The Magnetic Fields - Distortion/Early show at Old Town School of Folk Music (14 Mar 08)

Though I'm a little late on the Distortion review (released in January) (I wasn't up and running yet!), we're gonna do a little double duty, so I can reference one against the other without breaking sidebar cardinal rules (and so I have some nice cover art to put up instead of the non-existing pictures I may or may not have shot last night). There is some Xiu Xiu going on tonight, so that'll be up next (probably another album/show review), and (my I am getting quite ahead of myself!) R.E.M.'s new one Accelerate hit the WWW sometime today while I was sleeping, so that'll (should) be enough to keep dear readership bristling on the edge of readership's seats in anticipation.

Now, we are talking some pop songs awash in distortion. Usually I have nothing to say about lyrics -- lyrics only make headlines if they are +++ or --- -- but Mr Merritt (+++) is at his usual brilliant (read: lewd) wordplay rhyming dictionary (Where might I purchase one? inquiring minds want to know) that is the charming counterpoint to the standard pop songs with pretty arrangements/instrumentation. 2Wit: brand-new battle ax wrath attack to some "California Girls", Haitian-voodoo-turned-bloodless-penetration of "Zombie Boy" (wait, boy penetration what?), I am not going to do this with every song (because every song does have its cleverness), but I'll just finish this list with Three-Way! in the aptly-titled "Three-Way". Unfortunately, we're still talking pop songs awash in distortion -- distortion follows that you've got to slow down to ride the fuzz-waves and also induces that everything-sounds-the-same quality -- so we're talking musically one-track pop songs in drag that, for the most part, drag. (Let me bring your attention to my extreme fortitude in that I did not follow-up with "What a drag."). Non-lyrical redeeming qualities: the surf rock-styled non-dragging fuzz of "Three-Way", a cappella opening of and album's best "Too Drunk to Drink".

Now, we are talking some pop songs not awash in distortion -- concert last night = instrumentation unadorned. Being the album-promoting tour, being the consistent tone-minded Mr Merritt that he is, first of six shows is treated to at least half of the new album and similarly slow-tempo-ed songs from across the catalog, including The 6ths~ The Gothic Archies~ and Merritt-soundtracked Eban and Charley (one each, no Future Bible Heroes in the mix). Shirley Simms, non-Magnetic Fielder and guest lead singer of like half the songs on Distortion, perches astool doing her time for vocal duties and sitting pretty for the rest while Claudia Gonson, Magnetic Fielder pianist and essentially all-time backing vocals, handles audience interplay with Stephin Merritt, yesweallknowwhoheis, remarking wryly (yielding sometimes genuine, sometimes awkward laughter) and shunning applause and John Woo & Sam Davol, guitarist cellist respectivist (okay, -ly), both look bored and occasionally bemused. Maybe they agree in my estimation of the show's dullness/slow-pacing. Everything sounds nice, and Old Town School of Folk Music is a nice venue filled with nice old people, and the entire show is just filled with nice pop songs implying poignancy, but if everything is poignant then nothing is poignant by contrast, so everything will just have to settle for nicely mediocre.

Apologies to The Magnetic Fields; review(s) is (are) self-contained; I still like you.

Animal Collective - Water Curses EP

Hurry hurry, I am in a hurry to write this one, so I still remember everything to write about The Magnetic Fields show that I saw tonight (no pictures, sorry; I really hate toting a camera around). I also have no official album art for this one; my hope is that in trolling the Info SuperHwy to take down leaked copies, A Tare, P Bear, D Kin, and/or G Ologist will stumble upon my humble illustration and use it for their album art. Since this is an EP, let's do something exciting and run through it track-by-track.

Water Curses: What an exciting title track! The voices are very soft, and the guitar strumming is a lovely percussive effect that's like whooshwhooshwhoosh whooshwhooshwhoosh, so there's this constant 1-2-3 1-2-3 going on that's very bubbly, and there're always nice sounds going on.

Street Flash: Too much vocals in this too-long song. The music has these fun sweeping and echoing parts going on, but it feels repetitive because either a) there is not enough going on or b) it is repetitive. Around the middle some light screaming happens and that is pretty good because it is less vocal-y and more getting-washed-out-in-the-sea-y. Then things go back to the way they were before and finishes fizzling out to end.

Cobwebs: Amid some jets overhead or missiles taking off or some sort of sound barrier-breaking whistling, the song starts off innocently enough. Once we've established that "we're not going underground" however, we achieve the acceptable part of repetition -- mantra chanting! Anyway, the song changes soon enough into Panda ocean hollaback girl choir hollabacking Preacher Avey preaching and some blipblipblips.

Seal Eyeing: More underwater ocean bubbling beneath some cautious piano chords, but again, nothing really happens until halfway through the song where maybe we surface onto this sunny tropical island and then the piano chords sorta drift off before waking up to drift off again like the head nodding struggle to stay awake while bathed in warmth that makes for a quaint ending to a blandish song.

