally the absence of the hook that makes this track so effective. It references Latin America, Eastern European, and Spaghetti Western music, but is subtle in it's excecution. This release in it's entirety is over 60 minutes long, and with it Villalobos proves his mastery of dance music. This is the 12" version.

Ricardo Villalobos "Fizheuer Zieheuer [part 1]"

Buy it from PLAYHOUSE

---Mr. Mark

Aimee's Mix

It is too easy to fall victim to your own record collection. Here are two tunes to get you out of your slump.

Kelley Stoltz "Ever thought of coming back" (Popkoff's choice)
Cornelius "Beep it" (Mr. Mark's choice)

---Open House

I Let Myself Fall In Love With You

I spent most of last Friday night at Emo’s with my hip pressed up against a giant speaker and a amused look on my face. I would occasionally remove my hands from my pockets to quietly snap a few photos, but for the most part I only removed them to applaud the genuine quirkiness of Rosie Thomas. Formerly of the Dreampop outfit Velour 100 (side project of His Name Is Alive), Thomas split the band and released her first solo album, “When We Were Small,” on Sub Pop in 2002. My first encounter with her came in March of 2001 when I paid $20 at the door to go to Sub Pop night at Emo’s during South by Southwest, which featured such diverse bands as the Go, Nebula, and the band I originally paid to see, Red House Painters.

When I walked through the doors that night I had no idea who Rosie Thomas was, but the concert experience that followed would stay stored away in my brain for long after. As anyone who knows me well enough will tell you, there is a part of me that really enjoys a good musical train wreck (that’s why I like to go see Mark Eitzel), and her performance was that and more. Sandwiched between 2 rock band, including the rude ‘n crude Black Halos, Thomas sat down in a chair with her acoustic guitar in hand and a pair of oversized black thick-rimmed glasses sliding off her nose. When she spoke her voice was meek, high-pitched, and child-like, but when she removed her glasses to sing it would morph into the soothingly strong, rich voice of an angel. At the end of every song she would punctuate it with quickly-spoken “thank you very much” reminiscent of Latka Gravas, she would then put her glasses back on and resume a nervous chit-chat with the restless audience. The real derailment occurred when Vancouver’s lame glam-punk-revivalist, the Black Halos (a band on the same label as Thomas mind you), began heckling her, she in turn took jabs at their punk rock credibility. All in all it was uncomfortable, beautiful, and slightly confrontational.

Friday night was a different story altogether, Rosie took the stage after local indie darlings, the Lovely Sparrows (celebrating the release of their new album), performed a well-received, but utterly unremarkable set, complete with the requisite, cookie-cutter cover of one of their contemporaries, in this case, the Magnetic Field’s “All My Little Words.” This time around she had her brother, Alex Thomas (on piano), and the crowd on her side. She played a confident set filled with gorgeous songs and hilarious discussions sprinkled in between them covering a wide range of topics including tabloid obsessions, knock-knock jokes, and Halloween costume suggestions (Steve “the Gutte” Guttenberg or The Fog!?!). The strength of her performance was striking and still surprising after all these years. When her set was over I checked out her merchandise stand where she sold among other things, self-designed hand-made purses and rather neat custom denim bracelets. Bottom line, I would marry Rosie Thomas.


The headlining act was the critically acclaimed (rightfully so) atmospheric country of Damien Jurado, a performer with a quiet simple demeanor similar to that of Karl from Sling Blade (minus the retardation and murderous tendencies obviously). This was the third time that I have seen Mr. Jurado, and it never ceases to amaze me how gentle and unassuming his persona appears to be, it’s as if he just finished riding a tractor for 3 hours, and now he wants to play me some songs. He seemed to play mostly stuff from 2003's “Where Shall You Take Me?” (including the beautiful “Abilene”) and the brand new “And Now That I’m Your Shadow,” out on Secretly Canadian. Towards the end he slipped in “December” from 2000's heartbreaking “Ghost of David” and closed with fan-favorite “Ohio.”

Rosie Thomas:
Farewell (from When We Were Small)
Let Myself Fall (from Only With Laughter Can You Win)
Sell All My Things (from Only With Laughter Can You Win)

Damien Jurado w/ Rosie Thomas:
Parking Lot (from Ghost of David)

Damien Jurado:
Medication (from Ghost of David)
December (from Ghost of David)
Ohio (from Rehearsals For Departure)

and just to prove that I don’t hate covers, here’s a Damien Jurado cover:
Ohio - CocoRosie

--Popkoff

It really is a cycle.

