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The Transmissions - Burning the Winner

2008-01-03T11:48:00.002-08:00

Los Angeles can be a cold and lonely place for any resident, artist and professional alike; however, using the "power in numbers" approach, people have taken to forming clubs, hangouts and collectives. The Central Second is a collective of bands out of Silver Lake and the surrounding pockets of LA, including RC favs The Happy Hollows and The Henry Clay People.

My biggest complaint with most "LA" music is that no one takes any chances; however, the common thread running through The Central Second collective is having the confidence to create unique music. Hearing The Transmissions full length, Burning the Winner, helped me realize this thread of fearlessness. Burning the Winner is full of slowly cooked songs, which rest on a foundation of discord and fragmented riffs. Every song on the album bypasses the 3 minute pop structure, allowing the listener to sink deeper into the world of the song. In that sense (the approach to listening) it feels closer to a noise record. The Transmissions show off their live energy in the second half of Burning the Winner, showcasing three songs not on the album proper. It proves to be a smart choice - one that will send a lot of people to their myspace page for some tour dates. "Head (live)" brings out the Washington DC, Fugazi sounds that are hinted at in the first half of the album. Hearing this grit and integrity, come out of a city famous for having neither characteristic, puts a smile on my face and makes my morning commute across town a little easier.

[www] The Transmissions - I'll Run It

Myspace | Official Site | Central Second Collective

White Rabbits - Fort Nightly

2008-01-03T11:48:00.001-08:00

The last five weeks of my life have involved wandering through European cities finding the external fortresses and treasures reflecting the internal conflicts and answers that I was seeking to better understand. It was no cliché renaissance dream of “finding oneself”, no much mocked after travelers lament, in actuality nothing more than a mere vacation from my self and that other anti-culture city life that my body left behind in the exotic basin of Los Angeles.

In my tourist trap dodging and backpack sidestepping one of my multiple musical companions was the fantastically appropriate album Fort Nightly by the New York rockers the White Rabbits. The excessive percussion and danceable, swing step beats made Fort Nightly a reasonable soundtrack for my city spectrum meandering and instantaneously turned White Rabbits into one of my new “go-to” bands of the moment. There is some type of dirt ridden, dive bar, middle finger conglomeration going on here that sounds so much more wholesome than it’s described. Maybe its because they have put the piano so far up in the mix that it actually sounds like the White Rabbits have slipped in through the back door of some decent establishment with their noise makers and guitars and enough confidence that they aren’t ever kicked out. Album opener “Kid On My Shoulder” has moments that could have found itself comfortably positioned anywhere in the first half of Jeff Buckley’s My Sweetheart the Drunk. But besides those fleeting moments Fort Nightly contains a sound that is recognizably their own. It’s just nice to have an album to care about again.

[mp3] White Rabbits – The Plot

St. Vincent - Marry Me

2008-01-03T11:47:00.001-08:00

Some of the best nursery rhymes and children’s stories intertwine seemingly playful situations with ominous undercurrents. St. Vincent thrives in the space between beauty and darkness. Marry Me is a collection of music box performances with the ability to leap out of their oak confines without a moments notice. You can almost hear the turning of the hand cranked gears as she deliveries the verse for “Now, Now.” It is the guitar that frees her from this restraint. During “Your Lips Are Red” muted guitar cuts are heard leading up to the attack, as if she’s holding back a wild animal before finally letting it free. It's what draws me to and also scares me about St. Vincent.

Come experience the beautiful nightmare dreamscape.

[mp3] St. Vincent - Now, Now

Myspace | More Mp3s | Emusic

Liars present Liars

2008-01-03T11:46:00.003-08:00

It’s some sort of heart attack. The new Liars album begins in a frantic chase of adrenaline, a one-way train through a Dali desert with the four corners of horizon rushing in on the chaotic, disconcerting action that lay at the canvas center. It is quite possibly the most straightforward entry into a Liars album that one could envision with enough texture and disturbia to get one’s usual knocks off. But this straightforwardness is only the beginning to an album that is peppered with Liars’ practiced efforts to write “real songs” as they had previously reported. Track two “Houseclouds” is a more fully formed pop effort with singalong type vocals and a jingle jangle of a synth line. This fun runs at a perpendicular junction to Liars’ previous concept gone underground Drum’s Not Dead to form a strange dichotomy of pop tradition and outside the borders, off canvas brush strokes of experimental rock.

Within these last two comparisons spans the spectrum of the Liars catalog and a diversity that is reminiscent of the clichéd out comparison to Radiohead. I would personally have steered clear of such pairing except for the striking similarity that comes across in the album closer, “Protection”. It might be my own imagination but I can envision Angus and Thom lodged up in that abandoned German sound space working out the chord and vocal lines with the pair trading one liners to complete the lyric. It might just be my own predilection but maybe I would just like to see Radiohead cover a Liars song. Maybe Thom would too.