Man Man - Rabbit Habits

So it's leek city over here in Party Town, Man Man today, and tomorrow (or whenever I get around to a comprehensive listen-and-write session) the new Animal Collective EP! Now this one's going to be a bit more involved...

Detective movie, in hot pursuit of those who would diddle children. GREEN SCREEN! It's like, jungle~ surfing~ space~ space jungle~ bare and buxom cannibal babes, bone in hair, spear in hand~ long and angled trenchcoated shadows cast leeringly over furtive backward glances~ with stairway tiptoeing zombie claw hands and all~ and those velvet jazz-vocal clubs with the glowing-blond starlet in the shimmering red-sequined dress and long white gloves slinking on stage, shapely back to the audience as the low rising smoke gives way to the song, one arm raises back, finger points before turning and -- it's a man?!

Yesyesohyes this is going to be the best movie ever.

Two extended (7min+) pieces at the end of the album cast the spiral staircase descent into space hell (less fire, more black void), and all along, the green screen was sitting on this revolving fireplace panel (haunted house, I meant to mention the carnival haunted house) thing and rotates to reveal the backside (another?!) of a well-dressed but not overstated -- overstated like Broadway or some Vegas show, no this is classic not classy (I'll have to insist on NO TOP HAT), so let's say this faded navy blue suit that's been sitting in moth balls for the better part of a decade, but this is the last show! this! is! the last! show! so it's been gently removed from its hanger~ carefully dusted off~ and donned for the last show! The final number! -- narrator plunking away at an old hollow upright (organ? please.), and he rises (so it's a player piano then) with a straight cane and the stage slides back and away, so it's just this blackbox stage thing and, he starts this dance slow with maybe just a few different steps and gliding turns, so the audience can clearly tell it's repeated to some sort of effect, and where the camera's circling around him, and every time it catches his side, another of him appears, so pretty soon you've got this long line of well-dressed clone (anything can happen in space) dancers with canes, and that's how the film ends -- swirling aerial zoom-out into dots (director commentary?) or maybe low scooping shuffles in front of a fixed camera like there goes the well-dressed line rhythmic exit stage left out into cold black space accompanied by the resolute thunk of stiff percussion and lonely plucked guitar incidental melodic squeaks audible as the fingers slide across the strings.

That's what the album's all about, and we are having a good time.
Are we watching the same movie?
But the real mystery is why kiddie diddlers?

Tapes 'n Tapes - Walk It Off

For tomorrow I promise the first real album leak review (Man Man's Rabbit Habits) (I guess I am making a habit -- figure of speech, not a pun -- of announcing the coming attractions), but I really have to just get this one out of the way. Really quickly then.

Walk It Off has a handful of cool songs, and by a handful of cool songs I mean that it sounds like they wrote two or three songs and recorded them over and over again to make the new album. This thing where the keys are driving the songs in sort of a middle ground with guitar flourishes is a pretty great idea, but I still have to deal with they guy's voice in the foreground, which is occasionally used to good effect but really just is grating and a not-so-good effect (it's probably the two or three songs thing). Man, the keys~ the fuzz~ the drive~ I feel it! -- catchy, almost interesting songs without detracting from the ever-important essence of music-to-listen (v. music-to-interpret) -- but they go and they go and then they're segueing into the next song, negating the music-to-listen aspect, C'MON GUYS YOU HAD SOMETHING GOING THERE, and as such, offering no closure, no resolution for their songs (this is not a theme in my writing, I swear). But hey, props to the cover art.

Your Heart Breaks - Love is a Long Dark Road (Love is All You Need)

In consideration of posterity, this review is first because Tapes 'n Tapes (second) is not a band of very much posture, esp in light of the fact that I was partially motivated to start a blog to complain to the anonymous aether about Walk It Off. Now I can start talking.

That Love Is A Long Dark Road (Love Is All You Need) (mouthful) falls short of 30 minutes is slightly worrisome -- ten songs yes, pop songs yes, YHB is making very good arguments for why-the-album-is-so-
short-while-still-qualifying-as-an-album (mouthful), but everything here sounds, sadly very sadly, unfinished. There's a lot of space in the songs, but I don't know what that means. From the few seconds of silence preceding the opening track, to the (mostly) spacey sound, to the drifting-off-into-space (less of a mouthful) endings and more space in between songs, I don't know what it means. It's not quite half an hour and there's a lot of space and this album doesn't sound completed. I like the songs on it ("Torrey Pines", "The Duffren Hotel"), but if I listen to it through once, I get detached; if I listen to it through and through on repeat, I get bored. This worries me.

The First Show

Well there was a time when you didn't mean so much...
NOW LET'S GET STARTED.
Tomorrow.