What can be said about music today that has not been said before? What is the importance of this genre or the next one to be unearthed? For me the value of a music review is the context in which the reviewer can relate to the music.
My tastes in music have almost all been derivative of disco and post punk.
Hearing reggae/lovers rock/ska for the first time, I was too young to appreciate the genres’ beauty. Almost 2 decades later the beauty reveals itself in a most curious way. I will spare you the onion/butterfly analogy and just say that by rediscovering and listening to songs from my childhood, I have found a wealth of music not new per se, but the appreciation and understanding is new.
How did I arrive back at the beginning again?
In the late eighties, I was knee deep in electro, synthesizer pop and pre-industrial music. A few years later that fandom was completely hypnotized by early Acid House and English/Belgian Techno records. The insistent and perfect rhythms providing a solid backbone to the warm bouncing bass lines.
At around the same time rock was very interesting to me as well; The Jesus and Mary Chain release "Automatic", a year later Sonic Youth stand up perfect with "Goo", and yet another year later My Bloody Valentine dumbfound the entire rock community with "Loveless". These three records would have a profound effect on my taste for the next few years.
Across the pond, what was being called Hardcore [which was a precursor to drum’n’bass and breakbeat] was sampling Northern Soul and American R&B to reconstruct techno into a new abstract shape that was quite refreshing to my ears. The beats were tough and at insane speeds, the bass was deep and bubbly. The vocals all sounded like helium was present in the studio when the engineer pressed record.
Then it happens, Joey Beltram’s "Mentasm", Acen’s "Close Your Eyes", and Human Resource’s "Dominator" all have the same hoover type synthesizer sound that forever changes how I will choose my records. The sounds fuels countless imitators and births that famous sound that will grow into drum’n’bass' trade mark.
Drum’n’bass [d’n’b] emerges and it is unlike anything before it. The genre is built around reggae, techno, hip hop, jazz, and the limitless possibilities of sampling. I become reacquainted with reggae around this time period. The vocals on most of the d’n’b tracks from around this time period 1993-1996 all feature Jamaican Patois and toasting atop the elastic rhythms and throbbing basslines. The music will change but this brief time period in the genre proves to be influential on my musical palette.
In other areas of my musical growth I discover, around this same time frame, the wonder of the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds", The Velvet Underground, and of course, the Beatles' "Rubber Soul". I begin to think that maybe there is something to looking back to the past for understanding sounds from today.
Immersed in nightlife, the music being played at various clubs I frequent during peak hours is cold and synthetic and exciting to hear. I notice however a sharp contrast to the music being played at the end of the night. After parties around this period take on a "low key" guise and the DJ’s all spin the same music to come down to: hip hop, IDM, soul, and roots reggae. Artists like Desmond Dekker, Gregory Isaacs, Horace Andy, and Dawn Penn all become instant favorites.
I start perusing record stores for more sounds like the artists being played and come across an amazing label Blood and Fire. I hear something in their catalog that I cannot place my finger on. It turns out to be Dub. King Tubby, Jah Stitch, the Congos, and Scientist all offer worlds filled with countless reverb, delay and endless echo chambers. The sounds took me back to my childhood. Hearing it imitated on the Grace Jones records played on my mom’s stereo. It all clicked.
Those sounds my mom played in her workshop, in her car, the records my older sister played on her turntable all just fell into place. I had not discovered anything new, but actully became reacquainted with the past.
The cyclic in my musical journey makes this post possible.

For your listening pleasure:

Paulette Williams - My Island
Judy Mowatt - She Kept Talking
Marcia Griffiths - Don’t Let Me Down
Lloyd Parks - Little Better
Jennifer Lara - Ain’t No Love
The Soulettes - Bring It up

---Mr. Mark

Honing the Drones

This morning I awoke to the sound of rain outside my window. Since it was going to be a dreary afternoon I decided to rev up Pacific UV’s self-titled debut for my lunchtime car ride. There are some places where Dreampop, Slowcore, & Space-rock cross paths (I guess in this case, it’s Athens, GA), but rarely do the bands birthed from these intersections produce such satisfying and encompassing albums as Pacific UV. Their record was released in 2003 on Warm Records (a dreamy electronic label also based out of Athens), and it is a gorgeous collection of heavenly vocals, dense drones, & echoing jangles.

The (slide?) guitar wooziness of "Out in the Blue" recalls everything from Pink Floyd’s "Great Big Gig in the Sky" to Big Star’s "Big Black Car" to all of Mojave 3's "Ask Me Tomorrow." On the flip-side of the coin, the surging opening guitars of "Blind" sound like Sigur Ros rewrote the theme to Top Gun in an surprisingly good way, and when the unavoidable "explosion" of rawk detonates at about the 6 minute mark, it is welcomed thick swirl of reverb.