[mp3] Liars – Protection

The Cave Singers - Invitation Songs

2008-01-03T11:46:00.001-08:00

I never made it on to the Pretty Girls Make Graves train. There were a few songs that made it through my ear canals but nothing stuck to the walls. It’s a usual plague in this blog-o-world of bands and songs that are all begging for your attention and in turn some artists deservedly get more iPod play than others.

Luckily the new songs from former Pretty Girls Make Graves bassist, Derek Fudesco, under the new band moniker The Cave Singers, came at the right moment to grab my attention. The appeal to the Cave Singers’ sound may quite possibly be due to the changing seasons as we slowly descend through the autumn months into the impending winter chill. The Cave Singers have this pleasant, sepia tinged timbre that has made for some perfect early morning riser tunes. Looks like I have myself a new wake up song.

10/23/07 - the Echo (w/ Black Mountain) (tix)

[mp3] The Cave Singers – Seeds Of Night

Gang Gang Dance - RAWWAR

2008-01-03T11:44:00.000-08:00

Maybe the sewers of Manhattan are frot with alligators, and Benny Profane* was right to hunt them. Anything seems possible in a city, so electric, it beckons artists from around the globe to come and create work void of social norms. I'm thinking of Excepter, Spike Lee, Animal Collective and of course the list goes on, but we'll finish on Gang Gang Dance. While not all these artists were born in New York, the draw that lead them to the city is the main fascination.

In 2005, I gave God's Money a good long listen. I did my best to soak in its alien qualities, and its fractured presentation; however, I was always left as a passive observer - admiring but absent. It's been a long two years, and music has shaped in a way that opens the doors for Gang Gang Dance (most apparent [in my life] the growth of Animal Collective). RAWWAR sounds more like an off beat, dance album than the occultic seance I recall from GGD's past effort. While this is a result of both GGD's melodic growth and my adjusted eardrums, it is also true that artists on the periphery always finds their way to the center, and it may just be Gang Gang Dance's day.

[mp3] Gang Gang Dance - Nicoman

from the Social Registry site:

[mp3] Gang Gang Dance - Nomad For Love (Cannibal)
[mp3] Gang Gang Dance - North Six 5/01/04

| Myspace Page | Social Registry | Emusic |

*protagonist in Thomas Pynchon's V

Broken Social Scene presents: Kevin Drew - Spirit If...

2007-12-18T16:29:00.001-08:00

It’s interesting how Kevin Drew, the mastermind/co-founder/baby genius behind the Broken Social Scene phenomena, is taking stock in the BSS Corporation by giving the brand name band a sponsorship role in the release of his new album. It’s a pretty straightforward marketing ploy on Drew’s part but it’s not an unjustifiable gesture. Spirit If… plays under the same umbrella as its parent company but without much of the bravado and side stepping through genre and songwriting identities that the previous BSS albums have done. But there in lies the paradox with this whole Spirit If… project where guest appearances come from many of those who frequent the amoeba like organism that is Broken Social Scene. Is it another BSS album that just got stamped with an ego trip of a title or is it truly a solo effort that the title somewhat suggests? Fortunately at the end of the day I’m not finding myself hitting my head against the curb as I try to make ends meet in the soundness of my little paradoxical observation. I’m just stoked there are some new kick ass tunes to make me feel something.

[mp3] Kevin Drew – Back Out On The...

Akron/Family - Love Is Simple

2007-12-18T16:26:00.000-08:00

My introduction to Akron/Family came from a fellow student as she shared the infectious haunts of “Raising the Sparks” through a single headphone speaker. The post lecture hall listening party hardly did justice to the song that she was eager to title as “song of the year”. But despite my less than appropriate listening environment, this situation proved a stepping stone for my conversion and imminent love affair with the tribal pop chorals of Akron/Family’s creative gems.

On their new release, Akron/Family is found shifting to the sounds of a slightly different tune as they proclaim their new mantra in the appropriately titled Love Is Simple. The album is filled with love songs that incorporate lyrics that some have found to be a tad on the sappy but can easily be translated as a reflection of a mere fun, nonchalant side of the band that seems to be coming out more than on previous recordings. The brilliant “Ed Is A Portal” follows suit in the Akron/Family canon of tribal pop chaos with an open house choral arrangement and kitchen sink percussion that ends in a summation that makes a pretty steady trajectory toward camp Elephant 6. Though Love Is Simple is fairly complex in its arrangements it is a lighthearted ride through the typically depressing genre of love song sing alongs that conclusively triumphs in it the albums overall intentions.

[mp3] Akron/Family - Ed Is A Portal
[mp3] Akron/Family - Phenomena