Out in the Blue
Maryanne
Blind

Buy It!

-Popkoff

The Lolls Harm Indie Rock Image (in a Good Way)

Simplicity works, but then again so does advertising. In many ways it is a miracle that I have ever heard anything from Extra Small Records given their limited exposure throughout this virtual universe known as the internet. It is truly surprising to me that the San Francisco based label, which from what I’ve heard seems to excel at delivering familiar, yet uniquely simple and catchy pop music, has provided potential listeners with so little to grasp onto. After searching for an hour or so on the internet for any information about the label and specifically the Lolls, all I was able to come up with was a barely interactive homepage, a Myspace profile with 2 friends (one of them being Tom, the other a band that’s not even on their label), and two album reviews (one positive, one negative). That being said, it should come as no surprise that I did not hear about them from the internet, but rather from the real world. When local record store 33 Degrees closed down several years, they had a sale on everything, so as a result I bought a lot of interesting looking albums, sound unheard.


The Lolls debut album, Come On, was one of the CDs I took a chance on. The duo of Gail Conway & Jordan Rode won’t blow your mind with their instrumental expertise, nor will they win you over with their innovative ideas about song writing, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have some things going their way. To me, the obvious draw are the female vocals which are decidedly unpretty, and certainly not the kind you hear everyday. They have a little Kim Gordon apathy to them, but for the most part they have an individuality all their own. The music is very straight-forward low-fi garage, but it’s the vocals that really sell the songs. On a track like "Jesus," where the lyrics are not only cheesy ("Save the drama for your momma, Get your groove on,"etc), but, for lack of a better description, dumb, Conway’s over-exuberant vocals illustrate yet again that in music, it doesn’t matter so much what say as how you say it. The same can be said for a track like "I Don’t Care," that breaks zero ground in the originality of it hopeless lyrics, but is nonetheless effective in it’s delivery.

Jesus
Girlfriend
I Don’t Care

I swiped the title for this blog from the negative review of the Lolls album because I found it funny that the author actually thought that this modest duo could ever "harm indie rock’s image", whatever that means. Indie rock is more than some sort of minor league where potential major label talent gets an opportunity to "shine," or at least it should be. If anything, I think a band like the Lolls represent an essential aspect of what indie rock should be, a place for anyone. Not everybody can play guitar with the technical precision of Stevie Ray Vaughn, but his music bores the shit out of me, and sure Minor Threat’s songs sound like they could of been made by anyone, but to quote myself, "they weren’t, they were made by Ian fuckin’ MacKaye!" The bottom line is that you might not like the Lolls, but it won’t be because they sound like everything else in your collection.

Extra Small Record’s last release appears to have been in 2003, but there is still a mailing address and e-mail address here if you are interested in purchasing anything from them.

–Popkoff

Well at Least We’re Not a Cult

Last night I joined 19 other people (25 if you included the band) at Emo’s for what felt more like a private performance by widely acclaimed New York singer-songwriter Nina Nastasia, but what was in fact the tail end of her nationwide tour. The music was at times sparsely orchestrated with cling-clangy piano pieces and symbol scratches, but it always consisted of Nastasia’s delicate strumming. The set was so quiet that I took very few pictures because the digital camera I was using makes an annoying "snapshot" sound whenever you take a photo, and I didn’t want to disturb the band (on that note, the front door of Emo’s could probably use some WD-40). At any rate, the audience was attentive, in fact, they were more than attentive, they were uproarious, exploding with applause and uncharacteristic hoots and hollers at the end of every fading song. Perhaps it was over-compensation for the small turn out, or maybe just undying admiration, but the audience response was said to be the best of the entire tour.

She played a lot of stuff from "On Leaving," her new album from her new label, FatCat Records. The label is based out of London, and has kindly put up several songs from the new album you can listen to here. The album comes out today, and I encourage everyone to at least give it a listen if this sort of thing interests you.

She closed with a solo encore which featured a song I was not expecting to hear at all, an acoustic version of "The Matter (of Our Discussion)," an electronic track by the artist known as Boom Bip for which she provided vocals for last year. She closed with the requested "That’s All There Is."


When she hopped off stage to a chorus of applause, she walked passed my friends and I who were just smiling and clapping at her. As she walked by she reached out and touched my arm and said "Thank you." When I told my friend about it, he responded, "well, she’s a real woman." Exactly!

Stormy Weather (from "Dogs")
All Your Life (from "Dogs")
That’s All There Is (from "The Blackened Air")

Bonus Track:
The Matter (of Our Discussion) - Boom Bip (feat. Nina Nastasia)
(from Blue Eyed In The Red Room)

–Popkoff